by Anne Edwards
The others agreed, but Korda was the only one frank enough to question Vivien’s ability to tackle the arduous and difficult role of the aging Cleopatra. The meeting disbanded with the idea having been rejected and with no other substitute in mind. The Oliviers flew to Paris for the New Year’s weekend and Vivien tucked a copy of the two plays in their luggage. No sooner had they settled into their hotel suite than Olivier felt a chill. By evening he was bedded with flu. He was unable to leave his room, so Vivien insisted he read Antony and Cleopatra and Caesar and Cleopatra with a view toward the intense challenge of his appearing on successive evenings in two such dramatic roles as Antony and Caesar.
By morning he was convinced that Roger Furse’s crazy idea was a true stroke of genius. Never before had the two plays been presented together. Combining a comedy and a tragedy about the same bewitching woman could make stage history, and Vivien was indeed right—Antony and Caesar were powerful, uniquely different characters. He rang Furse in London and asked him to set up another board meeting that same week.
His enthusiasm for the project grew each day, and yet he was deeply concerned about how Vivien would cope with the pressures of shifting one day to the next from the naive young Cleopatra being taught the manners of a monarch by a fifty-year-old emperor to the mature and calculating Serpent of the Nile who brings about the ruin of her lover, Mark Antony.
From the first day of rehearsal, Vivien felt the strain, worrying constantly that she might let Larry down. More and more she was convinced that he was a genius, and day after day her fears would increase that she could not keep pace with him. He sensed her growing apprehensions and was pleased that he had decided he would not direct the dual productions (Michael Benthall took on the task), so that he could give Vivien whatever time he could spare. But certainly his brilliance was behind the entire conception.
Sets were designed for the revolving stage that would tie both plays together. Costumes were created with the same duality of use. The militia wore the same uniforms, Cleopatra’s female attendants appeared in both plays dressed in flowing boudoir silks, and Cleopatra wore the same splendid coronation robes for her crowning at sixteen as she did for her suicide at thirty-nine. The most singularly memorable link between the two plays, however, was the use of a sphinx to open the Shaw play and to close Shakespeare’s. But Benthall, working hard to give each play a character of its own, made the Shaw play rather realistic and the Shakespeare as poetic as possible. This involved a “Shavian dry delivery” for the first and “a rich Renaissance treatment” for the second.
Vivien’s greatest problem was handling the twenty-three-year age difference of the two Cleopatras. Special makeup was created for her alternate roles, applied in a slightly different way to alter the shape of her face. For the young Cleopatra, rouge was painted high on her cheeks to make her face appear plumper. Lipstick was applied heavily to give an unsophisticated look. The older Cleopatra wore her rouge lower down, making her face leaner and more interesting, and used less lipstick.
“My neck’s too long, my hands too big, and my voice too small,” Vivien complained and then set forth to torturously correct each “fault.” She stood six hours one evening while Audrey Cruddas, the costume designer, worked to drape material to disguise the length of her neck. She wore massive rings and bracelets to distract from “my big paws,” but it was the constant coaching to help her deepen her voice that gave her countless extra hours of exhausting work that no other member of the cast had to endure.
Rehearsals were beset with illness in the cast. Maxine Audley, who was Charmian in both plays, contracted measles and feared she would lose the roles, as she had to be absent for three weeks. Vivien sent her a magnificent bouquet of spring flowers and a note that read, “You poor little measly one, hurry up and get well and come back quickly.” Peter Cushing, who was cast as Britannus in the Shaw play, suffered a nervous breakdown. The Oliviers advanced him money (of which the company had little enough) to see him through his hospitalization and held the role open for him (he gave an excellent performance when he recovered). Elspeth March, who played Ftatateeta in the Shaw play, broke her ankle. As she had done for Maxine Audley, Vivien sent massive bouquets and notes of encouragement.
