by Sam Wasson
Mancini Is Ready to Score: Mancini’s autobiography, Did They Mention the Music?, was indispensable here, as was The Sixties, Paul Monaco’s volume in the History of the American Cinema (University of California, 2001). There is simply no way to write about Hollywood without consulting this series. Audrey’s letter to Mancini can be found online at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bcash/music.html.
That Fucking Song: As I state in the book, there are many versions of this story, and most of them credit Audrey with saving “Moon River.” In my conversations with Richard Shepherd, I was sure to remind him of this, and he was sure to confirm that he was the one to stand up and speak out. Fay McKenzie’s anecdote about Mel Ferrer, “After the preview…,” came from our conversation of February 20, 2009. Richard Shepherd’s summary, “The song had been an issue for Rackin…,” is from March 13, 2009. The quote of Mancini’s version of that meeting, “Audrey shot right up out of her chair…,” was taken from Warren Harris’s Audrey Hepburn: A Biography (Simon & Schuster, 1994)
The Kook: The kook stuff was everywhere. “Let’s face it now, what is a ‘kook’?” from the AMPAS Library’s Paramount Publicity Files, October 26, 1960. “When you publicize this unusual role…” from “Behind the Scenes with Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Screen Stories (October 1961). “If you’re an Audrey Hepburn fan…” from Photoplay (July 1961). “Since Miss Audrey Hepburn has never played…” from the AMPAS Library’s Paramount Publicity Files, September 13, 1960.
The Poster: Robert McGinnis interview with SW on August 5, 2009.
What the Critics Thought: For an authoritative listing of reviews of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, consult David Hofstede, Audrey Hepburn: A Bio-bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1994). Weiller’s notice in the New York Times from October 6, 1961; Variety’s review from October 5, 1961; Brendan Gill’s glorious New Yorker review from October 16, 1961; and Penelope Gilliatt’s review can be found in her book, Unholy Fools (Viking, New York: 1973). Irving Mandell’s letter to columnist Hazel Flynn, which includes “The Tiffany picture is the worst of the year…,” comes from Hollywood Citizen-News, February 20, 1962.
Working Girl: Letty Cottin Pogrebin interview with SW on March 6, 2009.
One of Swifty Lazar’s Dinner Parties: “Sometime after the movie came out…” Patricia Snell to SW on February 9, 2009. “The book was really rather bitter…” quoted in an interview with Eric Norden, Playboy (March 1968). Capote’s lament, “Oh, God, just everything…” from Conversations with Capote (New American Library, 1985). “Truman was strongly opposed to the screenplay,” Richard Shepherd to SW on March 13, 2009..
One of Akira Kurosawa’s Dinner Parties: The incredibly funny, incredibly sad story about Kurosawa, beginning “When I was an agent at CMA…,” came from my conversation with Shepherd on March 13, 2009. Mickey Rooney’s feelings about playing Mr. Yunioshi have been paraphrased from a remark he made in Bruce Calvert, “Racism in Reel Life” (Sacramento Bee, September 9, 2008), after what was to be a free outdoor screening of Breakfast at Tiffany’s was canceled on account of anti-Yunioshi protests. Ratatouille was screened instead, which, given the chance, I would have protested. Blake Edwards has apologized—publicly, on various editions of the Breakfast at Tiffany’s DVD—for casting Rooney in the part.
Letty Cottin Pogrebin Goes All the Way: Letty Cottin Pogrebin to SW on March 6, 2009.
The Envelope Please: In Did They Mention The Music? Mancini describes the events leading up to his Oscar acceptances. He and Johnny Mercer’s dialogue was pulled verbatim from the telecast of April 9, 1962. The transcript from the Thirty-fourth Academy Awards can be found at the AMPAS Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles.
The End of the Romantic Comedy: For more specifics on how Audrey overcame her concerns about Two for the Road and finally accepted the role, consult Dancing on the Ceiling: Stanley Donen and His Movies (Knopf, 1996). “I must confess to having been uncertain about taking on the role,” Audrey writes in her introduction to the book, “but it was Stanley who, through sheer persistence, convinced me to accept it. Freddie Raphael had done a brilliant script, perhaps one that was slightly ahead of its time. It was extremely sophisticated, both in its exploration of the various stages of the man’s and woman’s infatuation with one another and in the way the story played itself out backward and forward in time.”
8. WANTING MORE, THE 1960S
The Beginning of the Romantic Comedy: “The Audrey I saw during the making of this film…” Stanley Donen quoted in Ian Woodward, Audrey Hepburn (St. Martin’s Press, 1984). “Audrey’s the one who asked for the divorce” from Lina Das, “Another Audrey,” Mail on Sunday (London), November 7, 1999. Judith Crist, New York World Journal Tribune, April 28, 1967. Richard Schickel, Life, May 12, 1967.
The First Ms.: Letty Cottin Pogrebin to SW on March 6, 2009.
Adieu Edith: The story about Edith and Audrey’s encounter in the commissary is well told in David Chierichetti’s Edith Head. Rita Riggs’s anecdote, beginning “When Gulf + Western bought Paramount,” is from our conversation of February 13, 2009.
Truman’s Swan Song: Sally Bedell Smith’s In All His Glory: The Life & Times of William S. Paley and the Birth of Modern Broadcasting features what could very likely be the best biographical material that will ever be written about Babe and catalogues her reaction to “La Côte Basque, 1965” in exquisite and painful detail. Naturally, Gerald Clarke’s Capote tells the same story from Truman’s side, and contains, on its final page, a record of his last words.
About the Author
SAM WASSON studied film at Wesleyan University and the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He is the author of A Splurch in the Kisser: The Movies of Blake Edwards, and the forthcoming Paul on Mazursky. He lives in Los Angeles.
www.samwasson.com
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
ALSO BY SAM WASSON
A SPLURCH IN THE KISSER: THE MOVIES OF BLAKE EDWARDS
Credits
Jacket design by Mumtaz Mustafa
Jacket photograph © Paramount Pictures / Photofest
Copyright
Grateful acknowledgment is given to the following sources for photographs in this book: Allied Artists Pictures, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Photofest, and Richard Shepherd.
FIFTH AVENUE, 5 A.M. Copyright © 2010 by Sam Wasson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wasson, Sam.
Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the dawn of the modern woman / Sam Wasson.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-06-177415-7
1. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Motion picture) 2. Hepburn, Audrey, 1929–1993. I. Title.
PN1997.B7228W37 2010
791.43'72—dc22
2009052439
* * *
ePub Edition © MAY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-200013-2
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900
Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
/> HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com