Snakes and Ladders

by Dirk Bogarde

  For the first two or three days, while a shattered Hollywood decided what to do, Cap, Aller, Forwood and myself drove into the countryside, walked in the woods, dined nightly at Sacher and, arms linked in delight, sang our way through the spring streets of Vienna. We did not, I regret to say, behave with the respect normally reserved for sudden death, although Cap and I did at least go to the lying-in-state of our late director in the mortuary, taking flowers (one could hardly take champagne), and were about the only two to do so. But relief was short-lived. Almost as soon as Mr Vidor was freighted aboard a K.L.M. flight to Los Angeles, another flight arrived bearing a tired, but encouraging, George Cukor who arrived determined to hold the sagging epic together, bearing Osbert Sitwell’s Life of Liszt firmly clutched for us all to see in his hand. A flicker of hope dawned amidst our well-concealed despair. Perhaps Mr Cukor could make some changes in the script? Perhaps he could even read? He could do both. And did.

  Mr Cukor had dealt with the very greatest all his working life, the Barrymores, Hepburn and Tracey, Garbo, Garland and many others: he was not about to be dismayed by taking over a shipwreck with an almost, to him, unknown crew. He was a working professional from the tip of his fingers to the crown of his splendid head, and he expected and demanded no less from us. He rallied our forlorn band together swiftly; giving each one of us a private pep talk outlining the way that he would now steer our drifting barque. He was rightly appalled by my own performance, “a mincing tailor’s dummy” he cried furiously, and sent my heart soaring by the detailed ideas he had for a complete re-working of Lovable Liszt. He also, as it happened, had a total love of, and dedication to, Kate Kendall with whom he had recently worked on “Les Girls”. This slender bond of mutual love and respect was a great asset at the uneasy beginning of our partnership, and the laughter we shared together talking of Kate’s idiocies eased him into wary confidence and me into total trust.

  Under his determined authority we all began to come alive, costumes were altered to the correct period, actors re-cast where needed, sets modified, a general feeling of enthusiasm began to flow and Capucine found it possible to laugh again. The only thing he couldn’t do much about was the script, although he did manage to clear up quite a number of “Hi! Liszt … meet my friend, Schubert, he’s a pal of Chopin’s”. Which was a relief. However, none of us was under any illusion that we were making anything more than a big Hollywood standard. We just tried harder to make it work better, and Cukor was even able to make me realise that a line like “Pray for me, Mother!” was possible if you managed to believe it, and that nothing whatsoever should be done on a screen unless you made it interesting, from closing a door, crossing a room, to reading a letter. And so, finally, we ended the location work in the Cuvillies Theatre in Munich, I now weighing seven stone with bleeding fingers and eighty minutes of piano music behind me and a lasting and binding friendship with Cukor and gratitude for his teaching.

  The modest house I rented in Hollywood had a swimming pool, two eucalyptus trees and a staggering view of Los Angeles swarming across its dusty plain below. Life was more tolerable here than in the Lana Turner Suite and seemed all the better because the light was now glimmering softly at the end of the long, long tunnel. I still spent hours at the piano, but Aller often sat by the pool reading a paper in the sun, tapping his feet, and the pressure was not nearly as great as it had been before; I was working up for my final concert, the 6th Rhapsody—it had originally been cut out as being too complicated, but after the successes of the European tour it was reinstated. After that nothing bad could happen again, I felt sure. I was nearly through; the Studio were very pleased with me, it had even been said that the moment the film opened in New York, the following July they planned, I’d be a World Star, and the Coroners, whenever I met them, actually put their arms affectionately round my shoulders, and said I was doing just great, kid. Which was very comforting, knocking forty. I even allowed myself to think, for the first time, of Beel House, and wondered what the new dahlia beds which Florian and Hans had planted by the pool must look like now, since this was the first week of September. I realised wistfully that I’d not see them before the frosts came; however, maybe next year. There was always time.

