Jason was in A Moon for the Misbegotten on Broadway. I took Sam to see it. Jason was brilliant. I was so happy for him. He had learned a terrible lesson along the way. He had stopped drinking, his marriage was good, he had one new daughter and another baby on the way; that would make an even half-dozen. At last we became good friends. Whenever he’d come to get Sam for a weekend, dinner, whatever, Jason and I would sit and talk about work, about life. He was a good man – a wonderful man – I liked him, even loved him as a friend. He was worth the time, even the pain, invested. So my first instincts about him were right. He dealt wonderfully with Sam, was dependable, could talk over Sam’s problems. He understood – he had compassion. He’d always had that. And Sam was happy to see us enjoy each other’s company, though he knew it was on another level now. Some rewards come late.
That first summer in New York, with Sam away at camp, I still had no direction, still hated being back, felt isolated. That was when I decided to write this book. I had always loved words, always had more writers as friends than anyone else. I felt I might be able to do it. Maybe this was the time. Maybe it would help me to discover something about myself, to add it all up. What I am – and why. How I got there.
Statistically I fell into the broken-home category – brought up by one parent, my mother. Through pure luck – the luck of face and body, and having them noticed by others at the right time – I was given an opportunity to reach the highest of all highs at the age of nineteen. Howard Hawks invented a personality on screen that suited my look and my sound and some of myself – but the projection of worldliness in sex, total independence, the ability to handle any situation, had no more relation to me then than it has now. With that I was also given a personal life fuller than I had ever dreamed I would have, or, needless to say, have had since. At the age of twenty I had grabbed at the sky and had touched some stars. And who but a twenty-year-old would think you could keep it? When it all went – though the career was more down than up almost immediately – why did I keep going? Why didn’t I fall prey to the obvious pitfalls of life – booze, drugs, withdrawal? I would say that being loved unselfishly by two people had a hell of a lot to do with it. My mother gave to me constantly. And her support, her nurturing of me, her constant encouragement, together with the strength of our family and my own character, my ability to laugh at myself – all that is what made it possible for me to deal with Bogie, a man with three marriages in his past and twenty-five years on me.
And Bogie, with his great ability to love, never suppressing me, helping me to keep my values straight in a town where there were few, forcing my standards higher – again the stress on personal character, demonstrating the importance of the quality of life, the proper attitude toward work. To be good was more important than to be rich. To be kind was more important than owning a house or a car. To respect one’s work and to do it well, to risk something in life, was more important than being a star. To never sell your soul – to have self-esteem – to be true – was most important of all.
All this was so deeply implanted in me that I couldn’t go down the drain. I am the sum of those two people and my beloved Uncle Charlie. Going back through my life until now, the Jewish family feeling stands strong and proud, and at last I can say I am glad I sprang from that. I would not trade those roots – that identity. I have learned that I am a valuable person. I have made mistakes – so many mistakes. And will make more. Big ones. But I pay. They are my own. What was not real in Howard Hawks’ version of me is not real now. I remain as vulnerable, romantic, and idealistic as I was at fifteen, sitting in a movie theatre, watching, being, Bette Davis.
I’m not ashamed of what I am – of how I pass through this life. What I am has given me the strength to do it. At my lowest ebb I have never contemplated suicide. I value what is here too much. I have a contribution to make. I am not just taking up space in this life. I can add something to the lives I touch. I don’t like everything I know about myself, and I’ll never be satisfied, but nobody’s perfect. I’m not sure where the next years will take me – what they will hold – but I’m open to suggestions. and Then Some First and always, to my children, and then to my grandchildren – Bogarts and Robards – next and future generations with abiding love for all
and Then Some
Has it really been twenty-seven years? I can’t believe it. Time flies even when you’re not having fun. Having come this far – having lasted this long – longer than I expected (I grudgingly have to thank my father’s side for the longevity factor) – things of assorted sizes and shapes have happened. Perhaps not as filled with highs as the previous, say, fifty years, but there has been variety – some joy – some sadness inevitably – and lots of laughter. That’s because in my cockeyed way I think life is a joke. I write the numbers down – twenty-five – fifty – but the truth is we’re only here for a minute. But what a minute!
