We got to Málaga. She called the Davises, spoke to Papa H., who immediately invited us to dinner, saying he and A. E. Hotchner would come to collect us. I was eager to meet this larger-than-life character. He really turned on the charm – calling me Miss Betty, saying he’d heard about me from Slim, and he’d admired Bogie, and my behavior during Bogie’s illness made me okay in his book. Naturally I hung on his every word, and naturally Mary Hemingway, knowing him, was not too pleased. They were talking about hunting. She asked me if I was a good shot – leaned over, saying, ‘Maybe you’d like to come with us sometime,’ placing a bullet on my plate. I didn’t blame her – obviously he’d given her a bad time in the past; just as obviously, his ego required feeding. A woman alone can’t win with wives. It’s a problem I’ve had all of my single life, and there’s no way to fight it. But I’ve never had conscious designs on married men, and I’m certainly less of a threat than most women, if only because I don’t really know how to go about such things casually. Only relationships that are total are possible for me.
Slim left for Madrid, and I went on to Granada. A few days later Leland called me to ask if I would read a new play by George Axelrod that he was going to produce in the fall. A great part for me. His enthusiasm was infectious, so I said of course I would love to. He would send it down immediately and call me from New York, where he was heading. I couldn’t figure that one out – he’d just arrived.
I read the play, Goodbye Charlie, as soon as it arrived and thought it was very funny. I’d been pondering my next move after my six months in London. I couldn’t move Steve and Leslie every six months from school to school, country to country; I’d have to settle somewhere. The stage had been my first love, an unfulfilled dream. I’d be terrified, but I was a chance-taker – I wanted to find out if I could do it. And it was the best reason I knew for a move back to New York. So when Leland called, I said yes. He told me he’d plan a long tour out of town and not too close to New York so we’d be spared the early opinions of the press – he wanted me to have time to feel secure on stage. The idea of the play was of two close men friends who spend a lot of their time screwing other men’s wives, but who’d rather be with each other than with any woman. One of them, Charlie, is shot escaping through a porthole. His punishment is to be returned to earth as a woman – and thereby hung the play. It was funny, and I was high on the entire plan.
I called Slim in Madrid to find her in a shattered state. Leland wanted a divorce. I felt so bad. I loved Slim and had never seen her like that before. There’d been rumblings that the new lady in Leland’s life was Pamela Churchill, ex-wife of Randolph Churchill, but neither of us could believe it. I went back to London to finish my film and be with my children, mother, and friends, make arrangements for the summer, and start thinking about the fall.
George Axelrod and Leland rang from New York – they’d thought of Sydney Chaplin, who was living in Paris, for the leading man in Goodbye Charlie. George wanted to see Sydney and me together; they’d both come to London.
I felt good to know definitely what the future would be. A new chapter. And I was ready.
I said goodbye to Cadogan Place, all the local shopkeepers I’d become attached to, to my friends – and to London. I wished I had a proper reason to stay there – once you’ve lived in that city, it’s a hard place to leave. But there was suddenly a great deal to look forward to and I was full of hope. I was only sad to leave my friend Slim, who for the first time in the years I had known her was disjointed, purposeless, and except for her daughter Kitty, whom she adored, without a center to her life. We shared vulnerability, Slim and I, and I understood her fragility only too well. It brought home to me even more clearly how lacking in focus a life can be without work. It would be queer to embark on this unknown venture without her support and presence – she had been so much a part of my career, from its first shaky step. We said a teary goodbye at the airport, and me and mine boarded the plane.
We were met in New York by Mother and Lee, George and Leland, and acres of press, who seemed to care that I was settling in New York and returning – if you could call it that – to the theatre.
