The Happy Years (1944-48)

by Cecil Beaton

  Greta, wearing a large grey Fedora, strides through the park. The afternoon sky is blue and pink with apricot clouds — even the hideous skyscraper-buildings become pink and verdigris. Today we laugh a lot. Greta tells me that she has very seldom laughed in life before. This great trump card in my hand gives me much confidence and pleasure. When she asks if she might have the sketch of me that Bérard made, I feel I have really won a place in her life.

  After each meeting we bid one another goodbye with a tremendous display of waving. Certain well-brought-up children are taught that it is considered ‘common’ to wave. Greta is generally averse to ‘drawing attention’, yet she enjoys this pantomime so much that, as we retreat from one another, we bring out our handkerchiefs and wave our arms until nothing can be seen except a small, white, confetti speck in the crowds.

  ‘One of the aspects of the loving conspiracy which unites two free beings consists in just the material breaking down of conventional repression. Through this return to nature they experience much the same kind of relief as does the Polar navigator when he wins through once again to the open sea.’ — René Guyon

  I picked up the telephone and asked for the Ritz Tower, then for her room. She answered. I asked: ‘Is that my beloved?’ She gasped a little, and with rather an embarrassed and happy laugh admitted: ‘Yes.’ I took the opportunity of asking her for the first time that very daring question: ‘Do you love me?’ To my astonishment she replied: ‘Yes.’ I was so surprised that I felt my ears could not be trusted for it was so unlike her to respond in this way. I then stretched my luck by repeating the question — and again she said: ‘Yes.’ And I went on repeating it until finally she laughed and said: ‘You shouldn’t ask direct questions.’

  This paragraph is from Benjamin Constant’s Adolphe, but it seems to be about me:

  Who can describe the charm of love? That conviction that we have found the being who was destined by nature to be ours, that sudden illumination of life, that new value attaching to the slightest circumstances, those swift hours, the details of which elude us in retrospect through their very sweetness, leaving in our mind only a long trail of happiness; that playful gaiety which occasionally mingles for no reason with our general feeling of tenderness; in our love’s presence such pleasure, in her absence such hope; such aloofness to all vulgar cares, such feeling of superiority towards all our surroundings and of certainty that, on the plane on which we are living, society can no longer touch us; and that mutual understanding which divines each thought and responds to each emotion — the charm of love! Those who have known the charm of love cannot describe it!

  I discovered that Greta’s memory is erratic: certain events — particularly those connected with California — evaporate from her mind: earlier ones remain in full detail. She embarked on long anecdotes about her youth. There was a man in Stockholm named Count Cat who was a great fly-by-night, rich and erratic. One night he was giving a rowdy supper party in a restaurant, and some wine was spilled on a sofa. The manager made him pay for the sofa, so when the party was over he and his friends removed the sofa with them. They were carrying it through the streets of Stockholm when they were arrested. ‘What are you doing with that sofa? Come to the police station for explanations.’ After some time the revellers were released. Again they started off through the open door with the sofa, and once more they were arrested. Still determined to take the sofa with them they continued on their way. I thought how surprising it would be for Count Cat, if he is alive, to know that his escapade was still remembered. But he had made a stir in Stockholm and such an impression on a young girl that, here in New York twenty years later, we were laughing about it.

  Greta also told, with great humour, of how on one of her return visits to Sweden she had gone for a walk with a woman friend on a frozen lake. Greta was wearing a short fur coat and carrying a walking stick. Suddenly they found themselves up to the neck in the lake. Her terrified companion implored her to keep calm while Greta first hoiked out her walking stick, pulled herself, and then her companion, to the icy surface. But now what to do? They were miles from home — would they not catch pneumonia? Should they go to a nearby house and call a doctor? No, there would be press stories: ‘Garbo Nearly Drowned’. ‘I couldn’t face that, so we decided to run. We ran all the way home, and when the woman’s husband came back he found me in bed with his wife drinking hot whisky, and he laughed so much!’

