by Erik Tarloff
Also by Erik Tarloff
Face-Time
The Man Who Wrote the Book
All Our Yesterdays
This is a Genuine Vireo Book
A Vireo Book | Rare Bird Books
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Copyright © 2019 by Erik Tarloff
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Set in Dante
epub isbn: 9781644280546
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Tarloff, Erik, author.
Title: The Woman in Black / Erik Tarloff.
Description: First Hardcover Original Edition | A Genuine Vireo Book | New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA: Rare Bird Books, 2019.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781947856974
Subjects: LCSH Actors and actresses—Fiction. | Motion picture industry—History—Fiction. | Los Angeles (Calif.—-Fiction. | Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)—Fiction. | Homosexuality—Fiction. | Satire. |
BISAC FICTION / General
Classification: LCC PS3570.A626 W69 2019 | DDC 813.54--dc23
For Julie and Geoff Owen
Contents
By Way of Introduction
Gordon Frost (producer, film historian)
The Witnesses (in order of appearance)
The Early Years
Mary Bennett (aunt)
Caitlin Kelly (elementary school classmate)
Anne Thayer (teacher)
Mary Bennett
Ned Fitzgerald (elementary school classmate)
Mary Bennett
Joel Weingott (boyhood friend)
Dorothy Goren Mckenzie (sister)
Helen Campbell (junior high school drama coach)
Haley Jackson (junior high school classmate)
Helen Campbell
Derek Stephens (actor in Downtown Players)
Amy McCandless (actor in Downtown Players)
Joel Weingott
Terri Howe (high school classmate)
Mary Bennett
Morton Brock (high school guidance counselor)
Mary Bennett
Helen Campbell
Wilson Denny (college roommate)
George Berlin (English professor)
Wilson Denny
Nancy Hawkins (girlfriend)
Wilson Denny
Nancy Hawkins
Wilson Denny
George Berlin
Nancy Hawkins
Wilson Denny
Nancy Hawkins
George Berlin
Wilson Denny
Nancy Hawkins
NEW YORK
Leon Shriver (actor)
Michael Strachan (writer)
Ellie Greenfield Lerner (girlfriend)
Leon Shriver
Ellie Greenfield Lerner
Don Barlow (director)
Leon Shriver
Ellie Greenfield Lerner
Kendell Fowler (actress)
Robert Bluestone (actor)
Ellie Greenfield Lerner
David Bayer (acquaintance)
Leon Shriver
Eppy Bronstein (widow of agent)
Ellie Greenfield Lerner
Don Barlow
Ellie Greenfield Lerner
Eppy Bronstein
Leon Shriver
Ellie Greenfield Lerner
Dorothy Goren Mckenzie
Mary Bennett
Dorothy Goren Mckenzie
Mary Bennett
Dorothy Goren Mckenzie
Mary Bennett
Dorothy Goren Mckenzie
HOLLYWOOD
Gil Fraser (roommate)
Dorothy Goren Mckenzie
Irma Gold (agent)
Matthew Devon (actor)
Gerhard Fuchs (musician)
Gil Fraser
Irma Gold
James Sterling (acting teacher)
Sir Trevor Bliss (director)
Irma Gold
Gil Fraser
Mike Shore (stand-in)
Gil Fraser
Kathy Brennan (first president, Chance Hardwick Fan Club)
Irma Gold
Briel Charpentier (girlfriend)
Gil Fraser
Dorothy Goren Mckenzie
Hector Mennen (acquaintance)
Dennis O’Neill (detective, LAPD Vice Squad, Retired)
Gil Fraser
Irma Gold
Briel Charpentier
James Sterling
Briel Charpentier
David Osborne (director)
Buddy Moore (actor)
Briel Charpentier
David Osborne
FROM THE HERALD TRIBUNE REVIEW OF LIGHTNING BOLT:
Briel Charpentier
Alison McAllister (actress)
Sir Trevor Bliss
Irma Gold
Gil Fraser
Benny Ludlow (comedian)
James Sterling
Charles Cox (director)
Dolores Murray (actress)
Dorothy Goren Mckenzie
Gil Fraser
Irma Gold
Bruce Powers (actor)
Mark Cernovic (producer)
Bruce Powers
Briel Charpentier
From Proteus—The Films of Chance Hardwick by Gordon Frost
Mark Cernovic
Letter from Jerome Goldhagen, MD (psychiatrist)
Briel Charpentier
Irma Gold
Mark Cernovic
Gil Fraser
Benny Ludlow
James Sterling
Bruce Powers
James Sterling
Bruce Powers
George Berlin
James Sterling
Bruce Powers
Gil Fraser
Briel Charpentier
Martha Davis (reporter, Variety)
Heather Brooke (neighbor)
Bernice Franklin (secretary)
Gil Fraser
Dorothy Goren Mckenzie
Briel Charpentier
Ward Paulsen (Memorial Park groundskeeper)
Afterword
Gordon Frost
By Way of Introduction
Gordon Frost (producer, film historian)
As editor of this book, in deference to its “oral history” nature and to keep it consistent throughout, I’m speaking my few words of prologue into a recording device rather than writing anything down. And I solemnly promise not to correct any grammatical solecisms I might commit as I do so. This goes against the grain for someone like me—my students sometimes refer to me as a grammar Nazi, and I don’t think they mean it affectionately—but it wouldn’t be cricket to accord myself a privilege denied the others who were so generous with their time contributing to these pages. Although, to be fair, the others weren’t talking in an otherwise empty room, they were always talking to me. Doing this solo does make it that much more awkward.