The cast adored Vivien. She made them laugh a lot and was concerned about each member and remarkably never forgot a birthday or anniversary. Jill Bennett (who played Iras) and Maxine Audley were especially devoted to her, and as they were in almost all of her scenes, they supported her in every sense of the word. It was no secret by now that Vivien was having “emotional problems,” and the cast rallied to her magnificently.
But Olivier was viewed quite differently by the cast and crew. Those who had worked with him before found he had become “more austere and a little remote.” There were those who firmly believed knighthood had gone to his head. He was, of course, in a difficult spot as actor-manager, unable to show favoritism; and perhaps he thought it improvident to be too informal with members of the company. One old co-worker, however, said forthrightly, “Any acquaintance who slaps Olivier on the back expecting to find Larry risks a rather disconcerting experience. The danger is that his present Olympian perch may isolate him from the contacts every artist must maintain if he is to keep in touch.”
It was generally agreed that “Larry is not the great fun he used to be,” but there were times when the old Larry reappeared. One example took place during the rehearsals, after Peter Cushing had returned to the cast. He had just acquired false teeth, along with all his other troubles, and found that they caused him to spit considerably. To avoid splashing fellow actors he lowered his voice. Olivier shouted out to him, “Go on, Peter. It doesn’t matter if you spit! Spit for all you’re worth! Drown us all! It will be a glorious death!” The cast cheered and Cushing raised his speech level.
Olivier still maintained his sense of humor with Vivien and their guests at Notley, and would do comedic bits and impersonations. But the closer they got to May 10, the date of their opening, the more delicate Vivien’s nerves became, and the more aloof Olivier seemed to become.
The Shaw play opened first. In one scene Vivien had to slap Elspeth March’s face. Elspeth was wearing a false rubber nose as Ftatateeta, the nurse. One night Vivien slapped too close to it. The nose flew into the air and Vivien fielded brilliantly with her left hand and returned it to Elspeth who was then able to get off stage holding her hand to her face, the audience having noticed nothing!
Shakespeare’s play was received more enthusiastically by The Times after its premiere. “Allowing that the Cleopatra of Miss Vivien Leigh,” the review began, “is in the heyday of her power a somewhat cool enchantress, and that the production on an open revolving stage may sacrifice some speed to continuity, memory recalls no more satisfying performance of this play, no palimpsest so imposingly strong in line and color, so harmonious in its total impression. Cool Miss Leigh may be as she exhibits the wiles of a courtesan of genius, but she exhibits them with a beautifully exact expressiveness and she grows in momentousness to meet her doom. When Antony has died and she is left alone to bring the play to its wonderful ending she is faultless.” The Times also found Olivier’s performance “a mounting excitement.”
The fact was that the plays, different as they were, fit curiously well together. The Shaw play seemed a kind of prologue to Shakespeare, although Shaw might have snorted that Shakespeare’s play was a mere epilogue to his. Still, all the critics did not agree, and indeed seemed to be at great loggerheads of opinion. The battle was on. Some said Vivien was holding Sir Laurence back and that no matter how he surrounded and supported her she would never be his equal on the stage.
A young critic, Kenneth Tynan, who had only recently “floated down from Oxford,” had brought out a book on theatre and had taken his place as a theatre critic to be reckoned with. His review of the two plays set off a rocket of anger from Vivien that she was never quite able to successfully discharge or abandon. Though, at a later date, Olivier was to b
ecome a very close friend of Tynan’s, he too was incensed at Tynan’s devastating criticism of Vivien.
Life was becoming increasingly more painful to Vivien, at times almost intolerable. She knew she could never free herself from her obsession to accomplish theatre greatness, and yet she feared failure irrationally and with true and mounting terror. Tynan’s slashing diatribe cut deep and wounded her mightily. She was convinced that they (the critics) thought Larry’s greatness was being diminished by her own ambition. They thought her small voice blunted his authority. They thought her mediocrity caused him to compromise. Rumbles of Tynan’s attack—a nod in his direction—appeared here and there in other published pieces, but no other critic actually served up such dispraise, and as many, if not more, were extremely laudatory. It did not balance the ledger for Vivien. She held her suffering close to her, but it was discernible to those sensitive artists who worked with her and admired her amazing stamina and the hard work and sweat she put in. The last was a new problem for her to bear. In the short time of perhaps ten or fifteen minutes before her first appearance on stage she would become drenched from perspiration. After the second or third time this occurred she had Audrey Cruddas sew dozens of protective pads into her costumes, but the problem continued, causing her great apprehension and adding to her tension.