  She tells stories such as these in somewhat hesitant, halting phrases. At first I felt like prompting her but this, I realized, would be a mistake. It is often ‘touch and go’ whether she will break off altogether mid-sentence and decide not to impart further information. Sometimes when she describes some event in which she has participated she leaves out all the facts. ‘I was persuaded by somebody to go in a taxi to a cocktail party.’ No names given, no indication of the part of the city nor of the world the hosts lived in. But she described how she had chosen to sit at the far end of a room where she ruminated upon the inhumanity of being in the same precincts with other people, yet not greeting them. ‘It seemed so curious to arrive in a stranger’s house and sit on their chairs.’ I gleaned the fact that, at the cocktail party, Molnar, the playwright, had come into the room with a tragic expression on his baby face. Greta described him: ‘He has charm, is really quite shrewd, sharp and clever, but he is old. He is not well any more. He used to be so alive, and he liked smoking and drinking and women. But you lose interest when you do not participate any more. It drives him mad not being able to do anything, and he knows it’s finite.’

  One of the most engaging aspects of her histrionic gifts is the brilliant way in which she re-enacts some scene which has just struck her as being comic or poignant. She imitates a clown she has seen at the ice show whose sweet smile had particularly delighted her.

  Another day she rushes in with stars in her eyes and pure music in her voice to tell me about a huge chimpanzee in the Park Zoo. ‘It is the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen in my life! I must take you to see that huge animal. It’s so brutal — so colossal! It has two layers of bars to prevent it putting its great monkey-arms through and grabbing someone when it gets angry with the crowds. Today it was so sweet and delicate: I watched it untying the shoelace of the keeper’ (with furrowed brow and tight-lipped determination Greta does an imitation) ‘and it concentrated so hard. It was chewing something all the time’ (she chews) ‘and it was bent over this shoe’ (Greta likewise) ‘and with its great big nails tugged very expertly at the laces in the right direction, because it knew if it tugged the wrong way the knot would be made fast. Then, suddenly, in the midst of the undertaking, this giant ape stopped work and cast its eyes to heaven. It looked so desperate — so miserable — all the cares of the world were in its eyes!’ (hilarious imitation). ‘Then it shook its head’ (Greta shakes her curls) ‘and went back with frowning concentration to finish the rest of the job.’

  One evening we dined with a mutual friend, the shy and adorably sympathetic Mona Williams, who had been so quick to make me feel welcome when I first came to this country. Tonight’s outing was a great event for me as it was the first time that Greta and I had been invited anywhere together. Mona made everything very easy, and her other guests paid no more attention to Greta than to one another. Mona was now living in only a part of her home on Fifth Avenue, most of the vast rooms being under dust sheets. It was in one of these dismantled rooms that — among packing cases and covers, by the light of a street lamp outside the window, and to the beat of relayed music from Carousel — Greta and I danced for the first time. I was completely ecstatic — like any young man in love who takes his girl out to a night club. ‘If I Loved You’ is the tune that will always remind me of this evening, and it became for sometime what, in the movies, is called the ‘theme song’.

  When, at early dawn, we left Mona’s house, situated so high up-town as to be almost in Harlem, and embarked upon the long walk home, I was in such a state of elation that, in the almost deserted st
reets, I sang: ‘If I loved you, time and again I would try to say things I want you to know... If I loved you, words wouldn’t come in an easy way — round in circles I’d go...’ I improvised ballets and performed all sorts of acrobatic stunts. I leapt in the air and swung on the struts of awnings outside apartment houses and shops. Greta, shocked, surprised, and secretly delighted, would never have guessed that I possessed such prowess — and nor would I.

  Happily, at this time most of my theatrical work has eased off and I manage to crowd my photography and other business into the mornings in order that by lunchtime, or directly afterwards, I can make my way to Greta’s hotel. Beaming with anticipation I hurry through the streets, brooking no interruptions from chance acquaintances, until I arrive in the hall at the Ritz Tower, announce my arrival and stand watching the hand of the elevator indicator for the arrival on terra firma of the goddess from the skies. The hand of the indicator mounts to Floor Number Seventeen — her floor. Will it stop? Will she get into the carriage? No — it soars up and up. Then on its downward journey it stops at Number Eighteen — then Seventeen. Yes — the hand snows the approach of love. The expected arrival is at hand; close-to: at last face to face. She is undemonstrative, hurries through the hall, and we do not greet one another until, away from the stragglers and out past the revolving doors into the crowded street, we are alone.