But, regardless! Almost every word in th
is volume will have been delivered orally, without notes, let alone a script. Occasionally, in the course of conducting the interviews, I’ve asked a question to prompt the speaker or clarify a point, and my questions do not appear in the text (although in context it’s usually apparent this was the case). But the words themselves haven’t been edited or altered in any way, except for the excision of a few repetitions and the occasional “er” or “uh.”
Okay. I trust we’ve got that straight.
Many years ago, in one of my early books, I wrote that Chance Hardwick was the best actor of his generation. And of course, in the years since, I’ve come to regret such a stupid, such a ridiculously categorical statement. Even my students give me a hard time for it on occasion, the ones who bother to read my old books. Which, by the way, is something they ought to do before they sign up for my class, both as sensible preparation and as a gesture of respect. But most of them don’t. Most of them don’t read anything anymore. They think the world started the day they were born, that nothing of value happened before they came to consciousness. In the old days, at least some of them read, and the ones who didn’t read at least knew classic films. Good God, it was a film history course, you’d think they might at least have some passing familiarity with movies. But they frequently come in as ignorant as stumps. Hitchcock who? Where’s this Kurosawa guy from, he sounds like a foreigner? Hey, I thought Renoir was a painter. And they probably don’t even know that.
I guess they think it can all happen in the classroom while they sit there with their mouths agape. They expect everything to be handed to them. They’re used to being spoon-fed. And they no doubt think watching a movie is a lot more fun—by which I gather they mean easier—than reading a book, although they’d also probably prefer to watch funny clips of playful kittens on YouTube rather than a full-length film. But we don’t offer YouTube courses yet, thank God. We haven’t fallen that far. It’s only a matter of time, though. I just hope I’m not here to see it.
But anyway, I was talking about Chance Hardwick as the best actor his generation, and my embarrassment about having asserted as much. My heavens, that was such an extraordinary generation, even restricting ourselves to men, and to American men at that, because those Brits always could give us a good solid run for our money, and the French came into their own after the war, Constantine and Belmondo and Delon and blah blah blah. But if we’re just talking about American actors, well, most people would say Brando, of course, he’s the obvious choice, and honestly, who can argue? He was astonishing. Maybe unique. But there was Monty Clift, too, and James Dean and Dennis Hopper and so many others, so many others. Including the glamor boys—no reason to be snobbish and exclude them. There were some terrific actors among them, underrated in many cases. Underrated for being so pretty, probably. As if sex appeal and talent can’t coincide. Like Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, and Jack Nicholson once he got noticed, after those American International horrors…I guess it was Easy Rider that finally did it for him. Respect definitely took its own sweet time with Jack. Probably self-respect too. But I mean, gosh, the list is just endless. It was a veritable acting Renaissance. The Method investment in the ’30s and ’40s, those lessons everyone took with Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman and Stella Adler and so on—commies all, incidentally—finally started paying off handsomely.
But still, Chance Hardwick was an incandescent talent. No denying that. I can’t imagine there’d be too many dissenting voices. Such promise. Not just promise, of course. He gave us magnificent performances, and we have some magical celluloid moments. But he was just getting started when he was taken from us, and damn it, I do still believe that had he lived, he might be remembered as the greatest of them all. Which is what prompted the fatuous sentiment I began with. The promise. He was like Schubert, plucked from us way too early. If Beethoven had died at the age Schubert died, we’d think of him as a relatively minor composer with enormous potential. It’s a sobering thought, no?
And of course Chance was a movie star as well. That might have come second in his mind, but stars do have some special quality that ordinary actors, even ordinary great actors, lack. Call it star quality, call it charisma, call it magic. Whatever it is, the great ones, the ones who become legends have it. Even if they aren’t actually great actors. Take Monroe, for example. Compared to some of her contemporaries, you would hardly call her a master of her craft. But she didn’t need to be. The camera loved her. She was luminous. She was a star. And that’s the thing about stars. You can’t take your eyes off them, and you somehow feel you have a personal relationship with them. You fall in love with them.
