Dropped Names

by Frank Langella

  There she was, seventy-two years old, dressed in a two-piece blue suit, wearing a hat and gloves in July, coming onto the stage after we had all been pre-rehearsed. The voice was exactly as one would have hoped, distinctively tweety. I was instructed to lift her on her right side, and another lucky apprentice would do the same on her left. We were then to place her on the desktop, pick up our cameras, say our one or two lines, take a photo, and leave the stage.

  She stood rigidly as we approached, and as I went to lift her she said politely to the older gentleman sitting at the edge of the stage:

  “Mr. Director, would you kindly tell these young men to place each of their hands under my elbows, and I will grab them to steady me as I reach the table.” She then turned to us and said: “I’m so old, my dears, that if you’re not careful I might break.”

  And that is precisely what we did for the following eight performances as this delightful woman charmed and entertained the Pocono Playhouse audiences with her particular brand of inspired silliness; as she prowled her way around the stage, missing no laughs and playing her audience. She did, however, have one serious problem: her bladder. At any given moment in any performance she would suddenly exit the stage and rush to the nearest bathroom. The rest of the company, long used to these unannounced exits, ad-libbed their way around until she came back, blithely entering with lines like:

  “Oh, I just met the most delightful person in the hall and stopped to chat. Sorry. Where were we?”

  One evening the young leading lady was having a phone conversation during the time Miss Burke was relieving herself. As she reentered she spotted that the cord of the phone wire, which was taped to the end of the desk leg, had come undone and was on the floor. I watched as she peered down at the wire, saw a comic opportunity, got down on her knees, and took hold of it. As she stared at its frayed edges, the audience began to see the joke along with her. She held onto the cord’s end with one hand, used the desk to pull herself up to her full height, and stared blankly at the actress on the phone, who was as yet unaware of what she was doing. The audience was riveted to her every move and now laughing uproariously. Once the laughter died down, Miss Burke ad-libbed:

  “I don’t see how you can be speaking to anyone, dear. It seems to me you’ve been cut off.”

  I have often thought of Miss Burke when watching actors walking around a fallen prop, ignoring it. Pick it up, I think, we see it. We know you see it. Be creative. Use what’s there. I would be willing to bet that in The Wizard of Oz when Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch disappeared in a large puff of red smoke, Miss Burke ad-libs her next line:

  “What a horrible smell of sulfur.”

  My second role in the production was actually much more exciting than the first. I was to appear in the curtain call with Miss Burke. At the end of the play, her character receives as a reward for her victory, a Solid Gold Cadillac; so, when she appears for her curtain call, she is to be brought on by her Solid Gold chauffeur. I got that assignment because I was the kid who fit into the costume, which consisted of gold lamé pants, jacket, boots, cap, and gloves. My face was smeared with gold makeup during the Act 2 intermission, and I was told to take my place in the wings during the final applause. Miss Burke would come offstage, have a sip of water, grab my hand, and lead me out to warm, enthusiastic applause. The stage manager told me that after I led Miss Burke out for her curtain call, I was to take a step back and, as she bowed, leave the stage. As the week wore on, my step back grew slower, and my exit less rapid. I finally ended up lingering in her light so long that the curtain was coming down with me basking in the glow behind her. Miss Burke was totally unaware of my presence.

  At the last performance, the audience’s enthusiastic applause swelled even more than usual, and emboldened by the acceptance, I remained close to the star and reached out and took her hand as she rose from her slight curtsy and grandly led her off the stage. She turned, looked at me with utter bemusement, and as we hit the wings she said, “Mustn’t be greedy, dear. Your time will come.”

  NOEL COWARD

  “Big things for you, I think,” said Noel Coward as I sat at his feet on a summer’s day in 1961. Never mind there was a President and First Lady in the room or that our host was one of the richest men in the world: Mr. Coward only had eyes for me.

