Still Me

by Christopher Reeve

  I finished the year and then returned to the Loeb in Cambridge to play Macheath in The Threepenny Opera. This time Elliot Norton was less impressed. He wrote that an otherwise “masterful” performance was ruined by the fact that I had no singing voice.

  I had planned to return to Juilliard, but Tris was having a hard time financially. He was responsible for eight children, and I learned from my mother that it would have been a hardship for him to continue to put me through school.

  Before the summer I had auditioned for a soap opera called Love of Life. In those days I’d try out for everything just for the practice. I was offered the part of Ben Harper, a charismatic “bad boy.” I spoke to Houseman over the summer, trying to work out an arrangement that would allow me to do the soap opera and finish my second year at Juilliard at the same time.

  The producers of the soap opera had originally promised that I would perform only a couple of days a week, and that I would always be finished by one o’clock. Houseman reluctantly agreed to this arrangement because he understood it was a financial necessity. I started working at CBS in late July 1974. By mid-August my character had become very popular. Soon the ratings began to go up, and the brass attributed it to Ben Harper.

  Ben was the tennis pro at the local country club, but this was only a cover. He arranged kickbacks for the mayor’s office, had a scheme to extort a half million dollars from his mother, and was married to two women at the same time. One wife was Betsy, the wholesome girl next door; the other was a low-rent pickup named Arlene, whom Ben had married on an impulse in Las Vegas. Most of my scenes involved hopping from one bed to the other and trying to keep Arlene hidden away. She, of course, wanted to cause as much trouble as possible and to drag me away from my cozy, affluent hometown.

  Ben with his two wives in Love of Life.

  The role of Ben Harper marked the end of my anonymity, because soap opera stars have huge followings. Guys on the bus would always say, “Man, that Arlene, she’s hot. You go for her. Don’t you be going with that Betsy; she’s square. But that Arlene, whew, she’s hot. You make it with her, man, you got it.” But the women I met would usually say, “It’s really a shame what you’re doing.” And I wanted to say, “Hey, I don’t write this stuff.”

  But people get very involved in these soaps. In late August I was driving down Route 93 in New Hampshire and pulled into a service station to have an ice cream cone. I was sitting on the hood of my car when suddenly a woman came over, took a vicious swipe at me with her handbag, and screamed, “How dare you treat your mother that way!” There was no opening line, no “I’ve seen your show,” just whap! I decided to take it as a compliment.

  As the ratings went up the producers began to write more scenes for Ben and his wives. I reminded them of our initial understanding, but they pointed out that there was nothing in writing about limiting my appearances. I felt they had reneged on a promise but had to admit I was having fun. I was making a living and becoming well known.

  Another benefit of the soap opera was that I was learning to act in front of a camera. I was fairly comfortable when the director pulled the camera back for a wide shot, but whenever he moved it in for a close-up, I became very self-conscious. Sometimes the lens was only a few feet away, and I found it almost impossible to concentrate. Close-ups are essential because they let the audience know what the character is thinking and feeling; unfortunately, they also reveal any tension or uncertainty in the actor. Although I still had a lot to learn, and much of my work was barely acceptable, after a few weeks I began to relax and enjoy it. Many of my fellow actors see a soap opera as the modern equivalent of the old-fashioned touring companies: the material isn’t great, so you’ve got to make something of it, and you’ve got to work very quickly.

  A lot of talented people were alumni of Love of Life: Warren Beatty, Jocelyn Brando (Marlon’s sister), and Bonnie Bedelia, among others. If it was good enough for them, it was certainly good enough for me. And the $250 a day was unbelievable.

  Finally the soap opera schedule forced me to drop out of Juilliard. This gave me enough time to try out for plays around town—Off and Off-Off Broadway. I took acting classes at the HB Studios, performed at the Theater for the New City, and starred in a limited run of Berkeley Square, a romantic piece from the twenties that became a surprise hit.

