At a little table facing us sat Archie, Bob Downing, the stage manager, and a stocky, ruggedly built man in his fifties with dark penetrating eyes and a mass of thick hair growing almost to a point on top of his head. He had not yet spoken, but already he radiated an electric tension of such voltage the whole building seemed to vibrate from it. So this is Elia Kazan, I said to myself! There sits the current most powerful world influence in theatre and film; the man who gave us Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller at their best, who changed America’s identity by creating two major folk images—the sullen, angry rebel symbolized by Brando and a new kind of phenomenon, a young man with a brain who dared stand up to his elders and challenge convention in the person of James Dean. Whether intentional or not, Kazan had succeeded in inducting these two monstrous forces into American mythology, cementing forever this country’s obsession with youth.
“Mornin’ Gadge.” Some of the stagehands and carpenters—the pride of the Union—had gathered around to do obeisance. “Mornin’ boys,” he jovially snapped back, passing around oversized Cuban cigars. This would become a weekly ritual. Mumbling their gratitude, the “boys” retreated into the darkness. There was no doubt who was the Godfather around here. With a single gesture from Kazan, Archie began to read the play in that light soothing voice of his and we were soon lost under its spell.
J.B., when it first played at Yale some months before, had been rated by Atkinson of The New York Times as “the greatest play of the century.” It wasn’t, nor would it ever be, but the presentation by Gadge, the amazing set by Boris Aronson and the intensely felt performances made it seem more than worthy and lent it a borrowed majesty that concealed its weaknesses. It offered considerable theatricality and there was some occasional noble language, but Archie the playwright could never match Archie the poet. It was almost a foregone conclusion we would be a hit in spite of a crippling newspaper strike on the opening night in New York. For the mystique of a Kazan production plus the fact that the theme was Biblical and that God, Job and the Devil were in the cast, overawed a certain segment of the press when they finally did review us and we sold out solidly for over a year.
Elia Kazan was certainly the very greatest director of tragic drama I have ever worked with. Having charged through the Group Theatre days as a character performer of exceptional power, he spoke the actor’s language, understood our foibles, found our Achilles’ in a flash, thus cutting through all the baloney and coming straight to the point. Uncannily, he would uncover layer upon layer of depths within us till we stood before the public naked as plucked chickens. Sex, racial intolerance, politics and human sacrifice were the passions that ruled his work, that drove his life and he was relentless in his pursuit of them.
My role of Nickles, the young actor who would be taken over by Nicodemus himself, was in my view the best-written part in the play. Devils are always more interesting than angels and Archie obviously had the most fun writing this character:
NICKLES: I heard upon his dry dung heap
That man cry out who cannot sleep:
“If God is God, He is not good,
If God is good, He is not God;
Take the even, take the odd—”
I also had the most terrific time rehearsing my Nickles. I was so anxious to show Kazan I could be as “Methody” as the next guy that I overdid everything in rehearsals, going way over the top, working far too hard. One day, he shouted at me, “Relax! For Chrissake, relax! Sixty percent, Chris! Sixty percent.” With great relief I realized he could be as technical as anyone else. I once asked him who the most exciting actor was he’d ever directed, spurred on by the faint hope it might be me. I should have known he would answer “Marlon Brando.” Through gritted teeth I asked him why. “Because I never knew what he was going to do next. Whenever he picked up an object from a table I was sure at any moment he might throw it at me.”
Gadge was a bundle of energy; he was everywhere at once and the air about him was always charged. If you really caught fire during a rehearsal he would run down from the stalls, jump up onto the stage and like a basketball or hockey coach, stand right in front of you and yell, “That’s it. Come on! You’ve got it! Come on, kid. Come on!” He also had a diabolical method of playing one actor off another to get the desired effect—defying discretion to provoke confrontation. To get more anger out of Massey in East of Eden, he had goaded James Dean into hurling insults at him from off camera. It worked—but at what price?!