  Sometimes, instead of a long walk, we go to a gymnasium to do exercises, or we look at a primitive painting by Bombois. (Why she likes this faux naif I can’t quite imagine.) Tentatively I try to make her visit the flamboyant clairvoyant, henna-headed Nella Webb, to hear if the future is as bright as we hope, but the appointment is cancelled at the last moment. But Greta does materialize at the dermatologist, Casnati, a raven witch who tends the pores of face and scalp. As we lie back, side by side, in a laboratory while mud-packs harden on our faces, we wonder if we will remain encased — unable to talk — like this for life. When the procedure is over Greta remarks: ‘Well, are we now married?’

  Spring, 1946

  Every time Greta appears in a new guise: she does not seem to be a woman wearing a change of clothes, but is rather always a different mythological figure. There is never enough time for gazing — for admiring the fall of light — on her always changing face. I am newly amazed at the delicacy of the carving of a nostril; suddenly I am aware of the perpendicular crevice — that appears at the memory of some unhappiness — between her brows.

  One brilliantly sunny afternoon we were striding along in jocular spirits when I noticed a phenomenon of lighting reflected from the pavement on Greta’s face. She was laughing broadly, showing dazzling teeth, and she continued to smile while her eyes looked surprised as I stood in my tracks, entranced, staring hard at her. She was wearing a large grey hat which cast her face in shadow, but which gave her complexion a sort of opalescent incandescence — like porcelain lit from within. The irises of the eyes became a violet-blue, and her expression was of utter happiness — the joyfulness that only children possess. Here was true ‘royalty of form’ — an alliance of the classical with a dazzling healthy litheness and a perfect honesty. The effect was of such immortal beauty that I shall remember with undimmed enjoyment this marvellous moment for all time. D. G. Rossetti wrote: ‘Beauty like hers is genius.’

  At last I am beginning to feel no anxiety in our friendship. It is wonderful to hear her making future plans in which I am to join her. ‘We must go and see Molnar together, go to Chinatown to buy pyjamas, and this time next year, God willing, we’ll go to Switzerland.’

  Her dislike of people discussing her activities and movements inspires Greta to make mysteries of quite unimportant ordinary occurrences. Sometimes she brings this to ludicrous lengths.

  For example, I happened to know, by chance, that Greta had an appointment this afternoon with Clare Booth Luce who wished to write a film scenario for her. So it was quite a little comedy when Greta arrived at my rooms and described her afternoon in detail without mentioning any names. She wiped her brow, slumped into an armchair, and exclaimed: ‘Phew! I’ve been three hours listening to a story! Why don’t people “cut it short”? They’re so lacking in sensibility! I got so tired! It was so hot! I longed for air. When at long, long last the end came, I was asked: “Did you like that story?” I answered: “Yes, it’s all right, but it isn’t written yet. How do you know what it will be like when it’s written? I can’t say ‘Yes, I’ll do a film of it’, and then have you work on it for three or four months only to be told that I don’t like it. I don’t want any hard feelings or unpleasantness, so it’s better if I say now: ‘I ain’t going to do urrtte.’”

  Greta then asked me for a drink. She lit a cigarette and we talked about other things. Later, very innocently and casually, she inquired: ‘Tell me, do you know Clare Booth Luce?’ It was difficult not to smile. After a pause I admitted that I did, and that I had known her since my early days in America. ‘Why do you want to know?’ I asked. ‘I just thought of her for a moment,’ replied Greta, inhaling her cigarette.