  It took a lot of energy, but then I had a lot of energy. I was only twenty-one; I lived alone in a fourth-floor walk-up on West Eighty-third Street near the park, and was now making almost a thousand dollars a week. Some of this went into the bank, but I spent the rest on enjoying the city and getting my pilot’s license.

  Love of Life was “live on tape,” which meant we didn’t stop unless somebody really screwed up. Gradually I became less self-conscious and developed my technique in front of the camera. If I simply concentrated on the other actor and the action of the scene and didn’t care whether it was being filmed, the result was the ease and naturalness I always hoped to achieve.

  On a typical day we had to learn nearly twenty-five pages of dialogue. Before long I discovered that if I wasn’t absolutely certain of the lines, my performance was more spontaneous and less “presentational.” The actors I admire most make you feel that anything could happen. I found that unpredictability draws the audience in. I didn’t mean to be subversive; I was always careful to give the other actors the right cues. But as I experimented with an improvisational approach, my work improved. Soon I started to learn my lines on the bus on the way to the studio in the morning. I found I was able to absorb twenty-five pages of the script in about half an hour. By eleven o’clock I was ready for the taping, but I tried not to “freeze” my performance, so that there would be room for new and unexpected moments as we filmed.

  I never lost touch with the theater. At the Theater for the New City, we did a very interesting play by Jacques Levy called Berchtesgaden, about the goings-on at Hitler’s summer retreat. I played a young officer in the Elite Guard at the compound.

  If this young man had grown up in Iowa, he might have been a 4-H Club-er or a varsity swimmer; but he grew up in Nuremberg in the 1930s. In several monologues he talks about Hitler’s vision for the country—that he will turn the economy around, pull Germany out of the Depression, and restore national pride and unity.

  The play was superbly directed by Elia Kazan’s wife, Barbara Loden. She asked me to play the character calmly and rationally. She said, “You look like a Nazi. So when you come out and talk about opportunity and pride and speak warmly and simply to the audience, it will be all the more chilling.”

  Her advice has helped me in many parts over the years. Remembering what she told me, I underplayed Superman. I was six feet four, strong, and physically imposing; so I played against that, making him as casual as possible, letting the audience sense an implied power. Contradictions are always more interesting than playing the part “on the nose.”

  The proud young Nazi in Berchtesgaden.

  Barbara was a mentor to me. She was really my first coach, and she helped me steer around clichés. When she died of cancer at a young age, I was devastated.

  In the fall of 1975 I had the opportunity to audition for A Matter of Gravity, a new play by Enid Bagnold starring Katharine Hepburn. The second lead was the part of her grandson. Every white male actor between twenty-five and thirty-five wanted to try out for it. Much to her credit, Miss Hepburn read nearly two hundred of them. The auditions were held at the Edison Theater on Forty-seventh Street. I walked out onstage to find the producer Robert Whitehead, his casting director, and Miss Hepburn herself sitting somewhere out in the dark. I had to read with the stage manager, who couldn’t have been more pleasant but was not one of the greatest actors I’ve ever come across. I was extremely nervous. This would be a highly visible Broadway production, because Hepburn onstage after a twenty-year absence was big news.

  Once again I knew I needed to gain control of the situation. I was going to face Katharine Hepburn in the dark, which is an intimi
dating experience. (Katharine Hepburn in the light is also intimidating.) So before I began, I called out into the darkness, “Miss Hepburn, I would like to bring you greetings from my grandmother Beatrice Lamb; I believe you were classmates at Bryn Mawr.” There was a long pause. Then out of the darkness came the reply, “Oh, Bea. I never could stand her.”

  Now I had two choices: disappear or go to work. I fought to regain control after the Bryn Mawr setback. I started to direct the stage manager and to move furniture around. He was stunned. He’d been sitting in a chair all day feeding lines to potential grandsons, and now I was asking him to be a proper scene partner. My aggressiveness forced him out of his complacency, and my nervousness dissipated. I knew the words, felt comfortable in the space, and managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. As I was walking out, that famous voice called to me from the dark: “Rehearsals begin September seventeenth.”

