By Myself and Then Some

by Lauren Bacall

  My days continued to be filled with making the rounds. Broadway was alive with fantastic shows then, and stars – Gertrude Lawrence in Lady in the Dark, in which Danny Kaye had first been noticed – Paul Lukas in Watch on the Rhine – Dorothy McGuire in Claudia – Boris Karloff in Arsenic and Old Lace. I still stood outside Sardi’s at lunch trying to meet and talk to anyone who might help me. One day Paul Lukas emerged. I brazenly cornered him, of course, knowing what a marvelous actor he was. He asked me if I was an actress – I said yes – he asked me if I’d like to see his play – oh, yes, I would love it, I answered. So he asked me to come around backstage when I could, and he would get me a seat.

  One day his play had a matinee and we didn’t. I rushed to the Martin Beck Theatre, backstage to Paul Lukas’ dressing room – he remembered me, got me a seat, and asked me to come round afterward. He was staying in between shows. Lillian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine was another extraordinary experience – a beautiful, strong play, magnificently acted. The audience was in tears at the final curtain and the cheers for Paul Lukas were deafening. Again I was transported, and felt privileged to be allowed into his dressing room. He was friendly and easy – sat me down, asked me about myself, what I had done, what I wanted to do. He was my first important friend in the theatre; though I was still a baby, I went to him for counsel and he treated me seriously. I don’t know why he was so good to me, but he was. He allowed me to watch the play whenever I could – listened while I told him which latest producer I had tried to see, my frustrations, all of it. He was sympathetic and tremendously helpful, and of course I respected and admired him.

  The Stage Door Canteen was about to open in New York and it needed hostesses. Only theatre folk qualified. I signed up for Monday nights. I was to dance with any soldier, sailor, or marine who asked me – get drinks or coffee for them, listen to their stories. Many of them had girls at home – were homesick – would transfer their affections to one of us out of loneliness and need. Some would come every Monday night to see the same girl. It was really very sweet and sad and fun, a natural set-up for a dreamer. There was always music, and stars would appear each night to entertain or talk to the boys from the small stage. My first night there I couldn’t believe it – Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were washing dishes and serving coffee. Helen Hayes too. Betty Kalb and I had signed up together. Each of us was so busy watching the famous stars coming in that there wasn’t time for us to compare notes until the end of the evening. On Monday nights there was fierce jitterbugging. Many a time I found myself in the middle of a circle – everyone clapping to the music – while I was being whirled and twirled by one guy, then passed on to another, nonstop, until I thought I would drop. Judy Garland and Johnny Mercer came in one night and sang some of Mercer’s songs – John Carradine came in – and many, many others. It wasn’t much to do for the war effort, but it was something. At least the boys had a place to go that was clean and fun and a relaxing change for them.

  I overdramatized every situation for myself. A young sailor took a fancy to me – I think I reminded him of his girl. He came in every Monday night for weeks, then one night he told me he was going to sea – didn’t know where, of course. He was charming and very homesick. He asked if he could write to me. ‘Certainly,’ I said, ‘I’ll let you know what’s going on back here.’ I didn’t know what to say to him – war was a fiction to me, not a reality. I didn’t really understand what it meant – how could I?

  I continued to pound pavements – make the rounds. They were casting a show called Johnny 2 × 4 by a man called Rowland Brown. He was producing it himself and it was to be staged by his brother, Anthony Brown. It called for a large cast, I was told, so I headed for the Brown office. I met both brothers – it was a small office filled with actors, and the Browns were accessible. Rowland Brown told me the speaking parts were already cast, but there were to be many walk-ons. The setting was a speakeasy and they wanted atmosphere. Would I leave my name and address and they would call me. That again! I had left my name in so many offices it had become routine. I still hoped and still prayed with the same fervor, but nothing had ever happened. The next Monday, I was called and asked if I’d come to the Brown office. I couldn’t believe it. I got myself together and marched over to 44th Street. Rowland Brown told me there was an opening for me as a walk-on. The salary was only fifteen dollars per week – I would have to join Equity – it was not a speaking part, but it was on a stage! On Broadway! I was beside myself. In as controlled a voice as possible, I said I would love to be in his play Mr Brown said he would make the arrangements with Equity, call me when the contracts were ready, and get all the information to me about rehearsals, wardrobe, etc. The play was not going out of town, but would rehearse for three weeks, play a few previews, and open in New York.

  I was on a cloud. At last I would be a professional actress – a full-fledged member of that hallowed union, Actors’ Equity. It wasn’t a real part, but it was a beginning. Perhaps the tide was beginning to turn – my luck beginning to change. I had no idea what I would need in the way of clothing for the show – make-up – what I would actually have to do. How would I be able to wait for that call to sign my name on the piece of paper – how would I wait for that first day of rehearsal? Mother was thrilled because I was thrilled. It was a beginning, a breakthrough. There is no high on earth like the high of realizing even part of one’s dream. I was in a daze. Couldn’t wait to get to the Canteen that night to tell Betty Kalb. What did I care that the salary was fifteen dollars a week? It was Broadway, and I’d be behind the footlights – other girls would be leading people to their seats, and they’d be coming to see me for a change. Did I have a shock coming! Betty was as happy as I was, and I told everyone else who would listen. I was bursting that night. It was my first feeling of complete happiness. At that moment I had everything I wanted.