Archie, Alfred De Liagre, Jr., and Elia Kazan
Gadge, however, could be conciliatory and ingratiating if the urge took him. At rehearsals, Raymond as Zuss (Zeus) sat in the little God-box Boris had designed for him high above stage level, patiently waiting for his scenes to come up. Gadge, with a slight smirk in his voice and an overembellished politesse, would call out: “You all right there, Ray? Send Mr. Massey a chair and some water up to his crow’s nest. Sit down, Ray—relax—be with you in a minute.” Yet he always demanded more of himself than anyone else. I once caught him all alone on the darkened stage sitting cross-legged on Job’s sack cloth quietly playing the role for himself in order to give Pat Hingle some fresh ideas. He was clearly chief cook and bottle-washer; that’s how he liked it and that’s how it was going to be.
His complex Central European background (part Armenian, part everything else) made him several different people at once—all things to all men. Elia Kazan was a taut spring—a fuse. By turning an invisible knob he could make your blood pressure rise and fall at will. If you weren’t careful, this chameleon of chameleons might change into you, wear your skin and if you let him, like the real Nickles, steal your soul.
Ray Massey, me and Pat Hingle
“Tell the little Turk to be more polite,” Ray Massey rumbled into his beard as he left a rehearsal one day. Andy, the stage doorman, an old ex-vaudevillian, called out after him, “Oh yeah, shooah, Mr. Massey, no sweat. I’ll be da foist ta tell him—da foist!”
WEST FIFTY-SECOND STREET—third time at the ANTA Playhouse—my home for a year!
“I sit in one of the dives/On Fifty-second Street …,” wrote W. H. Auden,
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play.
It was as if Auden’s ghost had bequeathed the street to MacLeish—one poetic legacy to another:
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
Well, we may not have been exactly good little boys and girls, but we were certainly happy; and, far from afraid, we relished the nights that good Ol’ street would offer us. There was Roseland for ballroom dancing, La Scala for food (Arthur Miller’s and Ezio Pinza’s favorite), Confucius for drinks and light Chinese, a great after-show pickup joint; then Jilly’s right across from our stage door—Sinatra’s bar, run by his dogsbody Jilly himself and inhabited mostly by dear old Andy our stage doorman, who once played piano for Jimmy Durante. Whenever Ol’ Blue Eyes turned up, tension reigned. At any moment he might order Jilly to eject some poor innocent whose face he hadn’t particularly taken to. Fifty-second below Eighth had one or two excellent French bistros and above Broadway it continued eastward in lively fashion all the way up to the “21” Club.
One of the “observers” on the production who also assisted Kazan was a young James Baldwin, whose book Giovanni’s Room had made him famous as a pioneer for many black causes. James hung out with all of us. He was witty, delightfully angry, clever as paint and great company. We didn’t have to travel far to have fun—it was right there on our street. Gypsy had just opened on one side of us and around the corner on the other West Side Story. We had a collective ball with “above the salters” Jule Styne (who was always so good to me), his best girl Sandra Church, who created the role of Gypsy, and Steve Sondheim, who had been a classmate of Tammy’s at Stephens. And a
ll those girls!
Confucius was jumping with them. I occasionally dated one of the chorines from Gypsy, who was so tall I had to climb onto a chair to kiss her. I made good friends with Lee Becker, delectably small and athletic—she was a regular companion; Lee, a superb dancer, assisted Jerome Robbins on his West Side choreography and originated the role of Anybody’s. She literally bubbled with humour and talent.
One night at Confucius, my favorite of Ty Powers’s rejects turned up, the sinewy blonde Slav with whom I had once shared quelques moments de passion. She had broken up her European marriage and was suggesting that we revive our relationship of old. Tempting though it was, I am relieved I didn’t take her up on it, for as I later learned, my lovely friend of the smooth unblemished skin, innocent eyes and soft Slavic tongue was, to put it quite simply, a shark. From a fairly tender age she had run two very successful high-priced prostitution networks, one in New York, the other in Chicago. She herself had been a prostitute and a madam and had nearly killed a certain young president’s campaign election chances by threatening to expose their torrid affair. Think what I’d have learned if I’d stuck around. She certainly could have taught Mata Hari a thing or two.