Olivier rose in defense of Vivien and angrily called Tynan to task. It was even whispered among the company that he had “landed a smart one on Tynan’s chin, causing it to recede even more,” but Vivien sensed an admiration on Olivier’s part for Tynan’s intelligence and attributed his defense of her to “gallantry.” There that word was again! Tynan had used the word “gallantry” in his article to refer to Olivier’s casting of Vivien opposite him even though she possessed what Tynan considered an inferior talent.
Small signs of disharmony between Larry and Vivien began to be noticed among the company. She turned on him in public from time to time, and he grew more aloof. One night during Antony and Cleopatra he splattered spots of stage blood on her gown, and she grew intensely hostile toward him immediately after they came off stage. And another night when they were taking their curtains he neglected to bow and smile at her, and she strode furiously ahead of him into her dressing room and slammed the door. These were the few times that she had ever displayed anything but admiration for him in public. Yet his picture remained on her theatre dressing table at all times and by her bedside in both houses. In truth, she adored and worshiped him and was even more miserable when she thought she had made him the slightest bit unhappy by her behavior. What most frightened her—and him—was that she often did not recall her actions and was baffled and humiliated by them.
Still, the production was a particularly happy one for the company, which included Robert Helpmann, Norman Wooland, Elspeth March, Peter Cushing, Jill Bennett, and Maxine Audley. The two Cleopatras played five months in England, closing on an unusually balmy October evening. The Oliviers threw a fabulous party for all the company on a barge on the Thames after the last performance, a particularly creative idea and certainly one of the few—if not the only—parties of its kind ever given an English theatrical company.
In December the Oliviers took the plays to New York with many members of their company. (Maxine Audley, Jill Bennett, Elspeth March, and Peter Cushing remained behind with other commitments.)
As George Jean Nathan wrote in the New York Journal American, “Not since John Ringling North imported Gargantua from the wilds of Bermuda, to say nothing from Austria of Unus, the man who could stand on one finger, has anything created such a stir as the importation from England of the Olivier-Leigh two-ring circus currently in operation on Billy Rose’s Ziegfeld lot.” Besides being called a two-ring circus, the plays were heralded in New York as “The Mixed-Doubles” and as “Two-on-the-Nile.” It was the theatrical event of the season, and perhaps of the decade.
Vivien’s performances dominated the reviews, as she did the stage of the Ziegfeld with her long straight flaming wig and flowing wings of sleeves which gave her an erotic, somewhat morbid look of an imperious Aubrey Beardsley drawing. New York, more than London, was overwhelmed at the sumptuous pageantry, the sense of pomp, the circusy aspect that the revolving stage created, making the play an amphitheatrical carousel, which, though adding flow and speed to the productions, occasionally gave the audience vertigo.
By itself neither of the Cleopatras would have been likely to arouse much furor, but as a duet they were a theatrical treat never before available and perhaps never to be repeated, at least by a company headed by the most distinguished couple in the British theatre. There were nearly a million dollars in advance bookings before the play opened, and after the first nights there was hardly an available ticket remaining for the sixteen-week run. Still, because of the extravagance of the spectacular productions, and the huge imported cast (thirty-eight including Alec McCowen, Niall MacGinnis, Wilfrid Hyde White, Pat Nye, Robert Helpmann, Harry Andrews, and Donald Pleasence), the play at full capacity would little more than break even.