  It was almost dawn when the telephone rang, that urgent, desperate sound which drags you from the deepest moment of sleep. In the dim room I groped about for the thing, heard the bell stop and Forwood’s voice from his room down the long corridor. I lay very still. In the flint sky beyond the eucalyptus trees a thin wavering thread of crimson in the east. I knew what had happened even before he had opened my door.

  “It’s Kate.” He was a silhouette.

  “When”

  “A few hours ago.”

  “I see.”

  “Leukaemia.”

  “Yes.”

  “Rex was with her.”

  “Who called?”

  “Annie Leon. She and Mike have been at the hospital with him.”

  “How good of them; good friends …”

  “She never knew …”

  “No.”

  He closed the door quietly. The crimson thread in the sky gently split and became two, then three and then a whole shimmering mass, tangled silks spilled into the sky above the hazy sprawl of the city far below. The leaves of the tree hung still, thin fingers; no point now in thinking about Beel, or dahlia beds or frost; the bright one had gone, and another day, but without her, was breaking.

  * * *

  Her death was not unexpected. For some time a small group of us, Kenny More and his wife Billie, the Goughs and others had been growing increasingly alarmed and distressed by the subtle and insidious changes in her health. One day, the summer before, playing croquet at Beel she quite suddenly collapsed and sat shivering and pinched, humped into a corner in the Out-Patients Department.

  “I’m so cold, wifey …”

  “There’s a cool wind.”

  “But it’s June.”

  “Unpredictable weather in England, darling.” I wrapped her heavy mink round her.

  She smiled wanly: “I’se sick, Miss Scarlett …”

  “I’ll get your medicine.”

  As she sipped slowly at her large glass of Guinness with a double Port, the only thing which ever seemed to bring some immediate energy back, she stared with wide troubled eyes out across the sun-flecked lawns.

  “Do you think I’ve got something dreadful, Diggie? And they won’t tell me.”

  “Balls! Of course you haven’t, don’t be such an idiot … you’ve probably got the curse or something.”

  She laughed a bit, and shook her head gently. “I’ve got something …”

  Our mounting distress was compounded by the fear that Rex did not know that something was gravely wrong. But he did know. He had known, for certain from the doctors, on that unhappy day long ago, when we had bundled her off to Los Angeles with Gladys Cooper’s Corgi and had made him scrambled eggs between the shows. He had decided then with extraordinary courage to keep the facts to himself, and that on no account was Kate ever to get the very slightest hint that her life was measured out to the very last day. It was never mentioned by any of us, and the only cause for doubt which she might have had was when the Sunday Express decided to print in a banner headline on the Entertainments page after her last important work, “Will Kay Ever Film Again?” Proving that there is always a market for private grief.

  Rex asked us to arrange a memorial service for her in Hollywood at the same time as one was held in London and New York. As a mark of respect, three major studios closed down for two hours in Hollywood so that people could attend the service in the little English church of St John’s, an extraordinary gesture of love and respect for a woman who had only ever made a single film in that Oriental city. Gladys Cooper read the eulogy, I funked it I regret to say, and George Cukor had a splendid magnolia standing by the altar, which was planted later on in the gardens of the Actors’ Home in North Hollywood as a green and flourishing memorial to a vi
vid, joyful, all too short, life.

  A few weeks later “Liszt” finally ended and I accepted to replace Montgomery Clift in a film which was to be made in Italy opposite Ava Gardner, almost immediately. I had no urgent desire, now, to return to Beel, in fact I was not even sure that I wanted to see it ever again and resolved, on the long flight over the Pole to Europe, that I would put it on the market and find somewhere else to live.