  You will read stories of John F. Kennedy and Paul Mellon in this book and discover why and how Mr. Coward and I got to where we were. It was after lunch now, after he’d performed and before we were all to depart from our magical afternoon in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Magical to me, certainly, but for Mr. Coward most likely not at all an unusual occurrence. He was sixty-three years old and looking fit as a fiddle. And there was no question, as he leaned forward to brush the hair out of my eyes, that he wanted to kiss me. Why wouldn’t he? If the only song he had ever written was “Mad About the Boy,” it would have been enough to understand his longing, romantic heart. I just happened to be the Boy of the title at that moment.

  But straight-cut or queer-shaped, there is nothing as sexy as rapt attention to your every word, and I was mad about the man. He wanted to know everything about me, making me feel completely and profoundly wanted in a way that transcends gender. I could have sat on that floor at his feet for a century, so seduced was I by his quiet and intelligent pursuit of my inner thoughts. Which of course he hoped was his gateway to my inner thighs. He learned in our conversation that I was residing nearby while apprenticing at the Cape Playhouse. And he casually mentioned the name of the hotel he was then staying at in Boston, preparing his new musical: Sail Away. “Perhaps you can come visit me on your off days,” he said.

  We were joined by Adele Astaire (Fred’s sister), who perched on the armchair, flinging her arm around his shoulder and looking at me with sweet indulgence.

  “The lad wants to be an actor,” Coward said.

  “Well of course he does, Noelie. Look at him.”

  They then proceeded to discuss me as if I were an alabaster statue perched on a pedestal and up for sale. My body, my eyes, my mouth; deciding no doubt if I would be worth bidding on.

  “I think he must cut his hair, don’t you?” she said.

  “I rather like it,” he said, brushing it off my forehead again.

  “Now, Noel,” came the motherly response, and she moved away giving me a little squeeze on the shoulder. “You couldn’t have a better teacher,” she said.

  This was, remember, the beginning of the sexual revolution. And it was everything legend would have you believe. To be twenty-three years old in 1961 was tantamount to having a million-dollar lottery ticket blow into your face on a windy day. And most of us were on a twenty-four-hour spending spree.

  I didn’t sign up for Mr. Coward’s class, primarily because I was too busy cashing in my ticket all over Cape Cod. I’d only just begun to realize my sexual potential and when you’re ripe for the picking, you don’t need to travel too far from the tree to enjoy the harvest.

  I would not be in his presence again for seven years. This time we were surrounded by several thousand worshippers on the occasion of his seventieth birthday at the Phoenix Theatre in London. My friend, the great English actress Celia Johnson, would be one of the many luminaries of the English theatre, performing moments from Coward’s illustrious career, and she scored me two tickets in the balcony.

  He sat in a box, his companion the legendary beauty Merle Oberon. For three hours in a perfectly focused flattering amber light he watched, in tears, as his extraordinary gifts were being unwrapped before him.

  It’s difficult to explain the glory that was Coward then, as wit, intelligence, and style have lost ground to stupid, vulgar, and loud. He was, even in his heyday, often dismissed as facile and lightweight. But listen to his songs, read his best plays, and you feel the seductive power of his mind—just as I did on that summer day in 1961.

  I don’t know what Sir Noel would have divine
d had I traveled to Boston that summer and let him kiss me. He probably would have looked deep into my opportunistic eyes and said:

  “Trying to decide which way the wind is blowing, dear?”

  Of one thing I am certain: I would have laughed a great deal. As I often have by the following examples of his legendary wit, told and retold, but which I can’t resist telling again.

  When hearing a rather pretty but dumb young man had blown his brains out, Coward said:

  “He must have been a terribly good shot.”

  Peering at a tiny sketch on the wall of a wealthy matron’s luxurious apartment, he asked:

  “Who did this?”

  “Picasso,” she said.

  “Hmm! Serves him right.”

  Of a well-endowed dancer who had neglected to wear a supporter under his costume, he said:

  “We must tell Dickie to take the Rockingham Tea Service out of his tights.”

