My Lucky Stars

by Shirley Maclaine

  During the shoot I was living at the Houstonian Hotel, where I slept on the floor next to a permanently closed window they had chiseled open specially for me. Outside my window was a tree that blossomed into springtime and rustled in the wind with sweet murmurings. That tree saved my life. I will never forget it. It was real … no complicated antics bred out of God knows what. It simply was. It was a constant for me in a surrealistic illusion that was unfortunately becoming more and more my real world.

  I would often pass by Debra’s room at night and hear her crying into the telephone. I didn’t want to stop and listen. I was afraid the conversation might be about me. I was as lost as she was, but for different reasons. She told me she slept very little, but she was still beautiful every morning. Once, after a rough night, she bent over the table while we were rehearsing the dinner scene and whispered that she had a sliver of glass in her eye and needed to go to the hospital. We stopped rehearsing and I gestured for Jim. She looked up at him with such anguish, saying she couldn’t sleep and her eye was bleeding. Jim complied immediately. He was sweet and compassionate and properly sensitive to her turmoil. We went on to shoot without her.

  The next morning Jack and I were shooting our “morning after” scene in Aurora’s bedroom.

  We had had a rehearsal and after touch-ups (the heat in the low-ceilinged set was unbearable) we were ready to shoot. I got into my side of the bed, and Jack got into his. Jim climbed up behind the camera for a good vantage point and called “action.”

  I began the scene—I was on the telephone with Emma while Jack slept.

  Suddenly, under the covers, I felt a tongue on my ankle. It went up my leg and then it stopped. The setup had been so difficult for the camera crew that I didn’t want to stop the scene.

  I realized it was Debra under the covers doing what she considered sexy mischief. Apparently she was doing the same thing to Jack when she left off with me. He didn’t have any dialogue, though, and besides, he’s never been one to turn down a sexual adventure.

  The scene seemed to go on interminably. I looked up at Jim. He knew Debra was under the covers, but he kept the cameras rolling. He didn’t seem to know how to handle it.

  Finally, he called, “Cut.”

  I kicked Debra away from me. She threw back the covers and announced, “You shouldn’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.”

  She grabbed my legs and held them apart under my nightgown. Jack then mischievously pinned my arms over my head. The crew instantly became a solid unit of voyeurs led by the cameraman, who had endured the cruelty of the communist regime in Poland and must have welcomed a set with a little sexual horseplay.

  I was, by now, pinned down by Debra from below and Jack from above.

  She started with her tongue again, sliding up my leg. I looked over at Jack. He had that maniacal, devilish expression we’ve all come to know and love. Obviously he was going to play this out to the fullest extent. What the hell, he was only in for two weeks. What did he care?

  I wrestled my arm from his grip and grabbed his balls and squeezed as hard as I could.

  “Tell her to get off me,” I said sweetly, tightening my grin.

  “You heard the lady,” Jack said in a high voice. Debra let go. I kicked her away. She sat up. I slithered away from the set feeling like a schoolteacher from Pasadena.

  All night I thought about how else I could have handled what had happened. I had no way to relate to their antics, and more than anything I was embarrassed at myself. Why couldn’t I just laugh it off and allow them their good-time behavior?

  The Terms experience was rapidly becoming exactly what Jim had suggested at the outset: “coming down into the muck and mire.”

  The war stories were filtering back to the Home Office. We were falling behind the schedule. On a film, if the antics affect the schedule, budget, or potential profit, the top brass gets involved. Actors and creative people can indulge in any behavior under the sun as long as the money isn’t affected. Schedule and budget mean money. I wondered when the Paramount people would send wranglers for us crazy actors.

  I had a few days off, and was relishing some time away from the madness, when the assistant director called. “Debra’s crying,” he said. “She wants you or she can’t work. A driver will be over to get you and bring you out here.”

  When I arrived at the swimming-pool location, Debra was pacing up and down beside the pool with zinc oxide smeared on her nose. The crew and Jim stood watching. I walked up to her.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “He’s evil,” she sobbed, pointing at Jim. “He’s dancing at the end of the street and I know he’s evil for me.”

