The two of them now came to Christopher to discuss their ideas about the play. Speed, of course, did most of the talking and assumed credit, without actually claiming it, for all the ideas. Of these, I remember only two—one of them truly daring and symbolic in the best theatrical sense, the other minor but amusing. Christopher was amazed when he heard them. He hadn’t been taking the Lamkin–Field collaboration seriously; now he was forced to respect it and encourage it.
The major idea was as follows:
When the curtain rises, Christopher is discovered in his Berlin room. It is a narrow set occupying only the front part of the stage. From behind the wall at the back of this set we hear the sounds of a large noisy party. They annoy Christopher, who is trying to work. Then Sally, whom he hasn’t met before, comes in, introduces herself as the party giver and his next-door neighbor and asks if he can lend her any glasses. Christopher is quickly charmed out of his hostility. They are joined by some of Sally’s friends. Christopher is given drinks. Then Sally points out that her room and his room are actually the halves of one big room which has been divided by a somewhat flimsy partition wall. There’d be more space for them all to dance, she says, if they could have the whole room as it originally was. Christopher is getting drunk by this time and he declares that he’ll tear the wall down. Sally and her guests volunteer to help him and they start to do so as the curtain falls.
In the next scene, Christopher wakes out of a drunken sleep to find that the wall is down; nothing is left of it but a pile of rubble. Sally lies in her bed on the other side of the big room. Christopher is horrified at first, then amused. Sally tells him that they’re both going to be much happier this way and Christopher accepts the fact that he is now irrevocably involved in Sally’s life.
The minor idea was that at some point well along in the first act, after Sally and most of the other important characters have been introduced and a dialogue between several of them is in progress, there is a knock on the door. Christopher crosses to it and opens it. A girl stands there. We haven’t seen her before. Christopher looks embarrassed. “Look,” he tells her, “I’m terribly busy. In fact, I’m going to be busy for quite a while. I’ll give you a call, as soon as I can.” The girl nods and turns sadly away. Christopher shuts the door. “Who was that?” Sally asks. “Oh—that’s my girlfriend.” “But, Chris, I never knew you had a girlfriend! Why didn’t you tell me? You’re so mysterious. You never tell me anything about yourself.” Christopher smiles: “I’ve never had a chance to. You’ve been telling me about yourself ever since we met!” Throughout the rest of the play, the girl never reappears. She isn’t even referred to.
Tennessee Williams and Frank Merlo had arrived in town and were staying at the Bel Air Hotel, because Tennessee was polishing the script of A Streetcar Named Desire which was about to start shooting, with Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh. Christopher saw Tennessee and Frank several times—they came by for drinks on September 17, they gave a party at their hotel on the 21st, Frank Merlo went with Christopher to visit Caskey at the Santa Ana jail on the 23rd, they came by for drinks again on the 24th, they gave a supper on the 26th which included Kazan, Brando, William Saroyan and Christopher. The next day, Christopher drove them to the airport. This was a visit of which I have very happy memories. Tennessee and Frank were at their best. The party at the hotel was wildly lavish, because Tennessee had contracted with the studio to do this polishing job for expenses only. The studio probably ended by regretting its bargain. Not only did the drinks flow in torrents but each guest was urged to take whole cases of liquor away with him.
Christopher also enjoyed meeting Brando, although his first impressions were bad. Brando seemed to Christopher to be just another young ham giving himself airs. He was talking about Vivien Leigh, with whom he’d spent the whole afternoon, waiting to be called onto the set for a take. And now he gravely announced: “I don’t think she’s very sincere.” This was too much for Christopher. “My God, Mr. Brando,” he exclaimed, “how sincere do you think you’ll be, when you’ve been in this business as long as she has?!” But, to Christopher’s surprise and pleasure, Brando wasn’t either offended or crushed. He grinned at Christopher appreciatively, as much as to say, “Good for you—we understand each other!” What Christopher understood at that moment—or thought he did—was that Brando was capable of high camp and that most of his public behavior was probably camping. As for Brando’s private behavior and his private self, I’m no wiser about that now than Christopher was then; I’ve never gotten even a glimpse.
