Me and Orson Welles

by Robert Kaplow

  “It doesn’t tell us one thing we don’t already know,” I added.

  “Can you sing?”

  “I’m ready!” called the little man from the third-floor window.

  “Plug it in!” yelled Welles. Then to me: “All right, Mr. Gielgud, sing me something. Astonish me.”

  My head was wild. This was my audition—on West 41st Street with the ambulance lights spinning and my hands rattling on drumsticks that were going to fly out of control at any second. This was Orson Welles leaning out his second-floor window, and a dozen ambitious, smart-ass actors watching, just hoping I’d mess up.

  Sonja, the girl with the hairband, nodded at me in encouragement.

  Gone, gone! Rodgers and Gershwin and “Have You Got Any Castles?” and “The Moon Got in My Eyes”—gone! I suddenly stopped playing the drums and sang out the only lyric on earth I could think of:Won’t you try Wheaties?

  They’re whole wheat with all of the bran.

  Won’t you try Wheaties?

  For wheat is the best food of man.

  “You’re hired,” Welles said.

  My God. I hit the drumroll again.

  “ ‘Now let it work!’ ” yelled Welles to the upper-floor window. “ ‘Mischief, thou art afoot. Take what course thou wilt!’ ”

  And there was a sputter—a sizzle—

  —and the single word MERCURYblazed out hot red into the cold afternoon light.

  People applauded and cheered.

  A kid in a white restaurant apron with Longchamps stenciled on the pocket was running through the crowd carrying a silver-covered dish. “I’ve got the steaks for Mr. Welles!”

  “I’m absolutely starving to death,” said Welles. He took the silver tray and immediately handed it to the ambulance driver. “See if you can keep this warm.” Then he lifted the lid of the tray to make sure everything was there. “Vakhtangov!” he shouted. “My pineapple juice!”

  “Mr. Welles’ pineapple juice!” called someone.

  The pale skinny kid headed back into the theatre and tripped again on the doorjamb. “Rehearsal at 6:30, people!” Welles called. “And we’re going to need everybody. John! This kid is going to play Lucius—the other son-of-a-bitch is fired.”

  “Orson, we absolutely need to commit to an opening date.”

  “Thursday! Thursday! I told you. We let Tallulah open on Wednesday in her three-million-dollar Hindenburg of Antony and Cleopatra. And then we open Thursday—a lean, brutal Caesar—a Caesar that will bestride the narrow world like a Colossus!” He slapped his hand on my back. “Sonja! Teach this kid the part. Know it by the time I come back, Junior, or you’re fired. And to you, my mighty Mercury company, and to you, my mighty illuminated sign, how many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted over in states unborn and accents yet unknown! Behold, the Mercury Theatre!”

  He bowed in mock grandeur, and the company broke into applause. Then he got into the front seat of the ambulance, the door was slammed shut, and, siren wailing, it took off down 41st Street.

  Four

  The official administrative offices of the Mercury were in the Empire Theatre Building (1430 Broadway), but its real center of activity was the tiny projection booth in the Mercury Theatre. Black metal stairs led up to this small airless room where, it seemed to me, one of the two telephones was always ringing. It felt like somebody’s attic bedroom. There was an exposed boiling-hot radiator with the white paint peeling off. Two bookshelves were filled with scripts and mail; a small noisy icebox contained nothing but a carton of baking soda. Taped to the icebox door was a large black-and-white photograph of Orson Welles as Doctor Faustus, clutching his black robes to his neck, looking up into the smoky lights. Beneath it somebody had pasted a magazine ad for “Wilson’s Tender Made Ham—The Ham You Cut with a Fork.” There was one cast-off green armchair, heavily bandaged. Cardboard boxes on the floor were filled with stationery and envelopes that said THE MERCURY THEATRE in brown ink. There were two gray metal desks that looked like castoffs from the post office. There was a typewriter, an old table radio, an address finder, three bottles of Carter’s ink, a milk bottle blooming with some ancient roses, an ashtray from the Stork Club, and dozens of 8x10 photographs on the floor, on the walls, pouring out of the garbage can. Nailed and taped to the walls were lobby cards and costume sketches from previous John Houseman/Orson Welles productions. One depicted a brown cartoon of a horse holding a hat in its mouth. It read: WPA Federal Theatre Project 891 presents Horse Eats Hat—Maxine Elliot’s Theatre 109 West 39th St. On the wall behind the refrigerator, thumbtacked into the beaverboard, was a sinister-looking black poster of a green smiling skeleton beating two green bones against a tambourine hung around its waist. By its foot sat an hourglass with sand running through it. Red letters announced: WPA Federal Theatre Project Presents Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. On the bulletin board above the card table was tacked a calendar and the Mercury 1937- 38 subscribers list.