  A few days later I went to the Brown office to sign my contract. By this time I had added another l to my last name. There was too much irregularity of pronunciation – ‘Backle’ some would say, ‘Bacahl’ others – with the added l, that last syllable was clearly to be pronounced one way and one way only – call (cawl). It was a standard Equity contract – standard for walk-ons, that is. The entry fee for Equity was $50. Rehearsals were to start in a week. I was to provide my own clothes and when we were into rehearsals a bit I’d know what I needed. So one day in February 1942 I went to the stage door of the Longacre Theatre to start my professional acting career. I walked to the wings, where the stage manager was waiting to check us all in. There were so many people – apart from the leads, there were about ten small parts and another ten walk-ons. The whole experience was magical. Chairs were placed onstage – a few tables an upright piano. I knew no one, but I was still in seventh heaven.

  Rehearsals began – those of us who had no parts sat in the back of the theatre. Those of the cast who had musical numbers had already rehearsed them and went through them roughly that first day. I thought it was a marvelous play, I loved everything about it – I had no judgment. Johnny, played by Jack Arthur, owned a speakeasy – Monica Lewis sang there. Barry Sullivan was the hero, Evelyn Wyckoff the heroine. Harry Bellaver had a large part – Jack Lambert was the heavy – there were bodyguards, B-girls, guests (I was one of the latter). In the first act I was onstage with a group of others sitting at a table. As rehearsals progressed I was given more to do. In the second act I made an entrance down the stairs center stage chatting with two men – no audible dialogue, need I say? – and sat at a table downstage with a couple of the B-girls. One of them was a girl named Carolyn Cromwell, who became my friend at once and has remained so all of my life. In the third act I was to be doing the jitterbug as the curtain rose, and when the music ended, my partner and I were to sit at a table stage right. I felt I had been singled out. I wasn’t merely a walk-on, I had something special to do in each act – I was an ‘outstanding’ walk-on (my name for it – no one else’s).

  The show was full of music
, laughter, melodrama – the smoke of a speakeasy – the Yacht Club Boys singing songs onstage and moving through the audience – love – shooting. It had everything. We opened on March 16, 1942. I was as nervous as though I had had a large part – or even a small one. When the curtain went up on the third act my partner and I were dancing and I was shaking from head to toe. To see all those faces out front, what an extraordinary feeling. I was terrified and I didn’t even have to open my mouth. But still the incredible excitement backstage – in the dressing rooms – each actor, each walk-on making sure he had what he needed for the performance. The fact that one doesn’t speak doesn’t make it less of a performance – at least, in my eyes it didn’t. I was there for a purpose, I had a specific function to perform – it might not be noticed individually, but it was part of the whole. In my inexperience and fright, I felt that all eyes were on me when I was onstage, but it wasn’t ego or conceit, it was anxiety, nerves, and built-in self-consciousness and insecurity. My mother, Charlie, and Rosalie came to the opening night; the rest of my relatives staggered their visits, Jack and Vera bringing Grandma to watch her favorite granddaughter’s debut. On opening night I remember standing in the wings watching Barry Sullivan and Evelyn Wyckoff waiting to go on, and I knew at that moment that I was right, that being an actress was the best possible choice in life.

  Of course after the reviews appeared, everyone was aware that the play wouldn’t run. It was my first theatrical heartbreak – but not my last. One night during the run I stayed overnight with Carolyn Cromwell at the Barbizon, and we stayed up most of the night talking, me again about my hopes and dreams. We sent out to Hamburger Heaven for hamburgers – it made me feel like a character in Stage Door. After eight weeks we closed. Arrangements were being made to play the subway circuit – Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens – so called because one got there by subway. That meant another three weeks’ work, one week in each borough.

  I immediately resumed pavement pounding, even before the subway circuit began. I auditioned for My Sister Eileen, read once for the part of Eileen, then was asked to see the play that night and come back and read again the following day. Hopes rose – I saw the play, loved the part (I would have loved any part), read again, and didn’t get the job. John Golden was looking for an actress to play Claudia on tour. Dorothy McGuire had made an enormous hit playing in New York. I trapped John Golden outside Sardi’s to ask if I could read for it. He said yes I could and would I come to his office the next morning. Hopes rose again. I went to his office. He asked me if I’d seen the play – of course I hadn’t, I couldn’t afford it. He made arrangements for me to go to a matinee and read afterward. There was a man working for him named Fred Spooner, a warm, friendly man who had been around the theatre for years. He would be in the theatre during that performance and take me backstage for my audition. It was the beginning of another friendship. I made Fred laugh – and my innocence and wild, blind dedication must have appealed to him. For no other reason than that, he helped me – not practically, but emotionally. Claudia was a young married woman who in the course of the play – with her husband, and in dealing with her mother’s terminal illness – grew up. A marvelous part. God, I wanted it! I auditioned for it after the matinee in my old friendly theatre, the St James – on the stage this time. They liked me enough to ask me to see another performance and read again. I rushed to tell Paul Lukas. He thought it was great news and gave me a bit of advice – not to get my hopes up too high, to think carefully of the scenes I was asked to read, to be simple. Fred Spooner gave me confidence, telling me other actresses were being considered, but that the management was obviously interested in me, not just being polite. I remember standing in the back of the theatre watching that play, living every moment of it. Inch by inch I was feeling a part of the theatre, less an outsider, with each audition I had, each office I became more familiar with, each producer who came to recognize me. It was a good, warm feeling.