AFTER WE HAD OPENED J.B., Kazan began rehearsals for Tennessee Williams’s new play Sweet Bird of Youth. Just before their out-of-town opening they held their last full run-through without costumes at the New Amsterdam Roof. Gadge invited our entire cast. Also in attendance that afternoon were most of theatre’s top brass—the usual suspects—Josh Logan, Helen Hayes, the Lunts, Lee Strasberg, Cheryl Crawford, Lillian Hellman, Ruth Gordon, Garson Kanin, etc., etc. Not a large group but mighty potent. Gadge got up and announced that they would have to wait to begin because Tennessee had not yet arrived. “Tennessee, as you know, has his own rhythm,” he quipped, not without edge.
Finally, it began. The exceptional cast included Paul Newman, Rip Torn, Sidney Blackmer, my Montreal friend Madeleine Sherwood and, of course, Geraldine Page in the leading role of Princess. They were each in his or her own right first class, but that afternoon belonged to Geraldine, for before our lucky eyes we were watching her, for the first time, discover her own performance. Gerry was flying! God knows Tennessee was a marvellous writer and there was fine writing in this, but Gerry lifted the whole thing to another level—she was transcendent! When it was over you could hear a pin drop. We were not just transfixed; we had been seduced.
Gradually we pulled ourselves together and began to shuffle out. No one spoke. Just then from the balcony in that rasping voice of his, Tennessee started shouting. I couldn’t quite make out his gist but it seemed to convey that we had all just witnessed the total destruction of Sweet Bird of Youth, and it was all Gerry’s fault. Gerry was the sole culprit. “She’s ruined mah play! She’s ruined mah play,” he kept yelling. He must be drunk, I thought, or ill. No one seemed to take much notice, or pretended not to, and as Gadge passed me in the aisle I tugged at his sleeve. “What’s the matter with Tennessee?” I asked. “My God! It’s been such a glorious afternoon.” “Oh, don’t worry,” Gadge replied, “she’s just taken his play away from him. It’s hers now—it doesn’t belong to him anymore and he knows it.”
AFTER A J. B. PERFORMANCE one evening I wandered into Michael’s Pub on the East Side to have a late snack and watch George Shearing make magic on the Ol’ “Joanna.” A lady seated at one of the tables called out, “Oh, Mr. Plummer, I have a message for you.” It was Viola Rubber, the famous agent-cum-entrepreneuse who managed only the elite such as Bette Davis or Greta Garbo. She cut a very domineering and imposing figure in her mannish suit and close-cropped pepper and salt hair. “I ran into Diana Barrymore the other day and she wants to see you. She has something to ask you.”
Now I hadn’t set eyes on Diana for over ten years; I had only followed her sad antics and disastrous public exhibitions in the tabloids. Gruesome photos of her, bloated with drink, fighting in the street with her numerous undesirable male friends, appeared every once in a while on the back pages of the sleazier rags. Rumour had it that she was wiped out—dead broke. She had asked for help from her aunt Ethel, who refused even to see her. It was a tough question, but I had to ask it, “How is she, Miss Rubber?” I said, expecting the worst. “Oh, she’s absolutely come around; didn’t you know? She looks wonderful and hasn’t touched a drop in months. She’s clean—a complete cure. Here’s her number.” Reassured, I called Diana and we made a date. Miss Rubber was right. She looked absolutely wonderful—slim, trim, tanned—the same darkly sexy girl I had met there many years ago, only she looked even better, even younger. After a few laughs (she never lost her humour) she became uncharacteristically shy, leaned forward and whispered, “I want you to do the biggest favour for me. I want you to persuade Mr. Kazan, whom I don’t know, to let me audition for Geraldine’s part for the National Tour of Sweet Bird. I want that part so bad! I’m right for it; I know it. And besides, I’ve already learned every word of it.” I looked at her. All her usual theatricality had vanished and she was suddenly very honest and very real. Yes, she would be quite wonderful as Princess, I thought. She has all the right fire and passion. And it is scarily close to her own life. It could bring her a whole new career, give her some dignity again and some pride. “I can’t wait to ask Gadge,” I said; “I’m so excited.” The radiance came back into her cheeks, and at that moment she looked positively beautiful.