  We were carrying up boxes of Caesar fliers, which now joined the other boxes on the floor. There was a To Do list on the wall, and Sonja crossed off “promo fliers.”

  “I’m Sonja—Sonja spelled with a J but pronounced like a Y. Sonja Jones.”

  I sang to her the first line of “Have You Met Miss Jones?”

  “You’re probably the hundredth person who’s sung me that.”

  “I bet I’m the cutest.”

  The phone was ringing. “Mercury,” she answered brightly, moving to the typewriter and loading in a piece of paper with a pull of a ratcheted lever. “John’s at 1430. Oh, then I don’t know where he is. Yes, fine, I’ll be absolutely sure to—” She typed with a jubilant violence, hung up the phone, tore the paper out of the machine, and tacked it to the wall under a label that simply read JOHN. Next to it was one reading ORSON. Next to that was OTHER. “Equity is on our backs for using unpaid extras,” she said. She slid back the projection booth window. Below, onstage, men were hammering a series of gray platforms that filled the performing area. “And, listen—what’s your name again?”

  The phone was ringing.

  “Richard Samuels.”

  She wrote it down. “Get it,” she ordered. “Everybody’s got to answer phones around here.”

  “Mercury!” I answered, and I thought to myself: I’m the luckiest bastard on the face of the earth.

  “This is Brooks Atkinson from the Times,” spoke the voice on the other end, “verifying a Thursday nine P.M. opening for Caesar.”

  The phone dropped heavily in my hands. “One minute, sir.” I handed it gingerly to Sonja. “Brooks Atkinson,” I whispered.

  “Mr. A., this is Sonja. I got the roses; they were absolutely beautiful. I’ve never seen that shade of yellow before. Yes, I’m sorry we keep changing the opening on you, but Thursday’s firm.” She crossed her fingers and gave me a goofy smile. “That means we won’t change it for at least another hour. Yes, Armistice Day: it’s Orson and John’s little contribution to the war effort. Nine o’clock. Of course. And thank you once again for the roses. They made this whole place look cheerful.”

  The second phone was ringing, an older one with the mouthpiece mounted on the dialing column.

  “Atkinson sends you flowers?”

  “I did him a very small favor.” She picked up the ringing phone. “Mercury Madhouse, I mean, Mercury Theatre.” She giggled at her own joke. “This is she. Oh, Mr. Ingram, Orson left just two seconds ago . . . he took an ambulance to beat the traffic.” She laughed. “Well, you know, according to Orson there’s no law on the books that says you have to be sick to take an ambulance. Of course, that’s according to Orson, which probably means it’s not really true but that it ought to be.” She checked her watch. “Yes, I know everybody’s waiting, but I can assure you he’ll be arriving any second—I know you made a special arrangement. I explained that to Orson. He understands the sacrifices you’ve made, and he’s very grateful to you, believe me, we all are, and I’m sure he’ll deliver a performance that’s well wo
rth the aggravation he’s causing you. You know, whenever I listen to The Shadow now I always think of you, Mr. Ingram? O.K. Jerry. And how wonderfully courteous you are to me. Most of the radio producers that call here are screaming and yelling. You’re never like that. I think you’re probably the most courteous and patient man I’ve met in the radio business.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Thank you very much.” She looked down at the floor and smiled. “I would be delighted to have lunch with you. This week we have the opening; it’ll be hard. Yes, Orson’s Caesar in modern dress—oh, absolutely brilliant—everybody marching around in military uniforms, brown shirts, Fascists—oh, absolutely the most astonishing thing you’ve ever seen . . . . Well, for anyone else it would be impossible, but for you Mr. Ingram, let me see what I can do.” She was scribbling now. “Noon? The Onyx?”