  She put her arms around me. I held her while she sobbed for over an hour. Jim didn’t come near us. I just held her and rocked her. Finally her anguish subsided. She was exhausted. A while later they finally got the scene. I went home thoroughly cross-eyed.

  That night she called me. Her monologue was all about how Jim couldn’t be trusted because of his own personal flaws. She said she was able to discern things about him that nobody else could. As she talked she wove a tapestry of convoluted, highly rococo observations and opinions of Jim, none of which seemed rooted in reality. They sounded so well thought out, though, I felt thickheaded and incapable of hanging on to my own sense of reality. I began to count the days until the film would be over, and we were only halfway through.

  WHEN JACK NICHOLSON ARRIVED BACK TO SHOOT HIS scene, he sensed there was trouble. Jack is a master of the intuitive. His nose started to twitch. He was like an animal perceiving a negative vibration—a monstrous dynamic in our midst.

  When you’ve been around our business as long as Jack had, you grasp the dynamic on the set immediately.

  I could see he didn’t like it. The crew was operating in a disjointed, fragmented way … taking too long … arguing over inane things. Jim was slightly wild-eyed, but looking for a way to use the chaos. The dynamic was insinuating itself, working its destruction.

  We were doing the kitchen scene, where Jack had pages of dialogue describing what it was like, as an astronaut, to walk on the moon. Then he noticed the camera crew was not together. The prop guy was late with the food we were supposed to eat in the scene and no one was in charge. The dynamic permeated the set as though it had a personality and an intention. It became an invisible being who was about to jeopardize Jack. Jack was up for practical jokes regardless of how bizarre, but not for the dynamic of unprofessionalism. I sat across from him, watching the buildup of an explosion. Suddenly his eyes narrowed as he did a quick sweep-of-a-look around the set. He was ready to work and they weren’t.

  “Hey,” he yelled. “Motherfucker—hey!”

  Suddenly he slammed his fists onto the top of the kitchen table with a violence that literally shook the set. The crew froze; no one moved. Everyone had been put on notice and they knew it. Then Jack collected himself. He smiled that devil smile. I could feel the dynamic slink away.

  Jack’s is not a petty temperament. When he is threatened or angry, he can be truly impressive. His repressed violence is nothing to trifle with, certainly not to be manipulated. And he’s not in the same class with those who tinker with danger, as Jim does. Jack is real danger—class-A danger—smiling danger. The kind that renders a crew paralytic. The kind that makes your blood run cold because he’s willing to pay the price. Which is what happened that morning. And from that flashing moment on, the set was reborn into a professional unit inspired to make a movie the way it should be made.

  It was a miraculous transition. God, it was wonderful. Even Debra straightened out, expending most of her hyperkinetic energy within Jack’s trailer. He called her “Buck.” I later found out Buck was short for buck and wing (Winger). He definitely knew something we didn’t know.

  Jack was without cosmetic vanity and every take was different. He was a chameleon of talent, changing his colors and his skin according to whatever occurred to him, and this evoked a spontaneity in me that
I was thrilled to feel again. Jim cackled with pleasure as he saw his characters come to life.

  Jack-Garrett teased Aurora unmercifully while she provoked every minute of it.

  There was one scene, my favorite, that ended up on the cutting-room floor. Aurora is watching Garrett topple over one of his garbage cans after a particular dizzy night with a blond bimbo. She glares at him from behind her tree. Then, as he’s lying drunk on the pavement of their adjoining driveway, she walks over to him, stands just above his head, looks down, and says, “It’s all I can do not to step on your face.”

  The scene in the water where Garrett puts his hand into Aurora’s bra had me laughing so hard I could hardly play it. I was beginning to see that the Garrett-Aurora relationship was what was going to make the picture work. And we were having fun. Was this the way it should be? I wondered how long the fun would last.

