I thought, ‘I am too sad inside to know what I feel about Steve’s marriage. It is a fact, and I will be there, and I will think how I was on that day when I was twenty, and wish for him some of the same happiness I had. But I am empty inside now. A terrible feeling. I wish it would go away.”’
We all drove to Connecticut – a beautiful October day, sun shining on the bride-to-be. It was a short, simple service. I was far away part of that day – at my own wedding, Steve’s birth, events in his life. He looked so young standing there, yet so sure of what he wanted. The wedding lunch was filled with toasts and laughter, picture-taking. At their chosen moment, Steve and Dale took off in a car with tin cans tied to the rear bumper. I looked at Leslie and at Sam, thinking, ‘One gone – two to go. Or maybe not. Daughters are more apt to have a continuing relationship with their mothers. When a son goes, he goes.’ But it wouldn’t be long before Leslie took off too. She looked so beautiful that day – she is such a beautiful girl – and her mind must have been full of her own emotional life. She didn’t talk much with me about Tom; she was mysterious. I was often not quite sure what she was thinking.
And then Sam – a smart seven and a half – planning his own departure. What a character!
I would concentrate totally on work from now on. I’d taken on an enormous responsibility – and a big chance. I had to be good in this show, better than ever before. It would be the first time distractions would be at a minimum, the first time I had nothing to pull me away. And the harder I worked, the less I would think. Actually, from the time I fell in love with Bogie I had never been able to forget my personal life and zero in on my career. Now I would do it with a vengeance.
Ron thought it a good idea for me to learn a song that he would later choreograph, so I would get an idea of how to sing, move, and make sense all at the same time. I’d take a voice lesson with Keith Davis, then go up to Peter Howard’s to work on the songs, then go to a dance studio for my exercises – half ballet – then practice the assigned song with a pianist. So it went, on a daily basis – hard physical work, concentrated. It’s one thing to be musical, which I fortunately am; it’s quite another to learn how to sing – to project – to act a song. To say nothing of trying to rid myself of my terrible shyness. I used muscles I didn’t even know I had, took hot epsom-salts baths nightly. Everything hurt.
Betty and Adolph worked quickly, but they knew better than I that work would continue through our out-of-town tryout. Charlie Strouse and Lee Adams revised some songs, threw out others. As new scenes were written, they were read to Charlie and Lee so that all the collaborators could decide on changes or adjustments. Creating a musical is complicated, a world unto itself, an experience that has no relation to doing a straight play. I learned that a song should be the culmination – the realization – of a scene, and because it is music it hopefully can reach higher than the scene possibly could without it. It was thrilling to be part of this birth. Exploring new territory is always thrilling – you never know what surprises lie ahead.
Auditions began. There were six key parts apart from Margo (me): Eve, Bill Sampson (Margo’s lover), my hairdresser confidante, the producer, and Margo’s and Bill’s best friends. I sat in on many readings. It’s so hard to know how to make a choice – some actors read marvelously and never get better, others read badly and become marvelous. Certainly if my own career had depended on auditions, I would have spent my life selling ties.
When it was boiled down to the final two or three actors for each part, there’d be a conference among Ron, the authors, the producers, and me. I always stayed low in my seat – far back in the theatre, of course – so as not to be seen. Ron was very sensitive to the actors, not making them stand too long under that glaring stage light. It boded well for his future as a director – and for our relationship over the coming months. Finding a girl for Eve was not easy. The final choice was an unknown girl, Diane Macafee – lovely-looking, with a beautiful voice. They all knew they were gambling – it could either be marvelous or not work at all. Then came the day of the leading man. There were two actors in the running, both new to me. On this last day Ron wanted me to get onstage with each of them so he could see how we looked together. I later learned the point to that – as my stage personality was strong, they had to have a leading man who held his own and wasn’t wiped off the stage. The one who survived me got the part!