  After the performance Fred and I walked up 44th Street and stood outside the theatre looking at the darkened marquee as I verbalized my dream of seeing my name in lights up there. The next day – another audition. The Golden office gave me a script, told me to look at two specific scenes. I did, and read again that afternoon. There was hushed talk in the orchestra and I was thanked and told they would call me. ‘Oh, not again,’ I thought, ‘I’ll never hear another word from them, nothing will ever happen to me.’ I went home depressed. My mother told me not to worry, something would happen, don’t give up too easily. ‘They asked you back three times, they must have liked you.’ Of course she was right, I thought, trying to convince myself – they must have liked me or they wouldn’t have had me read so many times. But lurking in the back of my mind were visions of the unknown actress who had also auditioned – who had more experience than I – who was better. Even then, with all my bravado, and though I did believe in my ability to be good and succeed, I never really thought I was better than anyone else. I’m still not sure. But I would never give up. My ten-year plan still had nine years to go.

  A few days later the Golden office called and asked me to come down again. Having prepared myself for the worst, I got on a bus headed for 44th Street. Mr Golden told me he and the others, stage managers, had liked my readings. The part of Claudia was cast for the tour – I trembled a little at that – but the job of understudy was open and they were offering that to me. It would mean being on the road for a year and playing the part if the leading lady was ever sick. I came to life with that offer, thanked him profusely, told him I would have to talk it over with my mother – I was still only seventeen – and would let him know by Monday. That would give me a few days’ grace and I’d have a chance to ask Paul Lukas’ advice – he knew the theatre better than anyone else I knew, and was clearly the one to talk to.

  I had no alternatives to Claudia at this point, though I had signed a contract with the Walter Thornton model agency. His was the least of the big three – Powers, Conover – but I was in no position to choose. I had done a small amount of photographic modeling for Montgomery Ward catalogues – nothing exciting, and my future in the modeling area looked far from brilliant. When I went to see Paul Lukas to tell him what had happened, I really was in a quandary. I didn’t know what going on tour entailed. Paul told me, ‘Look, if you accept this job it will mean (a) that you’ll be out of New York for a year, and (b) that the chances of your ever playing the part are slim. During that year you might have an opportunity to act in a new play here. If you’re away for a year, that is a year out of your life without being able to really practice your craft and learn. I would say: don’t take it.’ What he said made sense. If I accepted Golden’s offer, I would lose touch with all the people on Broadway who had come to know me a little – at least enough to speak to me or allow me to speak to them about new plays. And touring for a year, while an adventure if you’ve never done it, would be frustrating if I never got to play the part. I was dejected, but I knew that Paul was right, so I went to Mr Golden’s office and told him of my decision. It wasn’t easy. But he couldn’t have been more agreeable or understanding, this important producer who people said was gruff and unapproachable. He wished me luck and said that he hoped my break would come – perhaps even with him. So that was that! But, having made the decision, what was I going to do next? Please God, let it not be a mistake!

  I went to the Stage Door Canteen on Monday nights all through Johnny 2 × 4, and after the show closed, being there made me feel I was still an active member of the theatre. Identification with it was all-important. Everyone could understand the high of being in a show and the low of the closing and being thrust onto the pavements again.

  I don’t know how it happened, but on May 29, 1942, I was crowned Miss Greenwich Village. It clearly had something to do with my being a Walter Thornton model, as it was he who officiated. I don’t think anyone else was seriously competing for that dubious title created to promote Greenwich Village. The contest was free to all entrants
and the winner was to be sent to Atlantic City to compete in the Miss America competition, all expenses paid. There were no bathing suits, thank God – that would have been pathetic. I do remember walking onto a raised platform, smiling nervously in my high-heeled shoes and my pretty chintz dress. The newspaper reported three other girls as runners-up, but I was too nervous to notice anyone else. The ‘crowning’ got my picture into a few very obscure newspapers. I lied about my age, as we had to be eighteen and I wasn’t yet. On another occasion I sold kisses for the Smoke Screen Fund – whatever that was (it was sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club). Another promotion signifying nothing, another picture in a newspaper no one ever saw. Needless to say, I never went to Atlantic City, and no advantage was gained by my title or by any modeling I did for the Walter Thornton agency.