A Bakelite and Leather Backgammon Table by William Haines

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A Bakelite and Leather Backgammon Table by William Haines

About the Item

This Backgammon table is of a very rare form and fabrication made for the former Ziegfeld Girl and actress Jean Howard. Howard began her career with Ziegfeld and was subsequently signed to MGM where she appeared in several films in the 1930s and no doubt where she met Billy Haines who was contracted at MGM during the same period of time. in 1934 she married Hollywood talent agent Charles K. Feldman and became on of Hollywoods "It" hostesses. During the 1940s and 50s she captured much of Hollywoods social parties and gatherings many shot at her home on Coldwater Canyon in Beverly Hills. Two books of her photographs were published in 1989 and 1991. Howard studied photography at the Los Angeles Art Center. In 1999 The Los Angeles Times Magazine published a feature on Haines and his work and Howard was featured in her Coldwater Canyon living room where the table can be seen it the photo (image 6). Of design Howard had this to say: "If the design is good and you start with good stuff, age makes it better. It doesn't make people better, but it does stuff." She then sites the backgammon table that Haines made especially for her as her favorite piece. Quite a legacy! The table is brilliantly tiled in Bakelite squares the legs having the quality of sparkling jewelry. The use of the square tiles, each one having a beveled edge is that it emulates Haines signature use of biscuit tufting in upholstery. The inset playing board is covered in tooled and gold leafed leather and executed in classic Haines colors. There are bakelite chips in two colors as well as the dice and doubling cube. For a similar model in director George Cukor's interior (image 7) see Class Act page 104.

Creator:
William Billy Haines (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 29 in (73.66 cm)Width: 39 in (99.06 cm)Depth: 24 in (60.96 cm)
Style:
Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Bakelite,Leather,Polished
Place of Origin:
United States
Period:
1940-1949
Date of Manufacture:
1940s
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use.
Seller Location:
Palm Desert, CA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU797738213382

Shop All William Billy Haines

William Billy Haines

Plenty of prolific designers started off on slightly different tracks than those on which they ended up, but rarely did they begin their careers in a totally separate industry like William “Billy” Haines did. Before he gained a reputation as a furniture designer and decorator to Hollywood’s biggest and brightest, Haines was himself a star of the silver screen.

After leaving his native Virginia as a young man, Haines earned modeling and acting jobs in New York City and then won a Goldwyn Studios talent contest in the early 1920s. The next frontier was California, where he would go on to appear in more than 50 films. His acting career was halted abruptly in 1933, allegedly because he refused to leave his partner, British footballer Jimmy Shields, at the request of his representation at MGM Studios. Whether it was the fact that Haines was one half of Hollywood’s first openly gay marriage or that there were other factors at play, MGM cofounder Louis B. Mayer canceled his contract.

Luckily for Haines, he had nurtured a side career that kept him on Hollywood’s radar: He was a prominent antiques dealer on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. Haines dedicated himself full-time to both dealing and designing furniture as soon as his tenure as a leading man came to an end.

Haines collaborated with the era’s biggest names in architecture and created a desert living room for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco that featured walls made of California Joshua wood and a painting by Georgia O’ Keeffe. He paid close attention to lighting design, employed hand-painted wallpaper and favored featuring Chinese ceramics alongside Chippendale chairs and ottomans for entertaining. His most famous clients included Joan Crawford, Carole Lombard, Betsy Bloomingdale and more. Crawford played a significant role in kick-starting his career when she commissioned Haines to decorate her entire home in Brentwood.

Haines was such an esteemed tastemaker that he’s among those credited with having cemented Hollywood Regency as a reputable design style. (Its origins are owed to influential interior decorator Dorothy Draper.) While he gravitated toward the look of chinoiserie and English furniture, his signature was low-level seating and giltwood accents. Haines’s interior design style was so in vogue that Nancy Reagan became one of his biggest fans and eventually enlisted Ted Graber, Haines’s successor following his death in 1973, to decorate several private and public rooms in the White House.

Find a collection of vintage William Haines lounge chairs, lighting fixtures and other furniture on 1stDibs.