As rehearsal time drew near I was filled with anticipation. I had been preparing without let-up for three months, to say nothing of the time I’d put in before the summer. Ron set up the first reading of the play one evening at his house. We were to go into formal rehearsal the next week. I had already started to work with the dancers – become familiar with the dancers themselves, the total musical atmosphere, the word gypsy, signifying the kids in the dance corps. Gypsies know what they are doing, and Ron had gathered the best – all young, some ridiculously so. It was riveting to watch them learning the routines, stretching, pliéing constantly, studying themselves in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. I was self-conscious at first, knew they were watching me – to see if I could do anything at all, I suppose. Sizing me up. But I was willing to try everything, and called upon my years of training to help me now. And I stumbled through, after a shy, hesitant start. The time I’d put in paid off; I was ready to learn – and it all came easier than I thought it would. Everyone helped. Gypsies are encouraging and generous, particularly when they see you’re determined to really dance instead of faking it.
The vibrations were right and I could tell we would be a happy company. All of us got along well from the first reading; we liked one another. We had drinks after the last word was spoken – what a relief for all. Applause was on its way. A reality.
Our first day of rehearsal was December 22, three days before Christmas. Many preparations to be made for Sam, Leslie, and Lee. Steve and Dale were coming down – she was pregnant. It was our first year without Mother.
Our first day of rehearsal started off with the press. Ron and I did a couple of steps from my big number to the flash of bulbs, tossed off a few words, and they left. Now we could get down to business. I had been told something about each of the main actors. All the men were married except for the leading man, Len Cariou, who had a long-standing relationship with an actress. Thank God, I thought. I was always wary of actors, in or out of work situations (particularly in), but in this case there was never any thought of a possible involvement, which made the work even more of a joy. After the misery in my life since 1956 it seemed that at last the pendulum was swinging upward for me. I could sense the possibility of a life and a future – something to feel good about.
Every night, as soon as Sam was in bed, I took my script and tape into the library. There I practiced my songs aloud and studied my part. After I thought I knew my lines, Leslie would cue me. There was no time for anything else. I had never worked so hard – used so much of myself in mind and body. It required discipline and stamina. Lucky I had always had lots of energy.
Ron knew I was close to Betty and Adolph, and we all knew the dangers of friends working together. From the beginning, Ron was boss. I always felt there had to be a captain for a play or a movie, and I always felt the director should be that captain. So he handled it all. If a problem arose, I went only to him, and Betty and Adolph did the same. It worked like a charm.
I had asked him not to tell me when they were coming to rehearsal, and to please try to keep them away until I felt surer of the part. I was nervous enough without them there, and they knew it. The day they finally did come, they slipped in unobtrusively – I saw them out of the corner of my eye and stayed away from them until we’d run through the entire first act.
It was a big test for me, rising above a lifetime of self-consciousness, of nerves, working in front of Betty and Adolph in the new medium of the musical in a brightly lit rehearsal room. I simply had to work overtime at burying my qualms. They were adorable – complimentary, understanding, simpatico. The first hur
dle had been jumped with a few feet to spare.
Every day I seemed to arrive earlier and stay later than anyone but Ron. I was in all but two scenes in the show, and when those two scenes were being rehearsed, I was working on my singing or dancing, or having wardrobe fittings – always something, no time for sitting and staring into space. Yet it was exhilarating. When I plunge I do plunge; halfway is not my way. Unconditional commitment.
With each passing day I became more submerged in the character of Margo Channing. Some of her frailties had always been mine, some became mine. It isn’t that you truly turn into the character you’re playing, it’s that more hours of the day and night are devoted to work than to anything else. As rehearsals progress, your involvement becomes more and more absolute – the rest of your life gets crowded out. There’s no way to forget your children, but you can come dangerously close. Friends in the business understand. Social life disappears and is not missed. All you want to think about, really, is the play, and the only people you want to see are the other players.
