The Happy Years (1944-48)

by Cecil Beaton

  It was almost a relief when I heard indirectly that Greta had returned to Hollywood. Now I could walk down the New York streets without being haunted by her ghost. But I was still miserable that we were not friends. Six weeks passed before I summoned up the courage to telephone her in Hollywood: ‘She don’t answer.’ Still no replies to my repeated telegrams or letters. I arranged for a friend to put a note under her Beverly Hills front door at six o’clock one morning. No reply. I began to realize that this beautiful bird had alighted on a branch in my garden, been frightened, and flown away for ever.

  I was lying on my bed. This was 7 October — one of my lucky numbers: perhaps my stars were good. On the spur of the moment I lifted the telephone receiver and put another call through to California — and the miracle happened! The operator had informed her that ‘New York’ was calling — not that it was a personal call from me. Perhaps she thought it was to be ‘the little man’ at the end of the wire. Before she realized it we were talking. ‘Why, Mr Beaton? Why, why, why? How very surprising!’ ‘What are you wearing?’ I asked. ‘Nothing.’ A good deal of ‘Mr Beatoning’, and ‘I don’t know nothink’ followed. Then I asked: ‘Did you enjoy your holiday in Sweden?’ ‘I won’t tell you.’ But, by degrees, the thaw took place. We laughed. Soon it seemed as if there had never been a breach. In her rather cruel, playful way, knowing that two thousand miles separated us, she said: ‘Come on over now.’ ‘Not now, but can I come later?’ ‘Now, only now.’ She said she had received a letter from me but that she couldn’t decipher my handwriting; there was cruelty in that, so I said it appeared that she enjoyed making me suffer. She said: ‘I wouldn’t do anything to any human being to make him suffer.’ Eventually we seemed to arrive sufficiently near a reconciliation for me to ask if I was forgiven. By the end of the call I imagined that all was as well as before, and that our relationship remained as strange and violent and intuitive as only happens when two people meet who are magnetically drawn to one another.

  October 26th, 1946

  After many further vain attempts to speak to Greta on the telephone (I would call at all times of the day, and I could hear the operator being told by Greta’s sad-voiced servant that Miss Brown was not at home and she did not know when she was expected back) this morning I was again fortunate enough to gain my quarry. At first she was exasperated and treated me as a tiresome burden that might as well be disposed of once and for all. ‘This is no good,’ she said. ‘We are too different. By your action you have deprived me of a friend.’ ‘Who is the friend?’ ‘You were!’ She did not wish me to telephone — she had nothing to tell me. Desperately I ad-libbed: ‘But I don’t want you to tell me anything — I just want to talk to you.’ ‘Well, we never talk on the telephone here in California — only in New York we talk on the telephone. I’m not being cruel or vindictive, but things have changed.’ ‘I haven’t changed — have you?’ I asked. ‘No. I’m a very strange person,’ she replied, ‘and I can’t change — and I don’t think I want to very much either — so you had better not call any more.’ I was fighting for my life. ‘Then may I write?’ ‘What’s the point?’ This was pretty near to disaster for me, but by banter and repartee we eventually returned to better terms. Greta suddenly showed that she was curious — if not jealous — that someone had sent me tuber-roses to the theatre when I had my ‘first night’ on Broadway. ‘Are you shocked with me for exhibiting myself on the stage?’ ‘No — not interested,’ she replied, but a little later she said: ‘You’d better get off that stage.’ When I said that unfortunately I had to leave the cast as I was to be under contract to work in films for Alexander Korda in England, and that I’d soon be sailing home for nearly a year, she said: ‘When are you going? And have you got a cow?’ ‘No, I haven’t even a house in the country any more.’ ‘Well, I don’t know how you’ll make out.’ I said I wished she would fly to New York but told her it was too cold to come just now. She said she liked cold weather: the more I elaborated on the reasons why she should not come the more anxious she seemed to be to do so. It was a long and sad conversation in some ways, but I prayed that if I could overcome her mood, and make her forget her present attitude towards me, all would be as before.

