by Sam Wasson
The Serious Writer Gagged: Shepherd’s terrific memo, like all of the material related to Sumner Locke Elliott’s deal, is kept in the AMPAS Library Special Collections.
The Pitch: The list of screenwriters under consideration for the Breakfast at Tiffany’s rewrite is kept in the AMPAS Library Special Collections. My description of Axelrod’s intended revision comes from Axelrod’s own explanations of the process (to be found in the various interviews sourced in the section “One Hot Spurt,” above), as well as what was passed down to me from my conversations with Shepherd and Illeana Douglas. Comparing Elliott’s treatment and draft (AMPAS Library) with Axelrod’s revision(s), the changes are readily apparent. Joan Axelrod relates her husband’s bedtime epiphany in George Plimpton, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career (Doubleday, 1997), and Axelrod’s recognition of his low-class standing is prevalent in his interview with Patrick McGilligan in Backstory 3 (University of California Press, 1997).
Audrey’s Retreat: “I blamed God,” Audrey Hepburn quoted in Ian Woodward, Audrey Hepburn (St. Martin’s Press, 1984). Robert Wolders told me that when he asked Audrey about the details of the Hitchcock affair, she was very unclear, leading him to believe that a significant part of the deal was orchestrated by Kurt Frings behind her back. Herbert Coleman, Hitchcock’s right hand, told it differently. In his book, The Man Who Knew Hitchcock (Scarecrow Press, 2007), Coleman maintains Audrey was complicit. Of the added rape scene, he has Hitchcock saying, “We won’t let her see that sequence until we’re ready to film it.” Coleman refused outright and sent Audrey the new pages directly to Durango where she was shooting The Unforgiven. Audrey said, “Herbie, I’ve always wanted to work with Mr. Hitchcock. Take that scene out and tell me when you want me to report.” Hitch retaliated: “Tell Paramount they must make her report when you call her or I will cancel my contract.” Audrey’s quote that children were “indispensable for a woman’s life and happiness” is from Claude Berthod, “Audrey Hepburn,” Cosmopolitan (October 1966). “The pregnancy transported her…” Sean Ferrer to SW on September 17, 2009. “She loved family more than her career…” Robert Wolders to SW on October 23, 2009.
Romantic Comedy: “They offered him Rhode Island and a piece of the gross…” Joan Axelrod quoted in George Plimpton, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career (Doubleday, 1997). From the cigars, to the vodka, to the picture of Marilyn, the evocation of Axelrod at work on Tiffany’s was passed down to me from Illeana Douglas. “Most sex comedies involve men cheating on their wives…” from Vernon Scott, “Axelrod Emphasizes the Marital Theme” (The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 24, 1967).
Doing It for Money: All quotations from Geoffrey Shurlock’s memos as well as his review of Axelrod’s draft are from the Breakfast at Tiffany’s Production Code Files in the Special Collections of AMPAS Library.
5. LIKING IT, 1960
The Seduction: “Frings was pretty sure…” Shepherd to SW on November 24, 2009. Jurow’s description of his meeting at Dinty Moore’s and his courtship of Audrey Hepburn in Marty Jurow Seein’ Stars: A Show Biz Odyssey, along with input from Richard Shepherd, helped to rebuild the chronology of events leading up to the moment when Audrey, finally, accepts the part of Holly Golightly. The dialogue is all Jurow’s. “Audrey’s reluctance was wrapped up in Mel’s…” Robert Wolders to SW on October 23, 2009. Interestingly, Jurow never placed Axelrod at the scene, but according to Axelrod, he was absolutely there. Considering the consistency between George’s own versions of the story, I’m inclined to believe Axelrod’s memory and conclude that Jurow, being of Hollywood, omitted George from the scene for the sake of claiming sole credit for the casting coup.
Changing Partners: “Pressure was brought to bear…” John Frankenheimer in Gerald Pratley, The Films of John Frankenheimer (Golden Cockerel Press, 1988).
Beachside Interlude: “Dearest Audrey, With two such parents…” Truman’s letter from Ellen Erwin and Jessica Diamond can be found in The Audrey Hepburn Treasures (Atria, 2006).
Mr. Audrey Hepburn: “With the baby I felt I had everything…” Audrey quoted in Joseph Barry, “Audrey Hepburn at 40,” (McCall’s, July 1969). “It’s true that Mel was puritanical in his outlook…” Robert Wolders to SW on October 23, 2009.