  The dailies on the picture were looking very good too. Of course, the characters Jim had written were so well drawn, I felt any good actors could have made them sing. But, maybe not. Maybe we were the only ones meant to do them. Perhaps it was worth it after all. In between setups we talked about acting. Jack told me that the way to play a drunk scene when you’re walking is to believe that the floor and every piece of furniture around you will break if you touch them. He said that withholding emotion is what moves an audience because they identify with their own inability to express their feelings. It was an acting lesson and a few weeks in the emotional sunshine. Everyone took their cues from Jack. He simply wouldn’t tolerate the dynamic of negativity that forever lurked around our perimeters.

  When Jack left, the dynamic moved in again. Debra became so hyper one night during dailies that she began running up and down the aisles, singing between reels, carrying a can of Coca-Cola with brandy in it. She plopped down next to me. The next reel began and she whispered in my ear, “Wait till you see this!” Becoming more and more agitated and gleeful over what she saw, she threw her arm over my chest and pulled hard on my right breast. I shrieked in pain, rammed her with my elbow in the stomach, and said, “Get the hell away from me.” She retreated like a wounded, manic child who has provoked discipline but is terribly hurt after receiving it. She bolted from me with aggressive tears. I felt terrible. I wished I hadn’t done it. But at least I was finally fighting down in “the muck and the mire.” Jim could no longer accuse me of being above it all.

  It was soon after I hit Debra that Jim banned me from the dailies. For me, to make a film without watching my dailies is like painting a picture with my eyes closed. When I protested, Jim said it wasn’t in my contract.

  So I took to sitting outside the projection room on a little bench, looking wistful and hoping to make Jim feel guilty. It worked, but I had to watch the dailies by myself. The crew was humiliated for me too but they knew that above-the-line talent was crazy anyway.

  What was more disturbing about the “daily” situation was what happened when it was my turn to watch. Jim would come in and sit himself on my lap and talk to me so I couldn’t see the screen, while Debra careened around the room with her brandy can. It was total madness. Then one day the Paramount brass arrived. They came to the dailies. Jim allowed me back in to watch with them. How could he have explained my sitting outside with my head hanging low and a scarf pulled around the sides of my face, purposely engendering pity?

  The Paramount people brought a dose of normality. They knew what was going on. They sat and talked to me before the lights went down, asking me how it had been to work with Billy Wilder, William Wyler, Bob Fosse, Alfred Hitchcock, and so on. The implication was clear…. Have you ever been through madness like this before? I knew Jim was listening to my answers and I could feel his rising insecurity. I tried to keep my replies circumspect.

  The dailies began. And the scene was great—Jack and me in the car, driving on the beach and ending up in the water.

  We saw many takes, and when it was over the lights came up. The Paramount guys were grinning. “Well, what did you think?” one of them asked. I couldn’t contain my excitement. I said, “I really liked what I saw.”

  As is usually the case, the brass looked to the director. Even they won’t say what they think without some assurance that it’s okay. Jim said nothing. They said nothing. Silence. Then Jim said, “So you thought they were great?”

  “Yes,” I said, sensing an ambush in the making.

  “Well,” Jim went on, “that’s why I don’t want you in the projection room.”

  The Paramount people blinked. Jim waited for my reply. I picked up my purse and walked out. I went back to the hotel, called Mort, and said they could shove the Oscar I was probably forfeiting up their asses. I was walking off the picture.

  He said, “You’re kidding.”

  I said, “Nope. I mean it. I want out. Let them get Bette Davis or Joan Crawford or somebody who can handle this. I can’t.”

  “What will you do?” he asked.

  “I’m coming home tomorrow,” I said. “First thing smokin’ I’m out of here.”

  “Do you have a call tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I answered. “So what?”

  He hesitated. “Okay, that’s good enough for me. See you tomorrow.”

  I packed, called the airport, made a reservation, and went to bed.

  Never had I walked off a picture. It wasn’t in my nature. I was thrilled I had the guts.

  I woke early, registered that I should have been on the set, and went back to sleep.