  Stark was blown away. This was unheard of. I felt relieved that doing the soap opera and leaving Juilliard had not “ruined” me, as some of my teachers had predicted.

  But now I faced a huge logistical problem. I was cast in A Matter of Gravity in September 1975, but my contract with Love of Life ran until July 1976. I had already had to give up my final year at Juilliard because of the soap opera contract. How would I be able to rehearse and play in the Hepburn production in tryout cities from Toronto to Washington and still hop from bedroom to bedroom as Ben Harper?

  By begging. I went first to our producers and then all the way up the line to Darryl Hickman (brother of Dwayne Hickman, aka Dobie Gillis), the head of daytime drama at CBS. The Love of Life cast—especially my two wives—was very supportive. Any one of them would have fought tooth and nail if given a similar opportunity. The CBS brass, however, were unmoved. What was a Broadway play compared with a hit show on their network? I explained my problem to Miss Hepburn, who immediately called Darryl Hickman and shredded him into small pieces. By the end of the day I had two jobs and soon was racing back and forth between the Love of Life studio and rehearsals for the play at a Broadway theater.

  From September 1975 through June 1976 I had to manage both. After a month of rehearsals we opened in Philadelphia, then went on to Washington, New Haven, Boston, and Toronto before coming to New York. Most days I would catch a train to New York at 6:00 A.M., learn my lines on the way, tape scenes from several episodes, then travel back in time for the evening performance out of town. Occasionally we would tape Love of Life on Sundays as well, which was my only day off from the play. I rarely had time for meals and lived mostly on candy bars and coffee. But I had just turned twenty-two and thought I could handle it all because I had unlimited reserves of energy.

  One highly melodramatic moment in New Haven proved me wrong. I’d finished a day of taping in New York. I’d been up since five, filmed all my scenes by three-thirty, caught the train back to New Haven, and arrived at the theater by seven-fifteen, ready to go on at eight o’clock.

  My first entrance in the play had been generously set up by Hepburn: she was downstage left as I entered through the French doors center stage. In the first act my character, Nicky, a student at Oxford, occasionally comes home to visit his grandmother for the weekend, and they’re always delighted to see each other. The direction called for me to burst through the French doors calling out, “Grandma!” then cross down left to embrace her. On this particular evening I burst through the French doors, managed to call out “Grandma!” and passed out cold. I bounced off a nearby table as I went down on the floor.

  Hepburn turned to the audience and said, “This boy’s a goddamn fool. He doesn’t eat enough red meat.” She had the curtain brought down, and after a moment I came to. I was then helped to my dressing room and the understudy went on. I had to lie there listening to him go through the entire performance. I was checked out by a doctor, who told me I was suffering from exhaustion and malnutrition. I promised him that I would take better care of myself and assured everybody that I could still do the show. On the way to her dressing room, Hepburn stuck her head in the door and said, “You’re just goddamn lucky you’re a little bit better than he is.”

  I think that she cared about me, and for that I’ll always be grateful. She invested so much time in me, always pushing me to do more. Hepburn never expressed affection in a direct, loving manner, but she always brought us things from her summer home on the Connecticut shore. She’d pass around strawberries, tomatoes, and corn and say to me, “You’re going to be a big star, Christopher, and support me in my old age.” And I’d say, “I can’t wait that long.” She even forgave me for collapsing onstage.

  I adored her, but she scared the pants off me most of the time. On a good day, though, I could stand up to her, which I think she respected. I believe I was fairly close to what a child or grandchild might have been to her. A gossip column in the Boston papers even suggested that we were having an affair. She was sixty seven and I was twenty-two, but I thought that was quite an honor.

  She was always a fantasy figure to me. When we were rehearsing in New York, I would go to see her old films, like Alice Adams, Bringing Up Baby, or Holiday, at art houses around the city. As I watched her on the screen, I knew that if I’d been an eligible bachelor back in the thirties, I would have done anything to meet her. Then at work the next morning she was sixty-seven again, sometimes crotchety, and always unpredictable.