  I had only been on the Italian-Hollywood film a very few days before I realised that Mr Clift had shown remarkable sagacity in withdrawing from the production. Spanish Civil War and Gentle-Priest-Loves-Tart-With-Heart etc. We started off, mercifully free from Studio interference, in a semi-documentary style, no make-up, grainy, real—which pleased me after the theatricalities of Liszt, and Ava, burdened by the absurd label, “The World’s Most Exciting Animal”, was equally happy. Hair scraped back, skin shining, in a cheap floral dress, she made a perfect foil to my shabby cassocked Priest. For a little time we thought we could be “bucking the system”. But after the first ten days’ rushes had been viewed by an astonished, not to say shocked, Hollywood, we were ordered to re-shoot and gloss everything up. Ava was bundled into a wardrobe by Fontana and I was tidied up generally. The title “La Sposa Bella” was suddenly altered to “Temptation” and finally, incomprehensibly, to “The Angel Wore Red”. We spent a considerable time freezing to death in a Catania slum. Nunnally Johnson, our gentle director, grew sadder by the day, and finally Ava and I lost heart and threw in the sponge helplessly; you couldn’t buck the system. As far as I know the film never even got a showing on television. Our attempt at realism had angered the bosses who wanted passion and sacrifice in blazing Madrid and our desperate attempts at a compromise failed miserably. However, we were handsomely paid, because of all the retakes they kept on insisting upon, and Christmas found me finally released from the burden, exhausted, but moderately rich, in Rome.

  I decided to have an enormous family Christmas to obliterate at least some of the disappointments which had enabled me to afford such a gesture. My father and mother flew in from London; Capucine and my gentlemanly agent, Charles Feldman, of whom she was exceptionally fond, flew in from Los Angeles; Glynis, ever loyal, came all the way from Sydney where she was filming; and her son Gareth came from Prep School with Irene Howard as a chaperone. It was a splendid family effort. Turkey, holly, mistletoe, presents galore, and the loyal toast proposed by my father at the end of dinner. Afterwards we all went on to a night club and danced until four in the morning. Kate, we all felt, would have approved enormously.

  “Well! Would you believe it!” said my father when we all arrived back at the Hassler. “The bar is still open. I think we should have just a little night cap after such a strenuous day.”

  Charlie Feldman, Forwood and I, led by my determined father, headed for the empty bar, leaving the women to go on up to bed.

  “A most successful Christmas, I think,” said my father chucking a log on to the dying embers of the fire. He raised his glass towards me: “I drink to your continued success, my dear.”

  “Depends what you mean by success, but thank you.”

  “Well … twelve years must count for something, surely?”

  “Quantity rather than Quality. I’ve made thirty films and a lot of money.”

  “You’ve made more money than I have ever seen in my life. I brought you all up on two thousand five hundred pounds a year. I never earned more. On The Times one is supposed to have private means, only I didn’t; it was a struggle but I think it was a success in the end.”

  “But, Pa, you had personal satisfaction from your work, didn’t you?”

  “Of course!” he looked surprised. “Don’t you?”

  “Not much. I’ve done an awful lot of junk over the years; and this last year has been even worse. They may be successful in terms of money at the box office, but they don’t actually fulfil anyone much, apart from the producers.”

  “I think,” said Charles, “that he’s kicking against entertainment movies. But that’s what the cinema was invented for, you know. To entertain.”

  “And what do you think they should do?” said my father, stretching in his chair.

  “Disturb, educate, illuminate.”

  My father snorted cheerfully. “We get quite enough of that in the newspapers and things. I like a good flick. I don’t think I want to be disturbed, as you call it; but perhaps that’s a question of age. I must say I like a good comedy you know; Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Will Hay, that sort of thing. Don’t you think that people should have a laugh sometimes? You sound very worthy to me”

  “No, of course I do! I’d love to make a good comedy; Cukor, Billy Wilder, Lubitsch, Robert Hamer. I enjoyed the ‘Doctor’ films, but there isn’t much scope in England for sophisticated comedy nowadays.”

  “Oh well. That doesn’t go down very well in Uckfield or Burgess Hill, I’m afraid. Your people must know what they’re up to surely?”

  “Anyway I have a nasty feeling that it is all going to change quite soon; the kind of films I’ve been making are going to be swept away by television and by people like Bill Haley and Elvis Presley. There is a new audience on the way, and not for the stuff I make.”

  “You do sound depressed! And after such a splendid day!”