Audrey’s New Man: For a more extensive discussion of Blake Edwards’s career, his handling of Cary Grant on Operation Petticoat, and a fuller analysis of his “Peter Gunn” style, see Sam Wasson, A Splurch in the Kisser: The Movies of Blake Edwards (Wesleyan University Press, 2009). “My mother was very Victorian,” Audrey Hepburn quoted in a very wonderful interview, certainly among her most candid, broadcast on Living Treasures, 1990. “It was really a big step up for Blake…” Patricia Snell to SW on February 9, 2009.
Bing Crosby in a Dress: Directing High Time was little more than a paid gig for Blake Edwards, a job. He struggled with the material as well as Bing Crosby himself. Patricia Snell confirmed, “Bing Crosby was very, very difficult. He was having an affair with the French lady [Nicole Maurey] who was in the picture with him. Blake was very, very unhappy on that picture.” “It was too cynical…” Blake Edwards quoted in Jean-François Hauduroy, “Sophisticated Naturalism: Interview with Blake Edwards,” Cahiers du Cinéma in English 3 (1966). “With that film we became grownups…” Judith Crist to SW on January 30, 2009.
Jazz: Henry Mancini’s autobiography, Did They Mention the Music? (Cooper Square Press, 1989), written with Gene Lees, lays out Mancini’s biographical and artistic orientation quite clearly, and along with conversations I had with Lees himself, considerably advanced my sense of the subject and his place in the history of motion picture music. Where there were gaps, the facts of Mancini’s involvement in Breakfast at Tiffany’s were clarified for me by Richard Shepherd, who spoke of “Moon River” with a passion and conviction matched only by his love for Audrey Hepburn.
Casting: That Mel Ferrer blocked Tony Curtis from getting the part of Paul Varjak comes to this book by way of Curtis himself. In his book, American Prince (Harmony, 2008), Curtis, a longtime friend of Edwards’s, goes into slightly more detail about why he believes he was kept out of Tiffany’s. “Who knows why?” Shepherd to SW on November 24, 2009. Though he didn’t address Curtis specifically, during one of our meetings, Edwards admitted to me that George Peppard was not his first choice for the film. He did not explain why. “After coming out of the film…” Blake Edwards quoted in Stephen Michael Shearer, Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life (The University Press of Kentucky, 2006). On January 27, 2008, Patricia Neal, sitting with me in her New York apartment, told me, laughing, the story of having to dye her hair red so as to visually distinguish her from Audrey. The PR snippet about Vilallonga, dated September 19, 1960 (“He received word from Spain…”), comes by way of the Academy’s Special Collection material on Breakfast at Tiffany’s, held in its Paramount files. Edwards’s decision to cast Buddy Ebsen was typical of the director’s aptitude for finding the right talent where no one else would think to look. “Casting Buddy Ebsen as Doc Golightly…” Patricia Snell to SW on February 9, 2009. Buddy Ebsen’s memoir, The Other Side of Oz (Donovan, 1994), contains the anecdote about the champagne. Frank Inn, a legend among Hollywood animal trainers, is quoted twice in this section. The first, “I have a sitting cat, a going cat…” is from Jon Whitcomb, “On Location with,” Cosmopolitan (February 1961); the second, “He’s a real New York type cat…” is from APMAS Special Collections. Paramount Publicity, dated November 23, 1960.
Yunioshi: I was shocked too. For substantiation, turn to the Paramount Files in the Special Collections of the AMPAS Library. It’s all there in wonderful, horrible detail, and there’s more of it than I included here.
The Sound of Tulip: Did They Mention the Music? (Cooper Square Press, 1989) contains many of these details. “Marty and I believed the song…” Richard Shepherd to SW on March 13, 2009.
&nb
sp; Hubert de Givenchy Undresses Edith Head: The politics of costume design would be an utterly incomprehensible blur to me without the patient guidance of David Chierichetti, who explained the procedures of out-of-studio and out-of-country affiliations between stars and costumers, and in so doing, shed a considerable amount of light on how Edith Head would have come to be so hurt by Audrey. “The ‘Costume Supervisor’ credit…” David Chierichetti to SW on March 6, 2009. “I was sort of inadvertently thrown…” Blake quoted in Steve Garabino, “The Silver Panther Strikes Again” (New York Times Magazine, August 8, 2001).
An Octave and One: The process by which Mancini arrived at the music for “Moon River” is so well documented in the literature of the movies, it seems almost silly to source it; however, Mancini’s own account (which appears in print and on film in a number of occasions) is at its best and most thorough in Did They Mention the Music? (Cooper Square Press, 1989). “Hank brought a 78 record up to our office…” Shepherd to SW on August 24, 2009.