  Now the first phone was ringing again. “I don’t know why the hell they don’t call over to the Empire; John must have half a dozen people over there. Listen, let’s take a runout powder. Orson wants you to learn the part by the time he comes back.” She pulled a multigraphed script from the bookshelf and threw it to me. “Here ya go, Gielgud.”

  The four o’clock sunlight in Bryant Park lit the dust gold, and it burned in the windows on 42nd Street.

  We split a hot chocolate as we sat on a bench and filled in tiny black “11”s after the words “Opens November” on hundreds of Caesar fliers.

  She laughed. “I’m making these elevens so bad nobody’ll know what day we’re opening. A Vassar scholarship and this is what I’m doing. If they ever found out how little work I’m doing in that college, they’d ship my ass back on the next train to Ohio.” She stopped to look at the theatre pages in the Times.

  “I never knew Ohio actually existed.”

  “Yahh,” she said, and the falling cadence on the word was both comic and wistful. “Where they eat feesh on a deesh. I wish there were no rehearsal tonight. Barbirolli is conducting the Pathetique at Carnegie. Don’t you absolutely love Tchaikovsky?”

  “Adore him,” I said.

  “Usually I can get free tickets; I know this guy in Arthur Judson’s office. This guy pleaded with me to go with him. So instead I’m filling in little elevens.”

  “I can learn the lines myself if you’re attracted to pleading.”

  “No, I’m attracted to lying.”

  “Come again?”

  “Sings? Plays the ukulele? I bet you can’t even spell ‘ukulele.’ ”

  “Y-U—”

  “ ‘Taint funny, McGee.”

  “And how did you end up at the Mercury Theatre, Miss-Sonja-with-a-J-but-pronounced-like-a-Y? By completely telling the truth?”

  “I’m pleased to say I have never completely told the truth. John once told me that all of show business is based on bullshit, and the more I work here the more I think he’s right. Anyway, I absolutely knew from the time I was ten that I had to get out of Ohio. I really did. Isn’t it strange the way you know things as a child? As if there are currents pulling you. Orson told me he was directing plays when he was ten. I mean, how do you explain that? Sometimes I think the gods just know exactly what we’re supposed to be doing, and they sit around patiently waiting for us to make the decisions we have to. You can play the ukulele, can’t you?”

  “You’ve heard of Ukulele Ike?”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t know where I could find him, do you?” I said. “By the way, why does anybody play a ukulele in Julius Caesar anyway? Is Caesar singing ‘Look for the Silver Lining’ while they’re stabbing him to death?”

  “They’ve got it disguised as a lute. Lucius—that’s you—sings Brutus a lullaby right before the final battle.”

  “I’m singing onstage?”

  “You told Orson you could sing.”

  “Well, I can sing the Wheaties jingle. Who plays Brutus?”

  “Orson.”

  Holy Jesus. I caught my breath, and I thought: Do I really go with this—with this girl, this day, with what was happening in front of my eyes? My head was sorting through possibilities like some machine gone mad. School? Take the train in at night. Matinées? Saturday was no problem—so it was only Wednesday. Get a waiver for Wednesdays like those professional acting kids. And how was I supposed to get back for Caroline’s show tonight? And my part-time job at the Rialto?

  Oh, I had some big-time lying ahead. But I also knew—instantly, intuitively—that I was riding the current of something enormous, important, possibly life-altering. And a voice inside me said with perfect clarity: Ride this, Richard. Ride this son-of-a-bitch as long as you can. Lie your ass off; tell them anything but hang on. You can always go back to Westfield High School. You can always go back to mediocrity.

  If you’re scared for one second, Richard, it’s all over.

  I looked up at Sonja, at the sunlight falling on the chestnut braid that held her hair.

  I was in for the ride.

  “Who was going to play Lucius before I showed up?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Some kid. He had a personality problem with Orson.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning he had a personality.” She met my eyes. “Look, Orson’s very competitive, very self-centered, very brilliant. He’s read everything. Knows everything. And the rule with Orson is you don’t criticize him. Ever. So in the name of his talent, and in the hopes of working with him again, you forgive a lot of behavior that would be unforgivable among civilized people.”