  For many years after the play closed, she would invite me for tea, and I would send her my latest news along with pictures of my kids. Once I ran into her at Lincoln Center, where Robin Williams and Steve Martin were doing Waiting for Godot. At this point I hadn’t seen her for quite a while. I came down and stood in the row below her during intermission. I was about to say. “Hi, Kate, nice to see you,” but she preempted me with “Oh, Christopher, you’ve gotten fat.” She had a knack of throwing people off balance; she was a master of the unexpected.

  In the fall of 1984, when I was in Hungary on Anna Karenina, my friend Steve Lawson was staying in my apartment. He, too, experienced the unexpected when the phone rang and it was Kate calling. At first he wondered what friend was doing such a good impersonation. Finally she convinced him she was Katharine Hepburn and asked, “Where’s Christopher?” Steve replied, “Oh, he’s overseas.” Then she said, “Tell him I’m calling to say he was absolutely marvelous in The Bostonians. He was absolutely captivating.” Steve quickly wrote down this extravagant praise. Then she asked, “What’s he doing now?” Steve told her that I was in Budapest shooting Anna Karenina with Jackie Bisset. To which Hepburn responded, “Oh, that’s a terrible mistake. He shouldn’t be doing that. Goodbye.” You’re up one minute and down the next.

  As Vronsky in Anna Karenina with Jackie Bisset.

  When we were doing A Matter of Gravity, my father took a huge shine to Kate. And she thought he was just the most charming, the most intelligent, the most attractive man she’d met in a long time. He was teaching at Yale and lived nearby in Higganum, so it was easy for him to come to the performances. When I think about it, they’re quite similar, Kate and my father. Two perfectionists: loving, charismatic, charming, and able to undercut you in a second.

  But I have such wonderful memories of what she could do onstage. In Act 2 of A Matter of Gravity, Nicky has decided to marry a young girl who’s half black and half white. They plan to move to Jamaica; the grandmother thinks he’s throwing his life away. The two of them are alone, just before he leaves. Then she says, “You are my last piece of magic. I have so loved my portrait in your heart.” Nine actresses out of ten would say that directly to the grandson, with tenderness and poignancy. Hepburn played it straight out front, never looking at me, to underscore her disappointment and to indicate that she no longer respects him. There was nothing left for me to do; I had to walk off in silence. At that point, at most performances, she broke down, suddenly realizing that wasn’t how she had wanted it to end. Sometimes she would move upstage toward the door wanting to call Nicky back, to embrace him one la
st time. But it was too late. It was a completely original and surprising way to play the scene.

  The farewell scene.

  Hepburn often used to say to me, “Be fascinating, Christopher, be fascinating.” I used to think: That’s easy for you to do; the rest of us have to work at it. But over the course of rehearsals, the out-of-town tryout, and the Broadway run, I learned that she was talking about unpredictability, about revealing the contradictions. She told me that if you’re playing a character who’s usually drunk, you have to find moments of complete sobriety in order to add dimension to the role. Not even a chronic alcoholic is drunk all the time. And she talked about how important it is to bring your own life experience to the work. She once said, “You are already real; the character is fiction. The audience must see your reality through the fiction.”

  As I studied her acting it seemed that she was always Katharine Hepburn and the character at the same time. Over the years I had the good fortune to perform with other brilliant actors who work the same way, like Paul Scofield, Vanessa Redgrave, Gene Hackman, and Morgan Freeman. Gene Hackman, for example, never goes to great lengths to change his outward appearance for a role; instead he transforms himself inside. In spite of your initial awareness of seeing the familiar Gene Hackman appear on the screen, you quickly accept him as whatever character he is playing because his work is so truthful. In Gravity I had the privilege of spending nine months working with one of the masters of the craft.

  When we opened in New York, Kate got the bulk of the reviews, and I was favorably mentioned. The Times said that our scenes were the best, although the play itself didn’t make much sense. The reviewer wrote that when Enid Bagnold tired of a character she sent him offstage for no good reason, but that it was great to see Hepburn in person and that I showed promise.