After settling into the apartment which Joan Axelrod had found for me, I started to prepare for the stage. Daily voice lessons with Alfred Dixon, who’d coached everyone from Mary Martin to Katharine Hepburn – making peculiar sounds, trills, learning to speak from the diaphragm … I felt like an idiot at first, very self-conscious, but I knew I’d better damn well learn as much as I could before we started rehearsals or I’d be in big trouble. Leland had booked an eight-week tour, and, as promised, we started in Pittsburgh, where no one from New York would go. Then on to Cleveland, Detroit, Baltimore, gradually moving closer to New York. (We played the Nixon Theatre in Pittsburgh and the Ford Theatre in Baltimore – an indication of things to come.) We’d spend our last two weeks in Philadelphia, where New Yorkers would go, and open in New York in December. Mainbocher, who had quite a bit of theatre experience, would do the clothes, and George would direct the play – a first for him. Leland, a very persuasive man, had convinced me that we could have no one better than George. ‘Look at John van Druten, who directed his own plays so marvelously.’ Leland was so sure, and I trusted him. And George was my friend. They both knew a hell of a lot more about the theatre than I did, both had nothing but consecutive hits, so who was I to question? I had my instinct and my taste, would say what I thought in the area of acting; but for a woman of strong opinions, supposedly outspoken and in control, it’s odd that I was quite prepared to do things almost entirely their way; to more or less turn myself over to them. Was it my basic desire to trust, be guided, be helped – as with Hawks? That may have had something to do with it. And of course I was a novice in the theatre, whereas George’s favorite line was ‘I’m in the hit business, baby.’
They did take care of me. Leland instructed me to use his office as much as I needed, and provided a secretary to oversee my life while in rehearsal and on the road. I weekended in the country with Joan and George. She sent me lists of everything and anything I might possibly need in the city – where to go, whom to call; found me a nurse for the children. I felt warm and welcome.
Rehearsals began. As we moved along, Sydney and I found some things that didn’t work as well as they might. Sydney was very articulate about them and convinced me of some I wasn’t sure about. We worked well together, liked each other. One night after a late rehearsal we went out for a drink and mulled over the problem of the play. Sydney had it all figured out, and had an idea how to fix it. My feeling was that we couldn’t go to George without a constructive suggestion – no good just to spot a weakness. We called him around eleven o’clock, asked if we could come over to talk. Of course, he said. Over we went and told him our reservations. He listened politely and carefully – ideas were exchanged – but it was his play. He felt we had to play it the way he wrote it, get before an audience, before changes were made, but he would certainly consider our criticisms.
Rehearsal time in a play is unique. Your life becomes the play, the character – all else is secondary. Actually, all else gets in the way. Anyone not connected with the play is hopelessly outside. You rehearse eight hours a day – study lines at night – dream of it. The last week you go on a twelve-hour rehearsal schedule – meals go by the boards, everything does except the play. Actors and directors become closer than husbands and wives, everyone is working toward the same end. It’s not a self-serving period at all, it’s the most creative time for an actor, the most exciting and rewarding. For the first time in my adult life I began to call on all my resources as an actress. To really use myself.
I had no qualms about leaving the children home, because Mother was there and May was there, and they were at school, every day. Nothing else mattered, no other worries to distract me.
Our first stop – Pittsburgh. Finding our way around on the set for the first time. No matter what is explained beforehand, how many models are shown, you never r
eally know where you are until standing on the stage, on the set.
I remember Leland’s voice from every nook and cranny of every theatre saying, ‘Louder, I can’t hear you.’ He’d warned me he was going to do that – stop me at every word if necessary, so I would never forget to speak out.
The day of the opening George and Leland told us not to worry about the notices. Pittsburgh audiences were unused to theatre, particularly new theatre. This was a time for us alone, to see what worked and what didn’t. Easy to say, but I was one nervous actress. I got through the play shaking all the way. The sound of an audience was strange – laughs came for the first time – no laughter where we expected it – but the performance finally ended. They applauded and I felt very high. From that night on I was to be forever hooked on the theatre. Back in my dressing room, as I started to sit, my elderly and rather vague dresser pulled the chair out from under me, and when George and Leland and Pamela Churchill (who’d just arrived on the scene) entered my room, they found their star flat on the cement floor, unable to move. They helped me up (my tailbone really hurt), said the play went terrifically, I was terrific – like a thousand-watt bulb, said Leland. The local critics were not mad for the play, but were for us actors. I was X-rayed, found I’d cracked my coccyx, and was confined to a special corset for three weeks. Better to happen at the beginning. The only good thing about Pittsburgh was that I got a new dresser.