  “And are you civilized people?”

  “Are you?” she asked.

  We were walking down 42nd Street toward Fifth. I was carrying the two heavy boxes of fliers.

  “And you’re doing all this for no money?” I said.

  “For very little.” She smiled. “I don’t think you understand the power of celebrity, do you, Richard? Look, let’s take two songwriters, all right?” She pointed to two men across the street. “They’re both equally talented, they both write decent songs. But the first guy gets his song on the Hit Parade. And you see, he’s suddenly worth listening to. The other guy may have exactly the same talent—maybe more talent—but for some completely ludicrous reason—bad timing, whatever—he doesn’t get his song played. What I’m telling you is that the second guy is suddenly irrelevant. Doesn’t count. You pass him on the street. He makes no difference. So why the hell am I working for nothing at the Mercury Theatre? Because I want something bigger than Vassar. I don’t care if some teacher tells me I’m wonderful—some teacher who’s never going to be anything more than a teacher. I’m looking for something so far beyond that. You know, I’ve got this girlfriend who works for Ross at the New Yorker, the high-and-mighty New Yorker—she tells me even there it’s all running for coffee and kissing his ass and laughing at his stupid, vulgar jokes. I want something so much bigger than that. And if the Mercury Theatre closes on Thursday night, and it very well might, I know twenty people who would fight to get me a job. Do you know who John promised to introduce me to this week? David O. Selznick! This is not bunk.” Her voice was getting louder, and her eyes were glowing. “David O. Selznick. The man who is preparing to film Gone with the Wind. Do you have any concept of the power of celebrity when you’re dealing with somebody on Selznick’s level?”

  “Does this mean you won’t marry me?”

  Five

  I sat in a phone booth across from the New York Public Library, and I pulled the door closed. The seat was cold. There was a RE-ELECT LAGUARDIA sticker on the glass. This is going to be hard. I watched a few pigeons scatter along the curb, then I put the call through to my house.

  “I have supper waiting,” announced my mother.

  “Mom, I’m in New York.”

  “Everybody’s sitting down to eat. I made spaghetti with pot-cheese and cinnamon. Your favorite.”

  “Ma, I’m going to be stuck late in the city. There’s an important research project I’m working on for school. I have to spend hours at the library; my whole grade depends on this.�
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  Pause.

  “And when are you coming home?”

  “I don’t know. Late. Late. So late I couldn’t even—oh, Ma, here comes the librarian; save some spaghetti for me, all right? Gotta go. Love you!”

  Sonja and I walked toward Times Square distributing the fliers where we could: a shoe repair store, a newspaper kiosk. I felt exhilarated and slightly out of control—a good combination. I couldn’t quite believe I was walking next to this beautiful twenty-year-old girl with her seamed stockings, her chestnut hair, and her gently mocking eyes. Even strangers stared at her; guys hurrying home from work slowed down—pushed their hats back and looked over their shoulders to steal one extra second’s glimpse of her. I saw two guys shining shoes; one of them eyed Sonja, tapped his friend on the shoulder—get a load of this.

  And I kept saying to myself: why not? I mean, sometimes, Richard, you get lucky in this world, don’t you? Sometimes the wheel just lands on your number, doesn’t it? Who the hell was Orson Welles five years ago? He was a seventeen-year-old kid. (Every day, in every way, my ego is getting bigger and bigger.) Maybe if you just wanted and believed something deeply enough, the forces of the universe somehow conspired to make it happen.

  Yeah, and maybe they didn’t.

  What a night! What a girl! It was chop suey joints and Arrow-collar guys and the smell of the subway steaming up through the grates. It was the speakers in the music stores playing “I’ll String Along with You.” It was the illuminated letters of the Times news zipper rolling out the headlines: CZECHS CONFIDENT OF WITHSTANDING GERMAN AGGRESSION. EXPECT NO ARMED INVASION. It was the Astor Hotel and The Pause That Refreshes and Gillette blades in blazing blue neon and the huge illuminated bottle of Wilson’s liquor (“That’s All”) and Bond’s clothing and Sunkist California Oranges—Richer Juice, Finer Flavor—buzzing, blazing scarlet, yellow, and white over every inch of Broadway.