Two nights later I saw Gadge and told him the story. “Oh, not a Barrymore,” he said. “Preserve me, not a Barrymore. That’s all I need!” “But Gadge, she’s kicked the habit; she looks terrific and she’ll work like a Trojan, I know it. And she really needs it. It’ll save her life. Please see her—please!” I could tell his heart wasn’t in it, but he agreed to let her audition. I called a jubilant Diana and the appointment was arranged. Several weeks went by and I’d just about forgotten the whole thing when one night Gadge wandered in for his monthly “look” at the show and we went out for a drink afterwards. “By the way, did Diana Barrymore ever audition for you?” I asked. “No,” Gadge replied. “No?” I repeated incredulously. “Oh, she turned up all right. She was on time and all that,” continued Gadge, “but she was so goddamn drunk they had to help her out of the theatre.” My heart was in my mouth. I wanted to cry or be sick, but I couldn’t do either because I was in shock. Poor darling Diana. She must have been so frightened. It had meant too much. She’d just taken one for Dutch courage and that was it—she was right back on it. A couple of months later, she was dead in her early forties.
J. B. RAN ON INTERMINABLY. It’s all very well to be in a hit, one should be grateful, but—please—there is a limit! The first six months go by fairly speedily, but the next six are like pulling teeth from a dinosaur, and they begin to infect the mind. Strange things started occurring. I was standing in the wings one night whispering to Bob Downing, our stage manager, and noticed that nothing was happening on the stage. It was as if the play had stopped dead—no one was speaking. I muttered to Bob, “What the hell’s going on out there? What’s with that endless pause? Why is everybody standing around doing nothing?” “They’re waiting for you,” Bob replied and pushed me on.
In the Bible poor Job endures the longest, most miserable bout of suffering imaginable. As a result, to put it mildly, he is not a bundle of laughs. MacLeish’s Job is an even longer role than the Good Book’s and the burden of playing him over and over was taking its toll on Pat Hingle. During a matinée as I, the Devil, curse Job, pointing a menacing finger at the pathetic creature huddled in his rags, I happened to look down—no Job in sight! I had been cursing a perfectly clean, empty stage! Pat, taking his rags with him, had rolled off it, straight into the audience. I must have looked pretty stupid standing there with egg all over my face, but was momentarily saved when two hands suddenly appeared, grabbing hold of the apron, and Pat, sheepishly, climbed back on.
Two things happened to relieve the monotony. I bought myself a neat little Jaguar convertible sports and Windows Hale jo
ined our jaded company as the new ASM. This head Boy Scout in charge of light entertainment was much needed to brighten things up. Jason Robards was just down the street in The Disenchanted with Rosemary Harris and his dad the Admiral in the cast, so Windows, Jimmy Olson and I would roll down there of an evening, pick him up and do the town. As well as actors, the Disenchanted cast also included a collection of very appetizing-looking society girls hired as extras to give the play an authentic Scott Fitzgerald look.
One such socialite who became my close friend was a statuesque, handsomely structured figure of a woman called Dorothea. She had an entrancing smile and her prematurely greyish-white hair, which was closely cropped, had a stunning effect on the natural beauty of her face. When she spoke it was in low musical tones, but because she was by nature shy, she didn’t speak too often—she just looked wonderful and laughed a lot. Dorothea loved a good time more than anyone. I can’t forget the image of her perched on the hood of my Jag—a noble figurehead on a ship’s bow, sweater rolled up, magnificently bare-chested, laughing into the night wind as we drove hell for leather down New York’s one-way streets in the wrong direction.
The Disenchanted was playing at the Cort Theatre. Many a night we sat in Jason’s room discussing battle plans. Unanimously we agreed that if we systematically destroyed our separate theatres we wouldn’t have to show up anymore. Whether it was to pay homage to the wild rip-roaring twenties of the Fitzgerald era or whether we were just simply Disenchanted with our lot remains a mystery, but we started with Jason’s dressing room. Windows, Jason, Dorothea and myself, reviving the old “get rid of the ugly furniture” gag, one by one we passed pieces out the window onto the street below—I believe we also did the same with the carpet. It was, of course, a most satisfying experience, everyone doing his part, except Dorothea who just stood there laughing. When the room was finally emptied of everything but the bare walls, Windows for tradition’s sake helped lower us one by one through the window and, grateful for a good job done, we groped our way down the street and into the night. I’m positive the old management is still looking for us.
In Spite of Myself: A Memoir Page 32