Brando did confer a mark of his favor upon Christopher—or maybe it was merely a test. A few days later, Christopher returned home to find Brando sitting in the living room with a girl; they were eating sandwiches they had made from food in Christopher’s kitchen and drinking his beer. Christopher was astonished but also flattered by this bold act of intimacy, and he did everything to make them feel at home. But the visit wasn’t repeated, and it was quite a long time before he saw Brando again.
On October 3 and again on October 6, Christopher went with James Agee to John Huston’s ranch in the San Fernando Valley where Huston was directing The Red Badge of Courage for MGM. On the 6th, Frank Taylor and Donald Pell came along too. Audie Murphy was starring in the picture. Christopher got to say only a few words to Murphy but watched him a lot of the time. Murphy fascinated Christopher, not only because he was still boyishly attractive but because he appeared to be such a mixed-up and potentially dangerous character. Christopher liked to imagine that Murphy had won all his decorations for bravery as the result of his fury and shame at being The Prettiest Boy in Texas. No doubt his buddies had kidded him about his baby face, and Murphy, being too small to lick them, had gone into action and killed every German within sight. But this, and the subsequent honors, hadn’t made him feel any better, apparently; for he was still amazingly aggressive. Whenever he wasn’t actually in front of the camera, he kept playing practical jokes on his fellow actors. These jokes weren’t fun, they were full of hostility and the object of them, clearly, was to provoke their victims to fight. Since Murphy was The Star, and also smaller, the other actors were unwilling to tangle with him; but he usually managed to annoy them into doing so. When they did, Murphy fought back in deadly earnest. His face was grim, and he looked capable of pulling a knife. Most people seemed a bit afraid of him. Christopher got the impression that he was thoroughly unpopular.
John Huston was Murphy’s opposite—large, charming, popular, relaxed. (He was also a far greater and deadlier monster than Murphy could ever be.) On this picture, Huston was so relaxed that he actually sat chatting with Christopher under a tree while his assistant director shot one of the battle scenes.
Everybody agreed that he was wonderful with the actors, especially the bit players. Christopher himself witnessed an impressive demonstration of his patience with one of them—I have probably got the circumstances of the script story wrong here, but this is what happened: The troops have just succeeded in driving the enemy from a position on a wooded hill. They are feeling very pleased with themselves, especially those of them who have been in action for the first time. And then a soldier comes out of the woods. He is dazed and shaken. They tell him that he just missed the battle. He answers that the real battle was on the other side of the hill. They are amazed and disappointed.
When Huston directed the first take of this scene, everything went well until the actor who played the soldier appeared. He blew up on his line. Huston told him not to worry, to take his time. They shot the scene right through again. Again the actor blew up. He apologized profusely. Huston said never mind, they had the whole morning. He suggested a simplified version of the line. The actor assured Huston that he could do it. He was trembling and sweating. He blew up for the third time. Huston remained imperturbable. They did a fourth take. The actor managed to get the line out correctly, though in a strangled, unnatural voice. Huston put an arm around his shoulder and led him away, soothing him as though he were a f
rightened horse.