  One afternoon Greta started once or twice to ask a favour, then decided against it: ‘Perhaps another day I’ll mention it.’ I was most intrigued. Then she continued hesitantly: ‘If only you were not such a grand and elegant photographer…’ I finished the sentence for her: ‘Then you’d ask me to take your passport photograph?’ She looked astounded. ‘How did you know?’ Greta had told me she was planning to leave for a holiday in Sweden, and I realized it would have been impossible for her to go to any ordinary passport photographer without the results being displayed far and wide. Knowing her antipathy to publicity of all forms, resulting in her terror of cameras, I had purposely never suggested that she should pose for me. To take pictures of her has always been my greatest ambition, and this opportunity was unique. However, the sitting must be as simple and private as possible, for to have an assistant with lights would be to overload the occasion. The following afternoon a screen was placed near a window, while on the outside door of my apartment a notice was pinned: ‘Passport photographs taken here.’

  The sitter arrived wearing a biscuit-coloured suit and polo-collared sweater, her hair a lion’s mane. At first she stood stiffly to attention, facing my Rolleiflex full-face as if it were a firing squad. But, by degrees, she started to assume all sorts of poses and many changes of mood. The artist in her suddenly came into flower. She was enjoying the return to an aspect of the metier that had been her life’s work, and I could only click the trigger in an effort to capture yet another marvellous moment of her inspiration. Could I believe my luck? By degrees I was emboldened enough to ask if she would take off her habitual sweater. Then I brought out some ‘prop’ clothes — a pierrot’s ruff and white pointed cap — that I had secreted just in case... Greta became Dabureau. A man’s top hat was discarded on sight, though a Holbein tam-o’-shanter was approved once it was bashed into a Chinese mandarin’s hat. Every now and again my ever-growing euphoria would be interrupted by Greta’s saying: ‘That’s enough now — got to go.’ But by the time I took her word as ‘gospel’ a vast number of pictures had been made.

  The results formed a prized collection — though few of them were suitable for passports.

  When shown the small contacts, the sitter was pleased. She pronounced them ‘strong’ and clean-cut and of a good quality.

  Together we went shopping for a folding leather frame so that I could have my favourites by me wherever I travelled. She put a pencilled cross on the back of those of which she approved and would allow me to publish in Vogue magazine. When the selection was sent to my good friend, Alexander Liberman, the Art Editor, he could hardly believe his eyes. Here was a precious windfall of a dozen different pictures of someone who for ten years had resolutely refused to be photographed. From the rich hoard Alex chose a laughing head to be used across two pages. Surely this did not do justice to the full range of Greta’s beauty? I cajoled him into publishing a variety of moods and guises.

  AU REVOIR TO GRE
TA

  May, 1946

  Meanwhile, Greta dropped the bombshell that she must return to the coast. Could I not join her there? No — from California she would sail almost immediately to her native Sweden. ‘Could I not meet you in Stockholm?’ ‘Oh, no!’ The idea of her departure saddened me greatly. For the past weeks I had lived only in terms of her. She filled my days, and I dreamt of her at night.

  Suddenly New York seemed pointless without her. Frederick Ashton wired me from Covent Garden that he had a ballet for me to design if I could return at once. I might as well go home. When I arrived back in England a telegram arrived, unsigned, from Greta, bidding me good morning.

  Part IV: Designs for Ballet, 1946

  OUÏDA’S ‘MOTHS’

  June: Faringdon

  On returning home I found myself in a quandary. The ballet Freddie Ashton, a great lover of the works of Ouïda, asked me to design was to be based on her novel Moths. With Trouville at its height as a fashionable watering place for the background, and with the extraordinary mixture of personalities on the plage, wearing garden-party toilettes or period bathing costumes, it would give the designer great range. In addition, Margot Fonteyn was to be a Spanish dancer based on the character of ‘la belle Otero’, Robert Helpmann her South American tenor-lover, and Freddie himself, an oriental pasha resembling the Aga Khan, would descend from an enormous balloon. Gerald Berners had already written an extremely amusing waltz as part of the score. But I had already contracted to be in America to design an earlier ballet by Freddie — Les Patineurs — for the New York Ballet Theatre at the time set for the Covent Garden rehearsals. It was not difficult to be persuaded by Fred to do the ‘Ouïda’ designs for costumes and sets and leave their execution to experts. Therein I made a mistake.