The next eight weeks were consumed with rehearsing all day, with constant changes, with performing. George would type up the changes at night, deliver them for the morning rehearsal. We’d work, pages in hand. On nights when changes were to go in, we’d sit in our hotel rooms – me with Sydney’s understudy, he with mine, going over and over the new words. Nothing is more difficult than trying to unlearn a scene or a speech. Sometimes onstage you get half the old and half the new lines. Sydney had a hellish time with the new lines – warned me he was a slow study, and if he went up mid-scene I couldn’t look to him to maneuver us out of trouble; his only hope was to try to remember. One night he did go up – just looked at me, started to stutter, started making it up as he went along. Only actors know what actors go through – one is so naked, so vulnerable, onstage. It was the start of my awareness of the danger in acting – the constant risks – of putting yourself out there on the line and maybe getting shot down.
The Baltimore press was unfavorable to the play. Washington’s best critics had come to review it, also unfavorably. Our business was great – sold out everywhere – but Washington critics know plays and their criticism coincided with that of all the previous critics: the fault lay in the play. Poor George was a wreck, rewriting constantly, directing. Alas, directing was not his forte. He’s a highly intelligent man, with great humor, sensitivity, and kindness, but he’s a playwright – he expresses himself better on paper and he was too close to the play, he couldn’t have judgment about it. Leland would go away for a few days to return with a fresh eye. In Philadelphia, our last stop, Sarah Marshall, daughter of Herbert Marshall and Edna Best, came in to replace Cara Williams in the most important supporting role. She was a first-rate actress and comedienne. We had only two weeks left before opening in New York at the Lyceum Theatre, where I’d auditioned for Franklin Street so many years earlier. We had to freeze the play soon so we could play it and refine it without further changes. George promised us it would be frozen one week before Broadway. He went back to New York for a few days to get some perspective – he’d been working too many hours, sleeping too few.
At last George turned up in Philadelphia with a big last scene, to go in only a few performances before New York. I thought it was good, so did Leland. Even Sydney felt it could work. It was a lot for me to learn – a two-page monologue. We rehearsed it during the day. It was to go in the next night. I didn’t object to the rush, my feeling being that if it was going to be, the sooner I learned it the better. It was all part of the creative process of the theatre. Oliver Smith’s wonderful set, so good to move around in, was a big help to that final scene.
The night the new scene went in I was in a terrible state of nerves – so many words, so much to remember. I have to say it was probably the best performance of that play I had ever given or would ever give. It was one of those nights when everything works. We all felt very confident.
Sydney was admirable and helpful, as always. It’s such a good feeling to share a stage with someone supportive, for whom you have great affection. He and I really liked each other, respected each other, but no romance. He’d had that experience once and never again. A love affair with your leading man or woman is not easy. If there’s an out-of-town fight – and they’re inevitable – it grows out of all proportion, and you still have to look each other in the eye eight times a week. Hopeless. So it didn’t happen with us – I was much too preoccupied, and he was in love with Noelle Adam, a beautiful French dancer.
Then my first exposure to the assigning of opening-night seats, a matter of great importance then. Who would sit where? There had to be laughers next to the critics. Leland and George choreographed it. Who was on whose guest list? We had many of the same friends, which helped. Adlai wanted to be there, and I wanted him, of course. Alistair and Jane Cooke and David and Hjordis Niven, the Reynoldses and Zuckermans, would also be my guests. And my mother and Lee, who had to have the best seats, to say nothing of Stephen and Leslie.