As an expert horseman, Huston had a specially close relationship with the stunt riders on the picture. They were extra eager to please him. Christopher was standing at Huston’s side, near to the camera, when one man had to mime being shot dead at full gallop. The cameraman had drawn a smallish circle with a stick in the dirt, only a few yards away from where they were standing; this was where the stunt rider’s body was to hit the ground. It was a breathtaking performance. Christopher had to restrain himself with a conscious effort of will from instinctively jumping aside as the horse came thundering toward them. Then Huston gave the signal. The rider registered the impact of the imaginary bullet and rose in the stirrups, clutching himself; his well-trained horse swerved to avoid the camera. The rider crashed from the saddle and landed with stunning force—only just outside the circle. The next instant, he had jumped to his feet, breathless and apologetic: “Sorry, Mr. Huston—it won’t happen again—I slipped!”36
In addition to Audie Murphy, there was another famous war veteran acting in the picture: Bill Mauldin the cartoonist. Like Murphy, Mauldin was still boyishly cute, in a charming monkeyish way. Unlike Murphy—perhaps because he had never had to be a hero—he was relaxed and friendly. He spent most of his free time with his wife. When he was looking for her, after a take, he wandered around exclaiming, in a theatrical southern accent, “Where’s ma bride?”
Christopher watched a big scene in which Murphy and Mauldin were in the center of the front line during an attack. The whole area over which they were to advance was mined with small explosive charges wired for detonation. It was the assistant director’s job to see that these explosions occurred as near as possible to the actors without injuring them. (If you were right on top of an explosion you could get burned.) When the cameras started to turn, Murphy and Mauldin, with the caution of seasoned soldiers, advanced very slowly, keeping their distance from the mini-mines which were bursting ahead of them. The nearest extras on either side naturally followed their example. But, meanwhile, the extras out on the wings—not near enough to the stars to realize what they were doing and aware only that they themselves were attacking under the eye of John Huston—rushed forward recklessly. So the front line became an in-curving crescent. This annoyed the assistant director. He yelled to the center to catch up. Murphy and Mauldin ignored him. The assistant director was obliged to detonate charges immediately behind the two of them, as near as he dared, to get them running.
(The memory of this absurd situation didn’t prevent Christopher from being moved deeply and shedding tears when he saw the photographed and edited scene, long afterwards, on the screen.)
Jim Agee, big, handsome, sentimentally alcoholic, terribly anxious to be liked, was around most of the time. He made a hero of Huston and eagerly, indeed desperately, tried to keep up with Huston in any activity or amusement which he proposed. It was said that Huston would be the death of Agee, who had a weak heart and a poor constitution generally; Huston was always getting him to come riding or play tennis or sit up drinking half the night. Actually he didn’t die until 1955.
Also present at the filming during Christopher’s visits was Lillian Ross, a journalist on the staff of The New Yorker who had come out to California to cover the production of the picture. Christopher was already strongly prejudiced against her because of the profile of Hemingway she had written for her magazine, earlier that year. Rereading it now (March 1974), I find it only mildly distasteful—it was an early specimen of a style of journalism to which I have since then become accustomed. Lillian Ross, in her preface to the profile when it was published in book form, says that, “I attempted to set down only what I had seen and heard, and not to comment on the facts or express any opinions or pass any judgements. . . . I liked Hemingway exactly as he was, and I’m content if my Profile caught him exactly as he was during those two days in New York.”[37] What Ross means by catching Hemingway exactly as he was is that she has attempted an absolutely faithful reproduction of Hemingway’s dialogue, gestures and physical appearance. But the written word is inadequate if you try to use it in this way—writing is impressionistic, subjective, conceptual—and the effect that Ross was trying for can only be achieved with a movie camera. What I get from her profile now is boredom, irritation. Everything she tells about Hemingway is irrelevant. She never comes near him. But Christopher, reading it in 1950, felt that Hemingway was being sneered at and cheapened by a creature of the New York gutter.
He was therefore coldly polite to Ross when he met her. Ross melted him somewhat by her intelligence and considerable charm but he didn’t altogether relent, even when he found that she was one of his fans and had brought a book of his to be signed. He wrote in it, “For Lillian Ross, on condition that she never writes about me.” This startled, hurt and also intrigued her. Later they talked about many things and got along well together. But she kept returning to the subject of the profile and defending herself energetically. Finally, at a party given by Tim Durant on October 8, Christopher got drunk and condemned her in the words of the St. Matthew Gospel: “. . . it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!”[38] They parted as fairly good friends, however.