  “Look; if these two epics fail, which I personally think they will, then I am in serious trouble. They are old-fashioned movies, I don’t believe that the kids, as they call them, will give a tuppenny damn about them. I think that my days of success, as you call it, are numbered. It’s been a good innings; but if I don’t catch the trolley I’m for it.”

  My father looked very bewildered indeed. “Tote!” he said to Forwood, his eyebrows raised in disbelief. “Is that really so? You’re his Manager, what does he mean?”

  “What he means,” said Forwood slowly and carefully, “I think, is that he has never given a great performance in a great film; good ones in bad films, excellent ones in medium ones, poor ones in appalling ones, but never a spell-binding, commanding performance in anything. He’s worked hard, is highly competent, sometimes interesting, often watchable, but really nothing more than a very successful film star; and he wants more, and feels that he can be more. But the subjects haven’t been there; the climate isn’t right yet. But it is changing, and when it comes he is frightened that he may not be able to convince the new directors that he is anything more than just a pretty face … and perhaps he’s not … do you follow me?”

  “No,” said my father shortly. “It sounds quite like one of his reports from school: not very encouraging. But in spite of that he has made something of his life, isn’t being a successful film star enough?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well … I think you’re all taking it much too seriously. It’s been a very successful time, I’d have said. I don’t know what anyone could possibly want more.” He set his glass carefully on the table and got to his feet. He leant down and kissed the top of my worried head. “It’s been a splendid time, splendid day too; I’m off to bed now. As far as Mother and I are concerned we are very proud of you, and I think that you have been a very lucky fellow indeed.”

  I watched him thread his way carefully across the empty bar; suddenly he stopped and patted his pocket. “My key isn’t on the table, is it?”

  “Mother’s got it.”

  “Of course! You’ve really made me quite muddled.” He went on towards the lift.

  * * *

  A cat ran hurriedly down the Spanish Steps, shadowy, deserted under the pale lamps. The wind was soft and cool, traffic lights winked red, amber, green unheeded on the empty Via Sistina, below me a giant Christmas tree shimmered and rustled in the hush before morning, the golden star at its peak, nodding and swaying gently. A star. How could I explain it to him? No wonder he was muddled, I was as muddled myself. I now lived in an alien world, as unlikely and unfamiliar to him, and the rest of my family, as a walk on Mars. A world in which all the standards an
d beliefs we had been brought up to respect as right and honourable were almost completely redundant and which, if one did try to observe them, tripped you up more often than they ever secured you.

  “It’s rude to point!” Lally used to say, rude to stare, to laugh or to comment on someone else’s appearance or disabilities, at all times and with no allowable exceptions; it was right and proper to consider other people’s feelings above one’s own no matter what. This we had had drummed into us from the very earliest days, and it was so ingrained in me that it came as a major shock to discover on my rise towards the giddy elevation to the canopy of the Odeon, Leicester Square, that these rules did not, seemingly, apply to public property like politicians, jockeys, footballers, boxers, murderers, the entire Royal Family and its appendages, and above all to film stars. We, I understood fairly quickly, were immune from any form of respect, like the clown who gets water squirted in his face, or the polar bear in a tutu dancing in the ring to a whip. By placing ourselves from choice, apparently, in the glare of the spotlight we had automatically forfeited our privacy and, for the most part, our lives. We belonged to the mass just as much as their three-piece suite belonged to them, and were treated, for the most part, with the same easy familiarity. Stage actors, one gathered, were a little more distant, due perhaps to the saving distance between audience and player created by the proscenium arch. The cinema, however, threw you right into their laps, and hopefully, for some, their arms. The intimacy of the close-up destroyed any possible illusion of apartness, and only the excessive riches one was supposed to accrue—yachts, servants, swimming pools and mansions—made one in any way different. In fact they merely created something more desirable, desirable because, in fact, deeply concealed beneath the cosy owning was a constant longing for the unattainable. The Dream.

  It had never at any time remotely occurred to me that one day I might become part of the Dream, that for a number of years in fact I would be the Dream. It was the last thing I had wanted, and the last thing that my father, or the family, could come to terms with.