  I didn’t telephone her again for over a month. I knew that if I did she would feel I was chasing her, and that if I remained quiet she might possibly be more interested. Although I longed many times to talk to her I did not do so until about a week after Christmas. She was surprised to hear that I had not already returned to England. She was frankly delighted to hear me, and accepted my advances without reservations. ‘Of course I wouldn’t go home without telephoning you,’ I said. I described how it was snowing as I looked out of my hotel bedroom. Oh, she longed to come to New York: she had hoped to come ‘over the holidays’, but ‘too late now,’ she said, with what sounded like a pang of regret.

  From now on I telephoned to California very often. Sometimes I would hear the bell ringing unheard in her pantry. On the Thursday, when the sad-voiced maidservant was out, Greta became quite abandoned in her invitation for me to ‘come right over — to come — come — come!’ It was a typical taunt, yet a sign of forgiveness on her part. She knew she was safe herself but putting me in a difficult predicament. I laughed at her invitation which was like the ticking of a clock. ‘How do you sleep?’ I asked. ‘I sleep well if I go to bed early enough: I retire with the chickens.’ ‘What have you been doing?’ ‘Just pottering — I haven’t had time to stop.’ She laughed — she talked nonsense. ‘Ah, we’re all bound to our duty — we’re soldiers fighting for les beaux arts.’ Well, keep your pecker up. I’ll call tomorrow to find out how you are.’ ‘No — you mayn’t telephone. No, no! That ain’t cricket. Just send me a wire if you’re in a stew.’

  MY MOTHER IN NEW YORK

  November 20th, 1946

  Returning to my sumptuous but impersonal hotel late tonight I am very touched by a pencilled note I find on the table in my small hall. It is from my mother to say how much she had enjoyed the evening — seeing me play in Lady Windermere.

  My first impression of the States had come to me in childhood from my parents. Soon after their marriage they had made journeys across the Atlantic and the accounts of their visits to New York, to Florida, and the deep South had filled me with such a strange romantic excitement that I yearned for the promised land. The sort of America that they had seen — staying with the Barrs and other well-to-do hospitable friends, living on plantations in carefree happiness tended by limitless supplies of friendly servants — was the one that first occupied my mind. It is very different from the one I now enjoy. Since I have come to spend so large a part of my life in the States I wanted my mother to see how I lived and carried on in an atmosphere so far removed from that at home in England. After the long and austere war years, and of being incarcerated for so long in the depths of the wintry countryside, I thought it would be a treat for her to have a glimpse of the luxury of modern Manhattan. It would be the last opportunity for her to see me on the boards for, much as I was enjoying myself, I had to return to England where a seven-year contract to work for films had been signed.

  But the contrast between my mother’s life and mine has become too great. I realized this at once, when I caught my first sight of her on the New York docks. Her boat had landed earlier than had been expected, and already she had seen her belongings (packed in my discarded suitcases) through the Customs and, looking quite bewildered, was trying to follow an impatient porter through a seething, jostling, shouting crowd. With her pale blue, puzzled eyes, her gentleness and trust, and still wearing the orchid — now completely dead — that someone had given her in London for a bon voyage present, she was unlike the people around her: it was as if she had come from another planet.

  After the initial shock of seeing me — the first familiar face since she had boarded the liner one week ago — she became less anguished. But she has been unable to cope with the noise and the pace of the New York of today. She wonders why I am
always in such a hurry, why I talk so fast and become impatient. I have tried to make things agreeable for her, and friends have rallied, but I have failed in not devoting myself to her with more understanding and patience. The sad fact remains that she has become too old for the New Yorkers’ way of life. It has been a baffling visit for her.

  Perhaps when, in a few days’ time, we sail back to England she will forget the flaws and will enjoy telling her family of the fuss that was made of her, of the presents and the flowers she was given, and I can comfort myself with tonight’s little note which is something that I shall always preserve.

  January, 1947: London

  A few days after I had returned home I telephoned Greta from London. She heard my voice with incredulity.

  ‘You’re not to do it — I told you not to telephone!’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s too far.’