What Johnny Mercer Does in Bed: Deference is due to Wilfrid Sheed, whose dreamy book, The House That George Built (Random House, 2007), when paired with Alec Wilder’s bracingly technical American Popular Song (Oxford University Press, 1972), gave me what I needed to see Mercer clearly, as both artist and man. Also, without the biographies of Gene Lees (Portrait of Johnny [Pantheon, 2004]) and Philip Furia (Skylark [St. Martin’s Press, 2003]), and the tutorials of Mercer Scholar Robert Dawidoff, the Johnny Mercer file on my computer would be blank.
The Little Black Dress: My brief history of black was filtered through several sources. There are many books devoted exclusively to the LBD, but none was more useful to me, or indeed more illuminating, than the historical tour provided by Nancy MacDonnell Smith in her book The Classic Ten: The True Story of the Little Black Dress and Nine Other Fashion Favorites (Penguin, 2003). My theories about Audrey’s transgressions in black were confirmed and enhanced by two pros, Rita Riggs and Jeffrey Banks, quoted here (on February 13, 2009, and August 15, 2009, respectively), as well as Letty Cottin Pogrebin (quoted later), who saw for herself the transformation that certain women of New York underwent from poofy florals to pitch black glamour. “I was in Paris for the fittings…” Patricia Snell to SW on February 9, 2009.
6. DOING IT, OCTOBER 2, 1960–NOVEMBER 11, 1960
Fifth Avenue, Sunday, October 2, 1960, Dawn: Just about every biography of Audrey Hepburn recounts her sadness and anxiety at having to leave Sean to shoot Tiffany’s. Creating the scene was only a matter of filling in the details. Audrey’s admiration for Patricia Neal was conveyed to me by Neal herself, who told me on January 27, 2008, that Audrey often told her that she wished she had Neal’s talent, that she wanted to be her kind of actress. When I asked him, on November 5, 2009, if Audrey was as timid about acting as she was said to be in the literature about her life, Peter Bogdanovich replied, “Acting was never her favorite thing.”
The Northeast Corner of Fifty-seventh and Fifth, Hours Later: Edwards’s outfit that morning of October 2, 1960, is evident in the photographs of him taken on that day. Ever since his first days as a director, Blake was very much a turtleneck man. For other such details, consult A Splurch in the Kisser: The Movies of Blake Edwards (Wesleyan University Press, 2009). His working style, which I attempted to elicit here, is explored there in greater detail. As for Audrey’s emotional connection to Givenchy’s designs, one can find it documented just about anywhere, but the notion of the “armor of love” was passed down to me by Sean Ferrer on September 17, 2009, as was the detail about the two versions of the dress, one for walking and one for standing. “The little black dress,” he added, “is nothing more than the inner elegance of the person that wears it.”
128.54 Carats: Marty Jurow, in Marty Jurow Seein’ Stars: A Show Biz Odyssey, goes into more detail about the negotiation that won him the permission to shoot inside Tiffany’s. Information about the famous Schlumberger necklace is readily available, but I relied on Joseph Purtell’s The Tiffany Touch (Random House, 1972).
The Diamond in the Sky: The article “On Location with Jon Whitcomb, Audrey (Golightly) Hepburn,” Cosmopolitan Magazine (February 1961) furnished me with the many details and complications Planer and his crew encountered lighting and shooting the difficult scene inside Tiffany’s.
Action!: The ordeal of the 220-volt shock, as well as Blake and Audrey’s remarks from the section, appeared in Eugene Archer, “Playgirl on the Town” (New York Times, October 9, 1960).
Lunch: Richard Shepherd to SW on March 13, 2009.
George Peppard, in Method and Madness: I really wanted to give George Peppard a fair shake here, but the more I heard, the harder it became. Even Blake Edwards, who rarely utters an impolitic word, couldn’t help but intimate, on one occasion when I spoke with him, that Peppard was a source of frustration for him. Audrey saw it similarly. Her remark, “Of course, all actors have a ‘method’…,” was taken from “On Location with Jon Whitcomb, Audrey (Golightly) Hepburn,” Cosmopolitan Magazine (February 1961). Patricia Neal really cut loose with me on the subject on January 27, 2009, and March 13, 2009. All these years later, she’s still seething. Elizabeth Ashley’s observation, which I found quite illuminating, “George never was one of those actors…,” is from her book Actress: Postcards from the Road (Fawcett, 1975; with Ross Firestone). Blake Edwards’s admission, “I liked George; he was such a ham…,” is from Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life, by Stephen Michael Shearer (The University Press of Kentucky, 2006). Patricia Snell’s hypothesis, which begins “I think the problem with George…,” is from our conversation of February 9, 2009. In the midst of all this, I was comforted to find some sort of explanation. Although it doesn’t clear everything up, I hoped Peppard’s side of things would provide some healthy complexity. His story, beginning with “My whole world fell apart in one day,” is from “Behind the Scenes with Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (Screen Stories Magazine, October 1961). I should add that I had a brief conversation with Peppard’s son Brad, who was unable to offer more insight. He told me that his father was very careful about keeping his family and work lives far apart.