  To a woman resolutely picking her nose at rehearsal, he called out:

  “When you get to the bridge, dear—wave!”

  When the actress Lily Palmer told him she was madly in love with a certain gentleman, Coward replied: “Don’t be ridiculous, he’s as queer as a three-dollar bill.”

  “He can’t be queer,” she said. “He’s married, with two children!”

  Coward retorted, “That only means he managed to lash it to a toothbrush . . . twice!”

  Sitting on the porch of a country cottage one warm afternoon, watching a young boy play, one of his dogs mounted the other and began a happy hump.

  “What are they doing, Uncle Noel?” said the little boy.

  “Nothing, dear. One of them is sick and the other one is pushing him to the doctor.”

  Receiving a secret fan letter from Lawrence of Arabia, signed with the code name “227460,” Coward replied: “Dear 227460, May I call you 227?”

  And in fond memory of his hoped-for conjugal visit from me in 1961, there is a wonderful story of his having invited a boy of another moment to come up to his apartment. When the elevator doors closed, Noel moved quickly across the floor and kissed the boy full on the mouth. Once upstairs, he changed into a smoking jacket, poured some white wine, lit a cigarette, placed it in a holder, and coquettishly stood at the mantel. The young man mustered up his courage and said:

  “Mr. Coward. I’m afraid I must tell you now before we go any further, I’m not gay.”

  Coward took a deep drag of his cigarette, looked deep into his eyes, and said:

  “Yes. I knew it when I kissed you!”

  LEE STRASBERG

  Of all the short men I’ve known, the guru of the Actors Studio, Lee Strasberg stood tallest on the list of the arrogant and insufferable. Even climbing as he did onto a self-constructed pedestal, he seemed still, in my estimation, to rise only to the height of a pompous pygmy.

  Many classic traits of the diminutive man were his in abundance: misplaced narcissism, imperiousness and the tendency to view himself as a benevolent god. He was, I thought, a cruel and rather ridiculous demigod who ran a highly profitable racket.

  Our first meeting was not a meeting at all, and I was not even supposed to be there. A good friend of mine wanted desperately to belong to the Actors Studio. At the last moment, her scene partner backed out, and she asked me to help. It was the early 1960s. In a room so dark you could see no one other than your partner, sat a few bodies facing the light. By the end of the audition one could make out their shapes and sizes. Sitting in the center was Strasberg, most definitely in need of a booster seat. He said nothing. When he left the room, a man came over to me and said:

  “We would like you to prepare something of your own and come back to see us.”

  “Oh, no thanks,” I said. “I just came by to help out my friend.” I was, at that tender age, already uninterested and unimpressed with Mr. Strasberg and the Method. And I will confess, at the height of my own youthful arrogance.

  I can still see the look of incredulity on the messenger’s face. It was as if he had told me I’d inherited a fortune and I told him to keep the cash. It was reported to Mr. Strasberg that I had declined to cross the moat, and his drawbridge was forever after closed to me.

  My future encounters with Strasberg were all the same. We would be introduced, he would look at me with disdain and condescension—not easy to do when you’re the height of my belt buckle—and give me a clammy, all fingers, no grip handshake. Hell had no fury it would seem like a Strasberg scorned.

  Lee Strasberg encouraged his actors to act not in spite of their neuroses, but because of them. The result being floods of tears, both on celluloid and floorboards, from actors determined to sacrifice their characters’ lives to a subplot of personal turmoil and aimless rage that may make them comfortable, but leaves the viewer misled. I had occasion to work with one such Strasberg acolyte onstage, whose predilection to wallow in sense memory obliterated his character as written and subsumed the author’s intention. It resulted in the audience feeling totally left out of and uninterested in his masturbatory performance.

  Both Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan, on a number of separate occasions, told me they felt Lee to be a complete charlatan and a self-serving martinet. And the really great teacher of the twentieth century, Stella Adler, said to me:

  “Lee is not a man of the theatre. It will take one hundred years to undo the harm he has done to the acting community.”