  ‘The ends of the world are not too far.’

  ‘Well, I won’t give you my address in Norfolk, Virginia, unless you promise not to telephone... Well, goodbye, and thank you for your call. Do you miss me?’ she asked — like a child speaking its piece.

  ‘Yes. Why are you going to Norfolk?’

  ‘I haven’t an idea in the world.’

  ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Nothing much. Just walking.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘The alley cats — and the alley dogs. You’d better have stayed at the Plaza!’

  Part VI: Fresh Fields in England, 1947

  WORKING FOR KORDA

  Pelham Place, London

  When first I went to see Korda in his rooms at the St Regis, New York, it was with a certain amount of misgiving. I did not want to work in films. ‘I want to buy you,’ he had said. ‘But I don’t want to be bought — and I’m terribly expensive.’ I told him of my past film experiences, working against people with no understanding of what I could give them. He looked piqued: he is not accustomed to people refusing his advances. ‘Well, I think I’m the only person who can utilize all your talents and give you the opportunity to fulfil your ambitions as designer, director, photographer, writer, or what you will.’ Naturally I was flattered. The more I thought about the idea, the more it seemed feasible. I went to my lawyer and a whopping great contract was signed.

  Korda and I sailed to England together on the Queen Elizabeth. At every meeting I found him more charming, and I was surprised that anyone with a moving-picture background could be so well-read and generally intelligent. He did not seem to wish to talk about films and their making. In fact, whenever I broached the subject of my working for him he was vague and abstracted. He shrugged: ‘You just do your work where you want, but when the film starts I want you on the floor with me.’ At first he intended to do a film of Salome (Wilde), and in the preliminary discussions with his brother Vincent I saw already that we were heading for trouble. It seems to me impossible to do this period ‘purple patch’ in a straightforward, serious vein. ‘Why not put it into a nouveau art frame? By making it even more curious the effect would be less ridiculous.’ I had dropped such a spanner that the whole project was slowly abandoned.

  Sir Alexander Korda on the telephone.

  ‘How are you, Saisille, old boy? When shall I see you?’ drawled the Hungarian voice.

  ‘Whenever you want.’

  ‘What about this afternoon?’

  ‘Anytime you like.’

  ‘What about this morning?’

  ‘Whenever you say.’

  ‘12.30? ... Twelve o’clock, old boy, would be even better.’ When, after battling through the snow, I arrived at his office in his landering, great Piccadilly house Sir Alex was pacing up and down the large room trying to keep warm. He was wearing his overcoat: there were no lights on. We were enjoying a peak of the Shinwell winter season, and the gas and coal supply had given out.

  ‘Hullo, old boy!’ He peered at me through the gloom. ‘Well, I’ve got two pieces of news for you. One good — one bad.’

  ‘Tell me the bad first.’ I braced myself for the shock.

  ‘No, I’ll tell the good first. You’ve always tried to bully me into making Ideal Husband as a film. Well, we’re going to do it. That’s the good news. Now for the bad: we start shooting in three weeks’ time.’

  ‘But that’s also good news,’ I said with genuine enthusiasm.

  ‘I want you behind the camera with me — and of course to do the costumes and all sorts of odd jobs. Start right away. We’ll do it entirely in the period of when the play was written — 1895.’

  Out in the snow again I took up my position at the end of a long bus queue. The nineties seemed to me so much longer ago than a mere fifty years: in comparison with today’s life in England under a Labour government it could have been as remote as ancient Rome. What a self-indulgent era it had been! The blessings of equality were unknown, neither had the virtues of austerity been recognized. With altogether too much pleasure and leisure most people over-ate and drank too much, and wasted hours in conversation.

  One bus after another, filled to the ceiling with steaming, wet humanity, wait by without stopping. The queue remained static. What a worthwhile job lay ahead — to show, by innuendo, how unenlightened in comparison to ours those old days of horse-drawn carriages had been. Snow and mud from roaring streamlined cars and motorbike traffic spattered the still motionless queue.