Opening night the Ziegfeld was unbearably hot. The next night, and because of a seven-twenty curtain, there were a great many latecomers. In spite of these difficulties and some confusion in the light cues, the plays, and especially Vivien’s performances, seemed to have grown more powerful than they were at the St. James’s.
Walter Kerr in the Herald Tribune wrote, “Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh have performed the near miracle of pulling the sprawling canvas into a coherent and increasingly exciting whole.” All the critics thought the Oliviers had brought glamour, theatricality, and a renewed vitality back to the theatre. Vivien and Larry ruled regally over the New York 1951-1952 theatre season. Crowds of autograph hunters and fans waited at the stage door of the Ziegfeld after each performance, parties in their honor were given in droves, and the press and media coverage nearly overwhelmed the McCarthy Senate hearings on un-American activities in Hollywood and the tragic death of King George VI.
One might have thought that Vivien would at last be a happy, contented woman, for she now shared the stage with Olivier with seeming equality. The truth was that she never could believe this in her heart. Then on March 20, 1952, she was awarded an Oscar for her performance in Streetcar, Greer Garson accepting for her in her absence. This certainly should have been a crowning glory. But the art of film acting remained secondary to Vivien. She seemed as grief-stricken by the British monarch’s death in February as she had been at his father’s sixteen years before.
Then, in April, she suffered another of her attacks of hysteria. Olivier was beside himself. She was like some wild creature, and when he tried to calm and comfort her she turned on him with no cause or provocation. He was now becoming convinced that Vivien was seriously mentally ill. The idea overwhelmed him, and he was not at all sure how the two of them would conduct their lives under such a burden.
Act Three
“I am not going to lose my dignity, no matter what happens I am not going to lose it,” but just as continually she caught herself doing things that were not at all consistent with that resolve.
—The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
Tennessee Williams
Chapter Twenty-two
The magnifying mirror on her dressing-room table told her that though she remained an extraordinarily beautiful woman she was no longer a young one. She was nearing her fortieth birthday and the thought terrified her. Youth was constantly on her mind and she was becoming obsessively jealous of anyone who had it. She would swing between happiness and misery and she cried easily. One minute she wanted more than anything to give Larry a child, the next she considered having an affair. Her reason was blurred by panic. She had to prove to Larry and the world that she could top her New York performances of Cleopatra. She could not stop—not now. Nor could she continue—for what if she failed?
“I’m a Scorpio,” she told an interviewer, “and Scorpios eat themselves out and burn themselves up like me.” She was smoking incessantly,
which was bad for her lungs, sleeping less than ever, and surrounding herself and Larry—when he was home—with a constant barrage of guests. She was drinking more heavily than she had ever done before, and the alcohol brought on periods of hysteria as it interacted disastrously with the drugs she took for her lung condition. For Vivien the world was filled with either splendor or sadness. There seemed no in-between. She wanted things to be as they had been before, but she did not know how to achieve this.
Coping with the acceleration of her hysteria and the manic-depressive periods was weighing Olivier down. He guessed alcohol was at least partially responsible and did what he could to convince her to abstain. He was becoming more and more aware that they were losing what they once had and that nothing would ever quite be the same. He felt—as did Vivien—that because theirs was a superior, sublime love it could survive most difficulties. Yet he was growing increasingly alarmed that her extremes of manic behavior could change that, and that the direction of their relationship was moving out of his control. Work seemed the only antidote to the sense of inadequacy her illness gave to him, and he thrust himself compulsively into it.
He presented Peter Finch in The Happy Time at the St. James’s and planned a film of The Beggar’s Opera that he would both co-produce and appear in as Macheath. But Vivien was not to be in the film, and her exclusion was a terrible blow to her. Her great love for Larry began eating away inside of her, severing her emotional contact with the world beyond her body.
At the time she was under the care of both a medical doctor and a psychiatrist. And during her illness she developed a trust in and a childlike dependency on Gertrude, who was nearby. At these times she thought that men, both acquaintances and strangers, were always trying to seduce her, and she would have spells of fear that she would not be able to resist them.