I had told Ron I’d torn a cartilege in my knee several years before. In the disco number, he’d originally staged the finale with the lightest gypsy, Sammy Williams, jumping into my arms. I didn’t think more could happen to the damn knee, but I didn’t want to push it. Ron wanted me to dance – to do a real number. I was all for that. We tried the lift a few times on top of a jukebox, but what with the jukebox rolling a bit, wires onstage, and other hazards, it was finally eliminated. Ron had scheduled a gypsy run-through the Sunday before we left for Baltimore. I’d never known what a gypsy run-through actually was. I found out. You run through the show – no costumes or sets or orchestra, only a piano – in a theatre filled with the casts and gypsies from other shows running on Broadway. It would give us our first exposure to audience reaction, and them a chance to see a new show in the raw. The prospect terrified me.
The date was January 18, the place the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. I was dressed in slacks and turtleneck sweater. The theatre started to fill up. There was no curtain. The actors were shaking in the wings, the gypsies warming up way upstage in corners, using pipes as barres. I’d taken a voice lesson with Keith and done my warm-up with Tommy.
Finally it was time. Ron, as is customary, walked downstage to explain the set, time, and place. The show was supposed to open with television screens on either side of the proscenium. Peter Ustinov was our guest host for the Tony Awards – we’d filmed that bit in advance, my welcome by him, my presentation of the award to Eve. A new idea that we hoped would work. As I heard him say ‘Margo Channing,’ I made my first entrance. The applause was tumultuous – you’d have to travel far to find an audience equal in enthusiasm to gypsies and fellow actors. The theatre was packed, the audience insanely receptive. And I was doing something I’d always dreamed of doing – actually being musical in a musical comedy heading for Broadway. Professional dreams being realized after so many, many years. It was utterly thrilling. We all felt sure we had a hit. There really is nothing to equal in excitement a run-through like that. With no sets or costumes, the audience must use its imagination. They’re privy to a new birth, the first unveiling of a creation. What a feeling to be part of it! At the last curtain call the stage became flooded with every musical director, producer, writer I’d known – and actors, all bursting with enthusiasm. I could have flown.
I left for Baltimore a day ahead of the company for my first orchestra rehearsal. That’s another high. Even with all the early imperfections of the arrangements and musicians, hearing the score with an orchestra for the first time is something special. Our conductor, Don Pippin, was wonderfully helpful to me – one of the most important factors in a musical. The conductor, after all, is a leader and his ability to help or hinder is not to be measured. Don, luckily for me, was a helper.
The company arrived, the cast filtered in. We’d not seen one another for a couple of days – in the incestuous birthing of a show, that’s a long time. I didn’t want to miss any of it, I wanted to be part of it all, everyone’s beginning.
For the next eight weeks, fourteen to sixteen hours a day, we were all – led by Ron – as close as parents and children, as lovers; we were dependent on one another emotionally, creatively – finding our way through the maze of changes, learning more about one another. Musicals, I was to learn later, are notorious for love affairs out of town. Everyone goes crazy, particularly the gypsies. Eight or nine weeks together – people start looking for partners. Not me. My head was into work only, into making it better. I was expending so much energy and emotion, I had none to spare. After rehearsals we’d walk back to the hotel, have a drink in the hotel bar, then hit the sack. Our first night in Baltimore, Len and I were heading toward the marquee on our way to a nightcap when we looked up and saw his name misspelled: ‘Ben Cariou.’ He was Ben to me from then on.
We previewed on Monday. First time in all the clothes. We’d staggered through a dress rehearsal, but it wasn’t quite the same ballgame. Elizabeth White, my great dresser, and Jerry Masarone, in charge of my crowning glory, helped to calm me. I got through it, but so scared I was no judge of how it went. The house was full and the audience responsive. Just before you open, you always think it’s a hit, whether it is or not. When you’re that involved, how would you know? The next night we opened. The Baltimore papers were on strike, and we weren’t sure which Washington critics would turn up. Our notices were not overly favorable, but the audiences loved us and business was splendid. We knew we had work ahead, and I was keyed up and ready for it.