Upon reaching your seventieth year, life begins to shift. First comes the shock of it – my God, am I really seventy? I don’t feel that different. But I sure as hell am. All my life I’ve just kept on going, never thinking of years, numbers. Going from one job to another. Suddenly – WHAM! The body still functions pretty well – a few bumps in the road along the way – but the body has gotten a bit larger – horrors! When you face that, can the gym be far away? Okay, I accept the fact of regular exercise entering my life. I still remember my twenty-four-inch waist lasting for my first fifty years. Don’t torture yourself, I whisper – forget it – throw away the tape measure – maturing has taken over. I’ve never been a sedentary person anyway, always on the move, only now with supervision. It’s trainer time. Although always active – in the theatre you have to be fit – now I have to set aside time, give up at least half a day for gym and physical therapy. Knee problems from Applause days – back acting up intermittently – torn rotator cuff in my shoulder (I’ll never pitch again) – and on and on – you name it. My body needs attention. Boring, yes. Necessary, yes. I am always singing that song, ‘My Body lies over the ocean, my Body lies over the sea. My Body lies over the ocean, oh bring back my Body to me.’ Keep the humor going. The need to work remains – movies, theatre, TV – I don’t care really. As long as it’s good – interesting – new – I love new – it will take me out of myself and into someone else. Always a pleasure.
Work has continued to be paramount in my life. From time to time one of my sons – Steve or Sam – asks me why I don’t take it easy, spend more time in Paris or London or anywhere in Italy, places that I love. There seems to be never enough time to do everything you want to do, go everywhere you want to go. My answer is simple. My goal in life has always been to work. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I had nothing to do but wander. So I continue to search and hope for the next job – in a way I suppose it enables me to think and to look toward to the future. To think there is a future.
You know, the early part of one’s life – family, hopes, dreams, first love, first job, first child, first everything, actually, and the realization of all that – seems the most interesting for the reader. Accomplishment of one’s goals, how you got where you wanted to get, is always fascinating. But I realize now, having moved beyond that point, that there is something to be said about what happens after you’ve reached your goal – both professionally and personally – if indeed you ever do truly reach it.
My change of focus was taken over twenty-seven years ago by the all-consuming book tour – all over the world wherever By Myself was published. I was thrilled to go – I am still thrilled to go – particularly if the cities (countries!) are unexplored territory, meaning my first-time exposure. They were all different – requiring focus and concentration on my part – language adjustment – would you believe me speaking Japanese? – even Australia, Ireland, Scotland – the lilts were different, the rhythms not the same. I had to stop at the end of one country, take a step back and try to absorb the sights and sounds of the next, winding down from the heady experience of success and po
pularity all over – an experience, by the way, that I had never had before. Especially going solo, leaving myself wide open to questions of intense privacy – friendly and un-, some journalistic chips on shoulders, some embracing, some truly interesting – and some making me feel better than others.
After the final emptying of suitcases, shutting off the intense travel of a book tour – the travel for fun goes on, taking some time to be aimless – something wonderful happened. My friend, playwright Peter Stone, asked if I had ever thought of being in another musical, his idea being Woman of the Year. I had not. He wanted to rewrite the movie for me, so one night we went to his house, he set up the projector, fed the film into it – and away we went into the world of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn – and the world of politics and sports and the conflicts that followed. Peter told me he had mentioned the idea to John Kander and Fred Ebb to do the score – how did I feel about that? Robert Moore possibly to direct – how did I feel about that? Tony Sharmdi to choreograph – again, how did I feel? I felt fantastic about all of that but as we didn’t really know one another, we felt a meeting was in order. I really wanted to meet them anyway, particularly Kander and Ebb whose work I had always admired – still do to this day and will forever more. I love those guys. I did, however, find it rather queer that having played the Bette Davis role of Margo Channing in Applause, I was now going to tackle the role my great friend Katharine Hepburn had played in Woman of the Year – my God! How could I dare take this on! Though Applause had been a gigantic success with rave reviews and my first Tony Award, I knew in my heart that the fact – the reality – was that audiences would never think of Margo Channing as anyone but Bette Davis, and the same would be true of Kate in Woman of the Year. Because no matter how good the shows were – and they were terrific – no matter how good I was – the film would always be there for future generations. The theatre is live. You see the show – you love it – you never forget it. But future generations will never see it.
