by Anne Edwards
Just before the Baltimore Railroad scene (“Don’t Rain on My Parade”), we inserted one with the Ziegfeld Follies’ great black star, Bert Williams, pointing up the harsh racism that existed at that time (Williams was not allowed into the same railway car as the rest of the Follies’ cast, although he was one of its major stars). We thought Fanny would be wobbly and funny dancing on roller skates (Jule had a new song that we could use) and that it would emphasize how far she would go to be a funny girl, and replaced one of the show numbers with it. Having the jail scene first seemed to work—as it added the suspense of wondering when “the shoe would drop” and the honeymoon would be over. When this happened, near the end of our version, there were harsh accusations on both sides. Then came the final in-performance scene of Fanny singing the great torch song, “My Man,” that had been her signature song in real life. As the song was composed by Maurice Yvain, not Jule Styne, rights had to be secured, an extra cost Stark was not keen to incur.
Writing of the script extended over a lengthy period with Sidney traveling back and forth from Cannes (and in one instance in my going there for several weeks). When we finished the first draft, Sidney flew alone to New York with it to confer with Ray Stark. Their meetings were rife with differences. Calls from Sidney in the first few days of his meetings became lengthy story conferences. He wrote me two extensive letters, both six pages long and written in minuscule script on onionskin paper. I had to use a magnifying glass to read them. “This is a new one on me,” he wrote, “having story conferences across an ocean. How are you holding up? I’m fighting for what I believe could be a good movie. . . . Never in all my years as a screenwriter have I known a player to have the control that has been given to Mrs. Gould [Streisand]. . . . I can’t even talk about Isobel’s sudden interference. She has become an alcoholic and Johnny, too [Isobel’s husband]. . . . Take my notes that follow and see what you can do about incorporating them into the script.”2
Sidney was back in London a week later, and we worked on the script every day for about a month. A revised draft was completed on November 7 and sent air express to the agent in New York.3 The good news was that William Wyler was being positioned as director. Willie had never made a musical and so Herbert Ross would be brought in to direct the performance scenes. We trusted in Willie’s story integrity. Ray Stark, I’m sure, had chosen him for his other strength. Willie worked wonders with his female stars: Bette Davis in Jezebel and The Little Foxes, Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights, Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver, Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress, and Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. It seemed that if anyone could handle the willful Streisand in her first movie, Wyler was the man to do it (he was known during standoffs with Davis, a most difficult star, to turn off his hearing aid and wait until her mouth had stop moving before patting her on the shoulder and then turning it back on).
The bad news was that Stark wanted further changes that Sidney felt would compromise the story. He left Cannes and flew to New York. After several contentious sessions with Stark, Frances present at one, Sidney rang me in London.
“It’s impossible! Frances insists on having Fanny [her mother] air-blown into an unblemished heroine with no culpability for the breakup of her marriage. I’m told Streisand hates our script because Nicky Arnstein’s role has been too expanded. She has the power of veto, something I would never have given to one of our tried-and-true stars at Columbia.”
“What do you want to do, Sidney?” I asked.
“If you agree, bow out. Let them hire another writer or writers.”
This was Sidney’s call. I had no choice but to agree.
Isobel was called back in. I have no knowledge of how much she actually contributed to the final rewrite. Willie later told Leon that other writers had been involved but never revealed who they were. In the end, she received sole credit for the adaptation of the screenplay from her play. Sidney said he had accepted these terms as 1) he doubted that much of our original material in our screenplay would be used as Stark was planning to return to the story line of the play script (although some of the characters—Georgia for one—and a few of the scenes we had contributed remained) and 2) Stark was willing to pay us the full price that the agent had originally negotiated (money that I certainly needed). With Funny Girl, Barbra Streisand proved that she was a star and could carry a film. Her performance and her singing were outstanding. Also, although unanticipated, she had a memorable, exotic beauty that shone when the lights and the camera were exactly right. However, the screenplay was no better than the play script, the love story trite, the character of Nicky Arnstein, hollow, more a model for a shirt ad than a brought-to-life portrait of a man. Streisand shared an Oscar for Best Actress with Katharine Hepburn. Her stardom was assured.
Willie Wyler took the brunt of the bad reviews for the script which, one critic wrote, caused the film to be “the nadir of his great career.” Within the industry, his status was not impaired. William Wyler in his long career had won three Oscars for Best Director, and had many more nominations. (In 1976 he would be awarded the Life Achievement Award by the American Film Institute, where he was lauded as having “made films of lasting value with a frequency virtually unmatched by his contemporaries.”)
To William Wyler’s credit, Funny Girl (although more credit might be due to Streisand’s knockout performance) has lasted. Whatever the failings of the screenplay (and I have no way of being assured that ours would have fared better), he directed a young, unlikely woman in a performance that benefited greatly from his experience and artistry and brought to the screen a radiant new star who might well have been a miss, not a hit, under a less talented and less patient man.