  And Marlon Brando, perhaps the greatest film actor of the twentieth century; at his best a brilliant combination of truth and technique until he dissolved into a self-indulgent, lazy bore, found Strasberg to be, as Stella repeated it to me, “An asshole and a fake who taught me nothing.”

  Oddly enough Marilyn Monroe, whom Strasberg had under his spell, seemed to profit from his misguided teachings. In the film The Misfits, she is transcendently and heartbreakingly honest. Strasberg certainly profited from her as well. In Marilyn’s will he was left her entire estate.

  There was a great deal of hoopla around his acting in a film with Pacino, one of his renowned students, in which his sense of “truth” was offended when he was given a pair of brown socks instead of the black ones more appropriate to his costume. His performance was ordinary and without distinction, but nevertheless Oscar nominated. As comfortable as he may have been in his black socks, he lacked the magic and mystery that makes a star actor, and his most famous students all had that and would have succeeded, I believe, without him.

  I am prepared to admit that my antipathy toward Mr. Strasberg had a great deal to do with his grandiosity and his misguided self-importance. And certainly, I have seen some remarkable performances from one or two of his students. But my sense was always that his outsized ego and kingly behavior stemmed more from his diminutive stature than his desire to protect and nurture his students. A teacher, I believe, should guide, not rule. Too many actors told me how afraid of him they were. The very opposite, I would think, of the emotion a teacher should inspire in a student.

  In 1964 he directed a stupefying production of Chekov’s The Three Sisters. At twenty-six years old I sat mesmerized by only one person. It was the great actress of her generation, Kim Stanley, who gave a transcendent performance combining all the ingredients necessary for great acting: truth, honesty, skill, and craft. Mr. Strasberg’s methods helped his students find, perhaps, their inner truth, but resulted in a limited and narrow perspective, creating actors totally unprepared for the classics and the challenges that come with the technique required to perform them. The Method is, for me, a dangerous movement put forth by a self-serving charlatan, who totally misreprensented the brilliant technique of Stanislavski.

  Whenever in the same room with Strasberg, I avoided his sycophantic circle. The last time I was in his presence he sucked the air out of the elevator we were riding in and when we hit the ground floor he put out his hand in a “stand back, I’m departing” g
esture that caused me to laugh out loud. He stopped, looked up at me with pure hatred and exited in a low-hanging cloud of fury. It remains one of my fondest sense memories.

  CELIA JOHNSON

  It was her eyes that first struck me. Huge and saucer-like.

  A renowned television personality named David Susskind was producing a series of dramatic stories and had cast me in one of them. It was called The Choice. My costars were Jill Clayburgh, Melvyn Douglas, and Celia Johnson, whose fame in America had come from a classic film she’d done for Noel Coward in 1945 entitled Brief Encounter.

  Melvyn Douglas had appeared opposite Greta Garbo in Ninotchka and was considered now a venerable and charming character actor— a quiet, polite man with a constant twinkle in his eye.

  It was 1968 and I was dressing androgynously. It was the era when most young men in New York were wearing bell bottoms, scarves, love beads, bandanas, all accented by an earring or two. I asked my girlfriend how I looked as I was preparing for my first day of rehearsal and she said: “Great! But take any three things off.”

  So I arrived late in what I thought was a fair compromise: a white silk Cossack shirt, hanging loose, with gold braiding around the neck and sleeves.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I overslept.”

  “Looks like you forgot to take off your pajamas,” Mr. Douglas said.

  A few days later we started shooting in Toronto and I was deeply impressed with Celia as a consummate actress and trouper. One late morning I watched her perform a complicated tracking shot in which she would be given some bad news about her husband while walking with a doctor and end up entering an elevator, turning to the camera, and registering heartbreak. She was flawless and perfect in one take—eyes welling with tears precisely at the right moment. Everyone applauded. She made no fuss about it, just blew her nose and headed for her camp chair.