Through all this time I kept myself aloof from Len. He was attractive and bright, a wonderful actor, a joy to work with. He seemed to be his own man, self-confident. We had fun and worked wonderfully well together. A natural situation in a somewhat unnatural circumstance. I had no intention – not the slightest – of any involvement. But given the parts we played, it was inevitable. Oh, it’s difficult – you’re together without a let-up – and we did get our parts and ourselves all mixed up. I knew we had a year ahead of seeing each other six days a week – an involvement could only lead to disaster, certainly for me. I couldn’t let anything happen. Besides, he had another life, settled and happy. I wanted us to be friends. I wanted not a day to pass when we wouldn’t be pleased to see each other. I wanted no strain. And I was unrealistic. I held him at arm’s length for a while. But only for a while.
After the opening, the changes started. There was a feeling of depression after the notices, but we had eight weeks ahead of us, time enough to make the show what we all knew it could be. Every day we rehearsed, every night we played. Before the Saturday matinee Ron came into my dressing room. I’d heard rumors that Diane Macafee was going to be replaced. I asked him about it and he said, yes, he felt it had to be. I said, ‘Don’t you think it’s that out-of-town panic? The minute something isn’t quite right, an actor is fired.’ I was very troubled at the prospect. Ron said, ‘Do you like Diane?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ He said, ‘But you shouldn’t – that’s the problem. She should present a threat to you. That’s why the show isn’t working the way it should. She doesn’t come across as all those things Eve Harrington must be.’ I said, ‘It seems so unfair.’ ‘Maybe it is. It’s my mistake, but until I saw her in the show I couldn’t be sure. Just trust me.’ I had no choice – I’d believed him up until then, and I did trust him. But it didn’t lessen the hurt I felt for her.
The pressure was constant. Rehearse all day – scenes, songs, dances; performance at night; drinks at the hotel, sleep; breakfast and start all over again. The routine out of town is killing, designed to finish actors off, but you keep going – on nerves, hope, and creativity. The adrenaline pumps on. An occasional call to my children to make sure all was well, but I felt, and indeed was, very removed from them. I’d have a weekend at home before Detroit, so they wouldn’t feel totally deserted.
The first day we did the new opening number, everything went wrong – lights crazy, sets not working, sound off, everyon
e off. Pure disaster.
Ron walked into my dressing room before the next Saturday matinee, looking down at the floor. I had become very sensitive to him, felt very close to him. He knew I still felt badly about Diane – he did too. I told him I still felt uneasy about replacing her – there ought to be another way, less traumatic. He said, ‘You think so? Just look in the fourth row center this afternoon. You’ll see Gower Champion sitting there.’ ‘So what?’ I said. ‘So I’m being replaced,’ said Ron. ‘What?’ I screamed. ‘Over my dead body!’ He had planned to go to New York during the matinee. I made him promise to stay, to come to my room after the performance and we’d take it from there. Five days ago we’d had a hit. One set of reviews, one negative word, and panic had set in. But there was no way I would continue with another director. Replacing Diane was awful enough, but replacing Ron was going too far.
After the matinee Ron was in my room when the door opened and in walked one of Broadway’s most successful producers, Alex Cohen. He hugged both of us enthusiastically. ‘You’ll all get Tonys! It’s sensational – the most exciting show I’ve seen in ages – your work is marvelous!’ Ron told him he was being replaced, whereupon Alex, after a few expletives, tore over to tell Joe Kipness the error of his ways. I took Ron to my hotel suite, Len joined us, sensing trouble, and we sat him down, ordered a drink for him, food for me, called Kippy and started raving. ‘He’s my captain – if the ship sails without him, it sails without me.’ I ranted on and on. Of course I had another show to do, and Ron was terrified I’d lose my voice with strain. Finally Joe said, ‘Gower just came down to visit, he’s passing through, we’re old friends – as a matter of fact, he’s meeting me in the bar in a little while.’ ‘Oh, he is, is he?’ I thought. My position was clear. I called my agent and told him the story: ‘If Ron goes, I go. Make it clear to Kippy!’ I was livid. The theatre – God! So much insecurity, so many people thinking change means better. Ridiculous! How in hell can you be talented one minute and, because of a critic or two, lose it all?
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