Chance had that magic in spades. If you want proof, just look at the fan clubs that still exist, still are thriving more than half a century after his death. Or the posters you can still find in college dorms all over the country. In Europe, too; Hardwick paraphernalia remains a minor industry in France. You can buy bad portraits of him in Montmartre, not just the entrance to Central Park. His face is on T-shirts and cigarette lighters and coffee cups and God knows what other tacky crap. Probably mostly purchased by American tourists, but still. Or consider that old lady, that mysterious old lady dressed all in black, who still lays flowers on his grave every year on the anniversary of his drowning. I don’t know if she was a fan or a woman who had some sort of personal relationship with him, but she’s been devoted to his memory for over fifty years. That’s not a casual attachment.
Now, in case I’m leaving a false impression, let me stress that I never actually met the man. My students think I’m ancient, but I’m not that ancient. I was ten or so when he drowned. Unlike the people whose interviews you’ll find herein, my familiarity with him comes from watching his movies. Watching them closely and repeatedly and analytically. Literally frame by frame in many cases. And from talking to so many people who did know him, which of course is how this book has come about, indeed what it entirely consists of. So I can’t talk personally about what he was like as a human being. Plenty of others can and will do that. It’s the reason I conducted those interviews and assembled this book.
It’s the fruit of several decades’ work. I started these interviews in the late 1980s. At first simply to satisfy my own curiosity, I wanted to talk to the people who knew Chance Hardwick and gather their impressions before they passed from the scene. I began by talking with the people a generation older than he, folks who’d known him as a boy and young man, along with those who had already reached their middle years when they had dealings with him. This may have been a macabre calculation on my part, but it seemed an actuarially sound strategy, and one which has been vindicated by time: Most of those people left us ages ago. I’ve spent many years since, in the intervals between teaching and writing—and a relatively brief few years producing several independent films of my own, quite unsuccessfully, I regret to say—hunting down people who’d played a role in Hardwick’s adult years. Some remain prominent and were easy to find. Others required a fair amount of digging. At a certain point, it struck me that I was no longer doing this only out of casual interest; I was aware it was turning into a book. My third book about Chance Hardwick. [laughs] Did someone say “obsession?”
In my own defense, Hardwick continues to arouse fascination and enthusiasm among movie lovers the world over. As a student of cinema—and dare I say it, as a fan, because after all these years of study I remain a fan above all else, certainly above being a film scholar—the most I can do is attest to his artistry, and say wholeheartedly that if any actor has ever deserved an oral history, which is, I suppose, a kind of thespian beatification, it would be Chance Hardwick.
The boy could do anything. He disappeared into whatever role he was playing. You forgot he was acting. He just became the character. Vocally, physically, every way. And he was so beautiful. A Greek god. More mesmerizing than Brando, cooler than Paul Newman. He was already a star when he died, as I’ve said, but he was going to be gigantic. The biggest. And then…we
ll, you know…it all got to be too much for him. A soul as delicate as that, he just couldn’t handle the bullshit that came with fame.
The fan clubs, the paparazzi, the autograph seekers, the movie magazines, the gossip columns, the impossibility of leading a normal life or enjoying an anonymous minute…it simply overwhelmed him. He was by all accounts a simple soul in many ways, not with regard to his artistry, never that, but in his private life. And fame complicated that life beyond his ability to handle it. Now, make no mistake, he wanted fame, he hungered for it, he didn’t go to Hollywood in order to be a nobody. Ambition was a key element of his character. Everyone who knew him seems to agree on that. But you can’t prepare for the actual experience of fame. You can’t begin to know what it’s going to be like until it happens to you. And with Chance, it hit him like an oncoming tractor-trailer.
So yes, he was a star. But the important thing to remember, the thing always to bear in mind, is that Chance Hardwick was an artist. He was an artist before he was a star. The stardom was almost incidental. He lived to act. He was like an acting votary. And possibly the purest talent I’ve ever seen. And along with it, as a natural concomitant, the most sensitive personality. A naked, scintillating ganglion. No insulation, no protection. That receptivity is what made his acting so powerful, and of course it’s also what destroyed him.
The Witnesses (in order of appearance)
Gordon Frost (producer, film historian)
Mary Bennett (aunt)
Caitlin Kelly (elementary school classmate)
Anne Thayer (teacher)
Ned Fitzgerald (elementary school classmate)
Joel Weingott (boyhood friend)
Dorothy Goren Mckenzie (sister)
Helen Campbell (junior high school drama coach)
Haley Jackson (junior high school classmate)
Derek Stephens (actor in Downtown Players)
Amy McCandless (actor in Downtown Players)
Terri Howe (high school classmate)
Morton Brock (high school guidance counselor)
Wilson Denny (college roommate)
George Berlin (English professor)
Nancy Hawkins (girlfriend)
Leon Shriver (actor)
Michael Strachan (writer)
Ellie Greenfield Lerner (girlfriend)