On October 21, after visiting Caskey at the Santa Ana jail, Christopher drove with Donald Pell to stay at the AJC Ranch (I imagine John van Druten must have been there, though the day-to-day diary doesn’t say so); the next day, they visited the mud pots on the Salton Sea (these are described in Down There on a Visit) and returned to Los Angeles via Julian and Mount Palomar. Christopher was taking Donald Pell around with him quite a lot, just then, so I suppose he must have found him an amusing companion. But I remember nothing that Donald did or said. The only incident which remains with me from their trip happened on the road to Lake Elsinore, en route for the AJC Ranch. A dead sidewinder was lying across the road. Christopher stopped the car, got out and was about to pick the snake up by the tail and toss it into the ditch—chiefly to impress Donald, who was timid. But now another car stopped and a young man and a girl got out. The young man—probably wanting to impress her—picked up the sidewinder by its neck, squeezed its poison glands so that the poison squirted out onto the road, then produced a pocket knife and removed its fangs from its jaw, wiping them clean on his pants leg, then put the fangs into his billfold, remarked to Christopher and Donald, “They bring good luck,” got back into his car followed by the shuddering girl, and drove away.
The Sadler’s Wells Ballet was then in town. Christopher went to see it on October 19, with Iris Tree and Ivan and Natasha Moffat. On the 23rd, Moira Shearer, Freddy Ashton, Alexis Rassine and Moira’s husband, Ludovic Kennedy, came to see Christopher, and then they all went to a party given for the ballet by the van Leydens. I think this was the season the ballet did The Sleeping Beauty, in which Freddy played the Wicked Fairy in marvellous drag. He was carried onto the stage in a sedan chair, by two dancers dressed as mice. Freddy told Christopher that it never mattered how drunk he was—as soon as the mice had helped him out of the chair and onto his feet, he could always get through his dance. If he fell down, the audience loved it and laughed all the harder. And, if he showed signs of passing out altogether, the mice would simply bundle him back into the chair and remove him. Freddy was a wonderfully happy person. He loved his life.
On October 27, Caskey was released from the Santa Ana jail. Christopher drove down there and brought him home.
Two days later, Christopher became ill. He was sick in bed for seven days—from October 30 through November 5 (when Swami visited him). At that period of his life, prolonged illness was very unusual for Christopher—so unusual that I suspect a psychosomatic cause. Was Christopher trying either to punish Caskey for his past behavior or to appeal for sympathy to Caskey’s nanny persona? Maybe both. I can’t now even remember what his physical symptoms were, but I think one of them was a numbness in the legs. John van Druten had suffered from a similar numbness and had been told by his doctor that he had “senile
polio”—that is to say, a variety of polio which only afflicts elderly people and is never severe enough to cause paralysis. Christopher was a copycat with regard to his friends’ ailments. Later on, he used to reproduce Jo Masselink’s.
Before taking to his bed, Christopher had seen Dr. Kolisch on October 24, and Kolisch came to see him again on November 1. It may have been on one of these occasions that Kolisch gave Christopher the most memorable piece of medical advice he has ever received: “You have the kind of constitution which is capable of simulating every species of pathological condition. So I would urge you, never consult a doctor again, as long as you live. It will only be necessary once—and then it will be too late.”
On November 7 and again on November 10—after spending another day in bed in between—Christopher went househunting with Caskey. I suppose that Mrs. Strasberg had refused to renew the lease of 333 East Rustic Road. Evidently they didn’t like any of the houses they saw in the Santa Monica area. I can’t remember how it came about that they decided, later that same month, to leave Los Angeles altogether and settle in Laguna Beach. On November 25, they drove down to Laguna and were shown houses by Alan Walker, a friend of theirs, who was a real estate agent. I think they must have made up their minds about one of them, that same day—for they signed a lease on it three days later.
Lost Years Page 43