In spite of the self-imposed obstacles – the memory of Kate, for one, and my own lack of confidence – I jumped in hook, line and sinker! I started my old routine – singing lessons, dancing, stretching, learning lines – all months ahead of casting, much less rehearsing. I was thrilled to be working again, thrilled with the people involved and loving the casting process. Being in on it was always exciting – sitting in a darkened theatre, far enough away from the actors auditioning – so as not to be seen yet able to see. Peter, Kander and Ebb were there, Comden and Green – my close, close friends who were writing the book of the show – were there, Bob Moore, our director, was there. All heads together after each audition, deciding the possibles worthy of a callback, the others quickly dismissed. I always felt a pang when an actor was rejected, having had that painful experience too many times myself.
I’ve always had qualms about sitting in judgment on my fellow actors. I know only too well how difficult and painful auditions can be. No matter how much faith we have in our abilities, the nerves are ever present and the fear of rejection paramount – rejection being the defining feature in the life of an actor. And it never goes away; no matter how many years have been invested in performing, how much accomplished, an actor’s life remains tentative. So why do we choose it? Because we have to do it, we were trained to do it and we love doing it. Yet we stay with it after endless disappointments and heart-breaks. Why? Because there is always the hope that the next time will be different. We will make it! Well, sometimes we do – if we have a lot of luck – and more times we don’t. I’ve never been able to figure it out. Am I a masochist? No. I just have always wanted it badly enough to hang in there and I never stop hoping. Even now, after all these years, the fears, the testing, the failure never goes away. But when it works – WOW! There’s nothing like it. All that other negative stuff falls away – it’s more than worth it! And after all, it is that childhood dream and prayer come true.
Once the bug bites you, you are a goner. Even at the end of a long tour when you are counting the days, checking them off on your calendar as I did at the end of the Woman of the Year tour. Even then, after a short rest, upon buying a ticket for a new play, sitting in a darkened theatre facing the stage instead of being on it – even then I feel a twinge, a twinge of yearning to be up there again, in the play. Because the stage is the actor’s – it belongs to him. Movies don’t. Movies belong to the director. No matter how good you are – no matter how spectacular your performance might be – it is not up to you – the director decides and with his nippers might cut out your favorite scene. He decides. Of course, if he’s a good director he wants a good performance from his actors but he is not out to glorify them, he is out to glorify the whole movie. Nothing personal, you understand. Still, it’s fun making movies – if they’re good, of course they always have to be good – in spite of the endless waiting. It is very much the ‘hurry up and wait’ syndrome. You hurry up to do your touch-up for the next scene, then you head for the set – ready, an assistant director by your side – and guess what? The camera is not quite ready for one reason or another; often the director is changing the blocking which means re-adjusting the lights. So the wait is on. But, no matter – with film, you use different parts of yourself and you learn to deal with the waits.