  At last a bus hove in sight in which I was able to find an inch of space on its running board. Holding tight to the rail I thought about Victoria as Queen of England and Empress of India, and how an empire had ruthlessly dominated the world. The bus skidded but I was thrown clear. I put up my umbrella and staggered on into the semi-darkness towards South Kensington.

  Home at last, I discovered that I had run short of drawing paper: at the nearest art-store their quota of paper had given out: neither had they Indian ink in black — only orange. I did my first designs on the insides of cardboard boxes in orange ink. Two days later Sir Alexander looked at the results.

  ‘Did the women really look like that then? How horrible!’

  His brother Vincent, always depressed and always depressing, with puckered forehead was equally distressed at the sight of the furnishings of the period. ‘Look at all those fussy dust-catching nick-nacks! Where can we get candles today? Hothouse flowers! Who’s got hothouses? No wonder, with those sideboards groaning with ortolans and quails, so many of the Victorians had to go to Homburg or Baden to have their livers cleaned out.’

  Working on preparations for the film also brought further proof of the fact that we are living in the modern world. The slips of young girls who came to portray the privileged guests in the ballroom scene in no way resembled those enormous Boadiceas, full-bosomed and well-cushioned, who could scarcely bend — so encumbered were they by their boned corsets, barbaric jewellery and dozens of yards of heavy silk. It was not easy to find among our utility materials, docketed cretonnes or nylon household-goods, anything to simulate those thick brocades, cumbrous satins and quilted damasks. Asking the wig master if he could emulate the Victorian coiffures by adding false hair to modern pates, he shrugged: ‘Hair? We’ve had none for years!’ We fought on manfully.

  Korda did not start in three weeks’ time and there were the usual delays. But much of the work of research, design, fittings, of conferences, was a revelation to me, and my enthusiasm was sustained. Then, suddenly, Korda gave me the added responsibility of designing all the costumes for Anna Karenina. When it became impossible to find costumiers in London who could undertake the work at such short notice, Korda suggested that the leading actress’s dresses and hats should be made in Paris. Here I found that the great Madame Karinska had handed on her dressmaking genius to her daughter. The confections that she created for Vivien Leigh as Anna were masterpieces. Likewise, Madame Paulette made free adaptations of my sketches for hats that transcended anything that I could have desired.

  February 1st, 1947

  It is the greates
t possible treat to be working in such an agreeable manner while staying again with Duff and Diana.

  Returning late from fittings one night, I realized I was starting a bad cold. My throat tingled, my eyes burned, and I had nothing to take for it. I asked the Oliviers[22] across the corridor, who had just come in from a rout given by some French theatre people, if they had any cure. Alas, they had nothing — not even an aspirin. Next day I was stricken. However, it was a relief to give in — to be able to call a halt.

  THE OLIVIERS

  Friday

  Still stricken, and with a temperature, I was disappointed that there would be no Hamlet for me this evening. (The Oliviers had got me a ticket and I was looking forward to seeing Jean Louis Barrault.) However, Larry gave me a lot to think about as I lay in my dreary state. He trusted it wouldn’t offend me to be offered second choice, but if Roger Furse, to whom he was obligated to give preference, were too busy with the film of Hamlet to design School for Scandal for him, would I care to take on the Sheridan? This is one of my favourite of all plays, so full of charm, wit and kindliness. I would certainly jump at any such opportunity. Larry would be an interesting Sir Peter and Vivien would look adorable as Lady Teazle. My brain started working overtime with ideas for sets and costumes. I became impatient with my illness for not allowing me to get straight to work.

  Saturday

  Still in bed, but with throat less painful. I was able to read a lot. Larry came in and chuckled about our behaviour here in this grand house. He said: ‘For the first few days I was so bloody serious because I was shy. It would be so awful to make a joke in the British Embassy and find you’d gone too far.’ He said: ‘I find it difficult when Duff comes into the room not to straighten up to attention too much or, alternatively, to be as casual as to ignore him almost entirely and finally greet him in an offhand way.’ The burlesque he did of himself was quite a cameo.