Audrey & Mel & Blake & Audrey: Patricia Neal’s story about Mel and Audrey, which begins “He was very tricky with her, you know…,” was taken from our interview of January 27, 2009. Edwards’s quotation, “I don’t know whether her men had a lasting effect on her career…,” comes by way of an extended riff on the subject of Audrey and her men, “Style, Elegance and Bad Luck with Men” (Newsweek, June 28, 1999), in which Edwards laments the needy side to Audrey’s disposition and explains how it accounted for her many difficult relationships. Buddy Ebsen’s description of Audrey’s working style, “No two takes are identical…,” is from his memoir, The Other Side of Oz: An Autobiography (Donovan, 1993; with Stephen Cox). Audrey’s line, “You know, I’ve had very little experience…,” came from Eugene Archer, “Playgirl on the Town” (New York Times, October 9, 1960). Finally, Edwards’s remark, “In those days, everyone fell in love with Audrey,” arrived by way of an e-mail exchange dated July 29, 2009. When I quoted Edwards’s e-mail to Robert Wolders, he chuckled. His reply, “I can assure you that there wasn’t any of that…,” came from our conversation of October 23, 2009.
Throwing a Party to Shoot a Party: “It was indicated in the screenplay…” Blake Edwards in Jean-François Hauduroy, “Sophisticated Naturalism: Interview with Blake Edwards,” Cahiers du Cinéma in English 3 (1966). The rest of the quoted material from this section came directly from my interviews from the original party people. They are Miriam Nelson (interview of February 23, 2009), Fay McKenzie (interview of February 20, 2009), Joyce Meadows (interview of February 26, 2009), and Kip King (interview March 11, 2009). And Shepherd’s loving tribute to Audrey, “Everything you have read…,” is from our conversation of March 13, 2009.
The End: Patrick McGilligan’s interview with Blake Edwards, from Backstory 4: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1970s and 1980s (University of California Press, 20
06), started me on the notion that the ending Edwards used in Breakfast at Tiffany’s was not written by George Axelrod. That the image of the cage, which Edwards uses to introduce the party scene, and was recapitulated in Fred’s famous monologue, led me to believe that Edwards hadn’t merely revised Axelrod’s scene, but had totally rewritten it. Also, many of Edwards’s later films end, like Tiffany’s, on a somewhat unconvincing note of romantic union (see A Splurch in the Kisser: The Movies of Blake Edwards [Wesleyan University Press, 2009]), so when I got the idea that the surviving ending was all Edwards, I was all but positive when I asked Blake, in an e-mail correspondence of July 29, 2009, to confirm my suspicions. He did, though somewhat reluctantly. “How the hell did you find out?” he croaked to me on the phone the next day, and added, “I didn’t want to go around telling everyone that I had written it. That wouldn’t have been nice.” Patricia Snell’s echo, “Blake shot both endings…,” is from our conversation of February 9, 2009.
The Cat in the Alley: “As a woman…” Judith Crist to SW on January 30, 2009.
The Raincoat: “Edith did the raincoat…” Patricia Snell to SW on February 9, 2009.
7. LOVING IT, 1961
One of Bennett Cerf’s Dinner Parties: Joan’s story is from Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career (Doubleday, 1997).
One of Billy Wilder’s Dinner Parties: We can see now that Blake was right to go for his ending, however unconvincing it might be. It is of a piece with the misty, wistful tone of the picture. George’s ending, though it makes more emotional sense than Edwards’s, was out of step with the conventions of the romantic comedy of the early 1960s, and as such, had to be forsaken. Both are equally right and equally wrong, but that wouldn’t keep George from harboring resentment toward Blake, especially considering his long history of getting screwed out of his own material. Pat Snell’s explanation, “What Blake did with the cocktail party…,” came from our conversation of February 9, 2009. George’s anger at the Mickey Rooney segments, “Each time he appeared I said…,” can be found in George Axelrod in Screencraft: Screenwriting (Focal Press, 2003). What Billy said to Axelrod about leaving New York is paraphrased from Backstory 3 (University of California Press, 1997). Axelrod would repeat the same conversation, with negligible variations, throughout his career.