Something new has been added to the daily routine of each day’s shoot and I must admit I find it somewhat humiliating. From the moment you arrive on the lot – the car door is usually opened by a waiting second or third assistant director who has a piece of plastic in his ear to which a plastic cord is attached (to be invisible, which it is not) that in turn connects to something he holds in his hand which looks like a telephone but is not – and it starts. ‘She’s here,’ he murmurs into the no telephone – and from there on every step along the way is marked – ‘we’re on our way to her dressing room’ – ‘hair and make-up are there for her’ – like the FBI–CIA reporting my every move. Then ‘How long will it take you to get ready? He [the director] may want to rehearse. So start the hair and make-up and we’ll let you know when he’s ready on set.’ It drives me wild. If there is one thing I am sure of it is that I am a professional. I’m there to work and I’m mostly on time. But I hate to feel spied upon. I don’t know who dreamed this idea up but whoever it was, was not fond of actors. Mainly it has nothing to do with work – everything to do with schedules – money. It always boils down to money. Sadly.
The Nineties were surprisingly good and productive years for me. My professional life became satisfyingly varied after A Foreign Field in 1993. There were four and a half months on the rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris while making Robert Altman’s Prêt à Porter. Living in Paris was total bliss. Working there made me feel like a resident. The Cherche-Midi is a great street in the 7th arrondissement on the Left Bank, an area I have frequented for years. But to wake up every morning and stop at the Cafe Alexandre for a hot chocolate while waiting for the studio car to pick me up, is one of life’s grand pleasures. Paris affects me like no other city in the world. I gasp at the sight of it at night – all lit up – the Eiffel Tower – Place de la Concorde – Arc de Triomphe – Notre Dame – the Sacré Coeur – after rain with the pavement glistening – it is all too breathtaking to even try to describe. I’ve always had a gut reaction to it, from my first glimpse of the Arc de Triomphe in 1951, that feeling has remained with me, made my heart beat faster each time I enter the city. It is the city of light and unimaginable beauty. It’s a funny thing about Paris and indicative of the French way of life as compared to ours but no matter what the weather – rain, shine, killing heat and no air conditioning – no matter what the time – during lunch, pre-dinner, during and after dinner – every bar and bistro is packed with people of all ages talking, smoking, drinking, laughing – sharing their lives. What better way to live? Nothing fancy, everything human. So many years ago I remember my wonderment when Vivien Leigh, my good dear friend, told me she couldn’t bear to have a year go by without having been to France. Now I kno
w that feeling all too well.
A couple of years ago I almost went a full year with no Paris. That is major for me. I have decided that I need to be there. It feeds my spirit. Not only the brandy, but because I have many friends there and know the city so well, especially the Left Bank. I feel very comfortable there, that I belong there. Call it escape if you like but it truly isn’t. I am attached to Paris, the good, the bad, the beauty. And over the years – the days, weeks, months I’ve spent in all kinds of weather – the city has never let me down. I have never been disappointed – it has always lived up to my expectations, my remembrance of times past (to steal a phrase). The new illumination of monuments and buildings of the past few years – its artistry and the sense of pride that Parisians take in their city – has surpassed anything I might have imagined. And yet, with my familiarity with the streets and squares of Paris, I am still discovering corners, small cafes, gardens – it still surprises – it still makes my heart beat faster.
In the spring of 1995, I had just arrived in Paris – was sitting snugly in my bed looking forward to two weeks in my favorite city when my agent called. A script was on its way – From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler – a movie for television – to start shooting in two days. I had to answer immediately, say ‘yes’ or they had to get somebody else. Typical. Nothing convenient about my profession. So I read the script and liked it. My son Sam mentioned that From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler happened to be his favorite book in his younger years. I said “yes” and started repacking my unpacked clothes and headed for Los Angeles. They had to turn in the product by a certain date and all was in readiness – that’s the nature of the business. My late friend John Schlesinger described Hollywood as being ‘a temporary place, buildings disappear like fortunes and reputations, the instant dispensability of all of us working in movies. Underneath the facade of promises is all the frustration. At the studio, people dress to prepare for fantasy but they are treated like commodities.’ That was a profound and ultimately sad analysis of the movie business to a large degree. John was a brilliant director – deeply intelligent, sensitive and interesting – another witty and loyal friend.
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