As soon as we were off the script, I settled down in Klosters for a lengthy stay. I had a completed my first draft of The Survivors. Now I wanted to go back and do some diligent editing. Within no time my characters began to take over my life. Some days I rose at dawn, so beautiful in any season in Switzerland, the surrounding mountains protecting the small villages, the air always fresh—and went to bed with the moon high and bright in the dark, night sky—without ever bothering to dress or undress. This was a good thing for me, but not for Leon, who was working in London and had little time left over to join me in Klosters. Our telephone calls were not always pleasant. My fault, I fear. I just could not agree to spend more time in the flat on Lennox Gardens at a time when I was writing on my own and would have to be there alone for long periods of time.
Notes
1. As a curious personal addendum to this historical happening, the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, was tangentially related. My mother’s former sister-in-law (my aunt Mary, married first to her youngest brother, Albert) had remarried Lyndon Johnson’s brother Samuel Houston Johnson and so was the sister-in-law to the new president. During my youth and first marriage, I had spent many years in Texas (Alice, San Antonio, and had attended Southern Methodist University). Mary had been a close ally as I went through many vicissitudes. We remained close until her death in 2006. President Johnson made her the American counsel in Geneva at a time when the children and I lived part-time in Switzerland. She was a remarkable woman. At the age of ninety-one she went back to university for a PhD. She sadly passed away a year short of receiving it.
2. Letter from Sidney Buchman to Anne Edwards, Anne Edwards Archives, UCLA Special Collections, Young Research Library.
3. Copies of both of these Sidney Buchman/Anne Edwards drafts of the screenplay of Funny Girl, dated September 26, 1966, and November 7, 1966, are in the William Wyler Archives, UCLA Performing Arts Library and at the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. An additional copy is also in the Anne Edwards Archive, UCLA Special Collections, Young Research Library.
• 11 •
Hollywood Calling
My revised manuscript of The Survivors was ready for submission. The next step was to find a literary agent to represent it. As the novel was set in England, and as I was presently in London,
a local agent appeared to be the most logical choice. On the recommendation of Alan Sillitoe, author of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (both made into films), and his wife, the poet Ruth Fainlight, I sent my manuscript to the attention of Mr. Hilary Rubinstein of A. P. Watt Ltd.—an old, reliable literary agency known for their prestigious list of writers, past and present. Three weeks later Mr. Rubinstein rang and asked if we could meet. As he had not been forthcoming, I could not help asking, “Did you like the book?”
“Oh, yes!” he replied with much enthusiasm. As he was only the second person to read the novel, Leon being the first, I felt greatly relieved. “Shall we meet for lunch?” he asked.
“I never have liked the rattle of dishes during a discussion,” I replied. “Why not come to my flat?” We set the time and day and I gave him the address.
“I hope it isn’t rude of me,” he said, “but until we spoke, I thought you were British.”
“I’m American,” I replied. “And I consider that a compliment.”
“Amazing! You’ve got it just right! The voices and the tone. I was certain you were English or of English background, before we spoke.”
His British voice, filled with youthful animation, was educated but not of the “old chap” variety. On the agreed date, he rang the front doorbell not a minute early or late. I stood at the top of the stairs and watched as he puffed and panted his way up the last flight. His so-English-schoolboy face was flushed ruddy red with the exertion. Still, he shook my hand eagerly as he entered the flat, his sun-tipped, wheat-colored hair bristling with electricity, his bright blue eyes alive with anticipation. I assumed, correctly, that he was about my age, not fond of sports unless others played them (if not true, he was certainly out of condition), and was devoted to the work that he did (it was all there in his presence and attitude). I sat him down on a dining hall chair to catch his breath (as I did most of our arriving guests) before guiding him up the last two steps to our living room.
Straightaway, no pause upon being seated, he began to discuss the book. “I believe it could be called a contemporary gothic.” A beaming smile accompanied his words. “Suspenseful, but not Daphne du Maurier, although I am sure it shall be compared as such, and absolutely not crusty old Agatha Christie. Not that either likening would be a bad thing. But your novel is fresher and meatier. Mass murder, thankfully not Jack the Ripper stalking London in a fog, a surgical knife concealed under his cloak.” He then made some insightful suggestions, phrased in a most polite manner—“You might consider . . .” “Perhaps, it would . . .” Finally, he sat back and took a deep breath. “If you wish to have A. P. Watt represent you, the company would be pleased to do so.”
He was certain he could find a publisher for the novel in Great Britain. Of course, book advances were not in the league with those paid by American publishers. But there was good reason to believe the foreign rights on the novel would do well because “suspense, crime, and gothic novels are read avidly by readers in many countries.” A. P. Watt did not solicit to the States. They did, however, often work in tandem with Curtis Brown Ltd. in New York. He thought Martha Winston of that firm would be a good choice to represent The Survivors in America.
I offered tea. “No, no, I never touch a drop before four,” he chortled. English humor. I managed a small laugh and led him back to the endless staircases and watched him take the first flights two steps at a time and then disappear around the bend on the second floor, his step sounding a bit slower as he made the next two flights to ground level.