  Around nine the phone rang. It was the assistant director.

  “Where are you?” he asked. “Did you oversleep? We’re waiting for you.”

  “I know,” I answered. “I’m not coming in. Now or ever. I’m out of here.”

  I hung up.

  I puttered around, muttering words of confidence to myself.

  Half an hour later the phone rang. It was Mort.

  “Well,” he said, “the shit hit the fan. Jim is crazed. He says he understands why you feel this way. He wants you to know he has a warped sense of humor.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Are you there?” asked Mort.

  “I’m here,” I answered. “Fuck his sense of humor. I’m done.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Mort. “I told him how you felt about everything. By the way, Paramount knows how nuts this shoot is—why do you think they keep showing up? Half the crazy stuff you don’t even know about.”

  He hesitated. I hesitated.

  “By the way,” said Mort. “I told him I agreed with you. Debra doo-doo is one thing, but not letting you see the dailies is just not professional.”

  “Nothing is professional around here,” I said. “It’s amateur night in Dixie. It’s nuts. I hate it. And please don’t tell me that Jim is doing all this on purpose, to get Aurora-like reactions from me. I know that too and I don’t give a shit. I can’t stand it anymore. I have to get out of here.”

  “You’ve got to let him call you,” said Mort, “He’s begging to speak to you. He keeps saying over and over that it’s his sense of humor.”

  “Oh,” I said, “and where are the laughs supposed to come?”

  “Can he call you?” asked Mort.

  “I can’t really walk out, can I?” I asked.

  “No,” said Mort. “Not unless you’ve got ten million dollars to spend on it.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I know. But I can’t stand it. And you know how I get when I can’t stand something.”

  “I know,” he said. “But just take his call.”

  I sighed down to my toes, knowing that whatever Jim might say, the dynamics on the picture were set in motion and they wouldn’t run their course until the film was completed—if then.

  I knew how talented Jim was and basically how profoundly wise and sensitive. Yet, would I allow myself to be destroyed if I continued? It was only a movie after all. But not to Jim. It was his life.

  As I measured my feelings I tried to determine why I was wi
lling to walk away from a potentially huge success and a possible Oscar nomination. No matter what had happened, I knew the script was extraordinary. But the truth was, I was willing to walk away from something that was making me miserable. I was then, and I am now.

  However, I couldn’t argue with Mort’s assessment. The reality was I couldn’t afford to be sued.

  “Okay.” I sighed. “Tell him to call me.”

  “Listen,” said Jim, “I have a really weird and warped sense of humor. I think you’re really doing extraordinary work on this film. Your choices are brilliant and I don’t want anything to interrupt what we’re getting here. Okay?”

  “Okay?” I asked. “You don’t want anything to interrupt what we’re doing? How about a man in a white coat?”

  “Okay,” he answered. “So I’ll be seeing you soon? Okay?”

  Jesus.

  “Yeah,” I answered, vowing that I would make ten million dollars one day. That would be power. I was learning.

  The shoot continued. But not only did circumstances not improve, they got worse. In Hollywood the shadow is always darkest just before it gets darker.

  We finished our work in Houston. Then the company moved on to a New York location that didn’t include me. At least, that’s what I thought.

  It started as soon as the company arrived in Manhattan. The calls would come at six in the morning, California time. It was usually an assistant director on a cellular phone calling from the hallway outside of Debra’s room. He’d say she was terrified of the comedy to be done that day and wouldn’t go to work unless I talked through with her how to play the scene. This went on for a week.

  Sleepily I’d call her. She’d go over, word for word, her intention, her motivation, her fear that it wouldn’t work. I didn’t think I was much help, but usually our conversation somehow satisfied her. She’d hang up and tell the AD she’d be ready in a while. Soon she’d report for work—still, I’m told, uncertain of how the scenes should go. Actually I thought she had a point. I never understood the necessity of the New York portion of the story. She, in her intelligence, had picked up what I thought was the one flaw in the script and was saddled with making it work.