Opening-night audiences are traditionally ghastly – critics who dissect; friends over-anxious, either laughing too loud or too often; professional opening-nighters, there to see each other not the play. There’s seldom a true reaction to a play. At my most relaxed (which is most people’s most tense), I can’t bear to know who’s out in front – just one friend unnerves me. This audience was almost entirely friends – plus Adlai. God!
The curtain went up – the play started well – laughs in the right places. I made my entrance to tremendous applause which only made me quiver more – I had to lift a bottle of Jack Daniel’s to my mouth to take a drink and almost knocked my teeth out because of the shakes. We played our first scene, in which Charlie (me), trying to convince George (Sydney) of his identity, recalled a time only the two of them could know about and described the moment of truth in the stateroom in bed with his host’s wife, where, upon trying to escape through the porthole, Charlie was shot. The scene ended with me turning to George, saying, ‘Look, look,’ and opening my trenchcoat with my back to the audience. One could feel the men in the audience turning cold. From then on, it was uphill. They tried to like it, but the concept was so unattractive to them that they couldn’t react properly to anything else.
George and Leland came round at the intermission to encourage us. ‘It’s going great – just play the play.’ The adrenaline was flowing to such a degree I felt wonderful.
The curtain came down to great applause. Still shaking, Sydney and I hugged each other. There were photographers outside my dressing room, which was so full of flowers no visitor could get in. Hundreds of telegrams, gifts. I quickly changed for the photographers, but Adlai was my first sight on emerging. He kissed me, congratulated me – said something witty, of course – but was self-conscious with all the cameras around. Niven, Betty and Adolph, Alistair and Jane, so many friends pouring out love. It was a high point. I’d found new territory. I felt good about being there, and they felt good that I was there.
At the party after, before the reviews came through, I was standing at the bar with Moss Hart. I know now, of course, that he realized the play wouldn’t go. He said, ‘Don’t take personally anything you might read – you should feel very good about tonight, your first time onstage in a leading role. You’re good. You can do it and you should be proud of yourself.’ Here I was, home, eighteen years after I started out. Finally I was starring on Broadway – my name was in lights – and it had been every bit as exciting as I dreamed it would be. But waiting for the reviews was hell. When they finally arrived, Sydney opened the Tribune, read one paragraph of Walter Ker
r’s review, and said, ‘Well, let’s see what the Knicks are doing.’ The critics definitely did not like the play, though they did like the actors. I was welcomed as a movie star who handled herself well on a stage. Movie stars are suspect on Broadway – are we just dabbling, not taking it seriously? We’re not of the theatre. It takes a long time to be accepted. But I still felt good. This play was a beginning.
George took a terrible beating critically and it sent him into a decline. He’d worked so hard, put so much of himself into Goodbye Charlie. He’d been the critics’ darling since The Seven Year Itch. Their harsh words really hurt him. It put a strain on our relationship for months until his wound healed.
We ran for three months to full houses, but audiences did not like the play. We closed because the advance was dwindling.
At one performance I knew someone special was out front, but didn’t know who – from the rumbling backstage, it must be someone important. Toward the back of the orchestra I saw a shock of white hair. I was afraid to think it might be Spence and Kate – they would never come together, and he’d never come at all, I didn’t expect that. But when the curtain came down, into my dressing room walked Katie – adorable, warm, loving – full of compliments. And then the door opened again and in he walked. I threw my arms around him – he’d actually come to the theatre and sat out in front through the whole play. It moved me beyond words. Oh matchless, uncommon, wondrous beings.
New Year’s Eve, Quent Reynolds picked me up at the theatre. We were to appear on a late TV show, then go to Lee and Paula Strasberg’s party, where everyone in New York theatre would be. I was liking my life in my old town a lot. I felt no yearning for California. My Sinatra scars had not quite healed – he actually called me backstage one night to ask how I was, but I never saw him. I loved being on the stage – felt good there. And, most important, I felt I’d finally landed someplace where I might belong, might enjoy my days, might be able to relax. For the first time in years I felt I might have a future.
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