Our next meeting, to sign an agency contract, was at the offices of A. P. Watt, which was in a great, old early-Victorian building behind the Savoy Hotel on the banks of the Thames. Hilary, glowing with pride, took me into a large back room lined with dark-wood files, the brass pulls shined to glistening. A card adhered to each drawer contained engraved names listed in alphabetical order. He pulled one drawer open. “Arthur Conan Doyle was one of our early clients,” he said, beaming, as he showed me the great writer’s name on a folder. I was much impressed. Before I left, he warned me that publishers were notoriously slow and that he would be sending a copy of the novel to Curtis Brown in New York, “where publishers don’t seem to respond any faster.” Upon receipt, Martha Winston wrote me an enthusiastic letter adding the same bromide.
About six weeks later, small suitcase in hand, I made it down the steps on my way to get into a waiting taxi to the airport to take a flight to Switzerland, and was met by the postman on my way out. He handed me the mail, which I quickly sorted through, leaving Leon’s letters on the table in the front hall and stuffing mine into my shoulder bag as I hurried out to my taxi. Not until I had settled into my seat on the plane as it prepared for takeoff did I extract the mail from my bag before I slid it under the seat in front of me. One letter caught my attention. It was from Martha Winston, Curtis Brown Ltd., New York. I immediately opened it.
Holt, Rinehart and Winston (the latter no relation to the sender) were pleased to be offering me a $5,000 advance to publish The Survivors in the United States and its territories. Would I accept the offer? I turned giddily to the gentleman strapped in beside me and shook the letter. “They want to publish my novel!” I cried. He just looked at me in puzzled wonderment. It turned out he spoke no English.
A week later, Hilary rang to say that W. H. Allen had also made me an offer for rights to publish in Great Britain and its territories. My editor was to be Jeffrey Simmons, stepson of the publisher, Mark Goulden. This meant that whatever editing had to be done could be achieved in London. I wasted no time and hurried back to begin work. My editor was about my age, a handsome man, good looking enough to be mistaken for a film actor: rather a larger-framed, Tyrone Power type, not in the least bit bookish appearing (often a clichéd concept of a literary editor). Extremely down to earth, helpful, and respectful of my manuscript, he only had me change a word here or there, and cut some redundant sentences and passages. I had already known Jeffrey’s sister, Shirley—it was she, with the German actor Hardy Kruger, who had double-dated with David Deutsch and me when I first arrived in London. Shirley, possessing coppery hair, delicate features, and a petite figure, was presently married to John Van Eysen, a leading English film agent. Along with Jeffrey and Shirley’s mother, Jane Goulden, and their stepfather, Mark Goulden, a lifelong friendship with the family was forged as it had been with Hilary Rubinstein and his wife Helge.
Amazing things happened with The Survivors while it was still in galleys in both countries. Blossom Kahn, the film representative for Curtis Brown Ltd., submitted the yet-to-be-published book to the director Alfred Hitchcock, who made a credible bid for film rights. Eventually, Richard Zanuck and David Brown, then producing at 20th Century-Fox, upped the price to an overwhelming six figures (overwhelming to me, at least!). Holt, Rinehart and Winston wanted me in the United States for the publication of the book and for a book tour to follow. Zanuck and Brown also wished to discuss the adaptation with me. It meant being in the States for a period of at least three months. This became a serious bone of contention between Leon and me. He felt I should remain in England and do what was needed to publicize the book from there. And what was I to do about Cathy?
We spoke at length about this, and Cathy decided that if I was going to the States for an extended period, that she wanted to go with me. “After all, they have schools there as well!” she reasoned, sensibly. Leon had just completed his work on the animated Beatles series. Why couldn’t we all go to the States? I asked. Maybe it was time for him to return, for he had not been back in fifteen years. True, his US passport had been taken from him. But he was a British citizen now. He need only show his current passport. He was reluctant, but we made plans for the three of us to leave and made reservations at an apartment hotel called the Croydon, in New York, where I would see my American editor and agents before starting a tour. Two weeks before departure he changed his mind. That fortnight was the most fractious of our marriag
e.
In the midst of all our back-and-forth bickering (something I deeply detest), Doris Cole Abrahams came to call. Leon had always expressed a distinct dislike for Doris, based solely on the sound of her high-pitched voice, which he found an irritant, and her perennial state of near hysteria, which he claimed unsettled him. He always asked me to meet Doris elsewhere—unless he was not home. This one time, Doris rang our bell without calling first, a clue to her state as she was always proper about such things. I told her to come on up. No sooner had she entered the apartment than she broke into sobs. Gerald wanted a divorce. He had fallen in love with another woman. Leon sequestered himself in his sound room until she had left, a bit calmer although still visibly upset.
Cathy and I, along with Sandy and another poodle, a toy-sized, likewise apricot-colored, lively little bundle that Cathy had named Biba after her favorite clothing store in London, departed for New York. Biba was trained by the same man as Sandy, but ostensibly to sell to a circus, not to perform in films. She had failed “her test” at the end of her training for, although she could do dozens of clever tricks (whirling about at a dizzy pace on her two hind legs was one), she had a mental block when put in front of an audience and refused to budge once the lights came on and there was applause. The trainer (the same gentleman who had been Sandy’s handler) called and asked if I would like to buy her. Biba immediately became part of our family.