by Cecil Beaton
With so much exuberance and warmth lavished on her acting, I wonder if Edith has affection for humanity or love for friends?
After an absence of a few days, I returned again to London to find that rehearsals had progressed at an astonishing pace. Already most of the characters had learnt their lines — not so Edith, who explained to the director, ‘I don’t want you to think I’m being behindhand in not giving up the book, I work like that — I always find I can develop my part more when I’m not fussing to find the words. I don’t want you to think I don’t pay any attention to this when I go home in the evenings. But I never give up my book for two weeks — it’s the way I work. I’ll know my part over the week-end.’
The cast, having been thrilled at the idea of playing with Edith, now began to realize the penalties of being with a great actress. Her avidity and egomania are certainly as pronounced as in most stage performers. At rehearsal she is businesslike, but selfish to the degree that even when it is reasonable to hold up proceedings to discuss her own problems for a certain length of time, she hammers on with such insistency that she succeeds in falling foul of the director. At one point she attempted to usurp a good position on a sofa stage centre. ‘It’s just to suggest the purely domestic thing of the married couple drifting together when anything unusual happens. Hector is sitting there — the burglar appears — wouldn’t it be right that I should drift towards him and sit down holding him by the arm?’ It takes a lot of strength for John Burrell to say, ‘No, Edith,’ in the way that he does. Edith counters: ‘I stand very still for a great length of time. It doesn’t look dead, does it?’ When at the end of one scene Edith asked, ‘Can’t Ellie give me a look at that point?’ John Burrell said, ‘No, I don’t think so, Edith.’ A long discussion that was more in the nature of a war of attrition followed. Edith became very pink about the cheeks. She pursed her lips, put her tongue at one side of her mouth and held her arms akimbo with one heel dug into the ground. ‘You must realize Hesione is a very difficult part — some of it almost as difficult as Shakespeare. Hesione moves from every emotion and, in many instances, with only one line to do it in. It helps me if Ellie looks at me. It makes it easier for me to weep.’ ‘No, Edith, it’s the thought that makes you weep, not the look. Anyhow, try it again with the look.’
Edith, with a black mushroom on her head (a property wig) and a mink coat, fumed and emoted with added zest to show how much better she could act with Ellie’s look. ‘Well, Ellie, is that all right for you to give the look?’ ‘Yes,’ said Deborah Kerr as Ellie. ‘All right — keep it,’ said John Burrell, and added, ‘You’re right, Edith — I’m sorry.’ But that was not the end of it for Edith, who went on to the others in the cast in the same strain. ‘I mean, I know what I can do! If they don’t like what I do then they must get someone else. But I do know my job!’ And, my God, she does!
The business-like way in which the rehearsals have been conducted is a great eye-opener to me. I feel, at this moment, though, that Edith is not yet the sensation she is meant to be and has not done anything remarkable in my hearing. Isobel Jeans, however, comes through with glittering colours. Isobel gives a brittle part tremendous sympathy. She transcends Lady Utterward’s stupidity, her fecklessness, and sometimes touches the heart-strings. Edith takes her revenge on Isobel when she puts her down in a chair by practically manhandling her. Edith was told many times to do the scene more quietly — yet each time she threw gasping Isobel back with renewed venom.
For the past week I have spent a few hours each day watching the rehearsals. Sometimes the actors have been perfecting little scenes, in others just running through their parts with a parrotlike lack of emotion. Edith has succeeded with a dramatic last-minute sprint and comes in a good length in front of Isobel, who was winning all the earlier laps.
Isobel Jeans had a good training with the Phoenix Society in classical plays, but this is about the first time she has ever been in a modern play of first-class quality. Lady Utterward gives her a lift right out of the rather humdrum drawing-room comedies she has lately been associated with. When Edith heard her give an extraordinarily effective first reading Edith cocked an eye at her with intense curiosity and said, ‘I think she’s going to be admirable.’ But Jeans suddenly discovered her part was unsympathetic and for several days went to pieces. Her distress reflected itself at the costume fittings. Although I know her clothes are going to be spiffing, Isobel became fretful and difficult. She looked in the glass with wrinkled face and said, ‘What I mean is ...’ but the inarticulate sounds that followed were unintelligible because Isobel is not pastmistress at completing sentences and cannot decide what specifically is distressing her.
When I asked her which costumes had pleased her during her stage career she seemed dissatisfied with the lot. ‘But surely those remarkable Empire costumes designed by Aubrey Hammond in The Man With a Load of Mischief?’ ‘Nahir — nehir,’ and biting her finger, and staring wildly at the floor, she threw away the remark, ‘He could have done much better!’
The director remained calm and unruffled in the face of a nonstop barrage of requests from a lot of egomaniacs. Each member of the cast seems to be working only to his or her own end. One rather obscure actor, when ticked off for doing something wrong, had to put up an argument, palpable to the others for its lack of conviction, to prove why he thought he had done right in doing wrong. When asked why he seemed to interrupt continuously a speech of Isobel’s, Isobel came forward whimpering and whining — ‘Yairs, yairs, it’s very difficult. I want a clear run on the lines — really. D’yer know — yairs — yairs.’ She would like the entire play to be a clear run through on her lines. Later, she tried to explain, ‘I think you’ll find it all right when I’ve got the dresses, the dress on — there’s a lot to it!’
Edith buttonholed me. ‘Don’t let anyone ruin my champagne satin. Remember, my champagne satin.’
I had bought a suitable dressing-gown from Austin Reed for Roberts, who takes the part of a poor little fellow. At the dress parade he held up the dressing-gown and shielding his eyes from the footlights called across to us, ‘It’s a bit meagre, isn’t it?’
But to revert to Edith. She is a flirt and she is easily flattered; after a long rehearsal Robert Donat twitted her with a leer, ‘Let’s stay behind and rehearse alone together.’ She ogled back with a coy wink, ‘I’m too tired today!’ But she was not too tired. She is never tired; as she said, ‘No one rehearses enough for me!’ During the lunch interval she remains on the stage with perhaps a thermos and a Marie biscuit to go over and over her scenes. She is never tired of acting: she acts all her living hours. She says, ‘I would rehearse until I drop.’
It is fascinating to see her making little discoveries in her part and bringing the character to life, and she is astute at analysing her powers. She holds forth to the boredom of the rest of the cast about why she would like to do this and that. ‘I can’t falsify. My inside will become more flexible, and I’ll be able to make my voice stronger later. I shan’t strain. It wouldn’t do to strain. You wouldn’t like it, and I couldn’t do it.’
I notice that she watches the director all the time he is giving the others their notes. She breathes in deep the foetid air of the theatre and it is balm to her; when others are exhausted and have aged ten years in a day, Edith, in the harsh overhead light, blossoms like a rose and begins to become a beauty.
It has been impossible to convince Edith that she should not wear black hair: yet black is too hardening to her contours. But she plonks on the thing as if it were a loaf or a hat. Then her eyebrows go up, her mouth stretches in a wide grin, ‘Look, it’s lovely. Look, I can wear it! I told you so — didn’t I? Look, it’s right with my skin!’ What can one say?
Two days later I found Edith with a most extraordinary object on her head — a black, wiry mass of the stuff one finds in an Edwardian sofa. The following is the history of what had happened: Dolly and Gus had succeeded in approximating a beautiful Japanese lady’s wig. It was com
posed of strands of silken hair set in a mould of shiny perfection. Edith was delighted with it but had wished ‘to get intimate with the wig’. So she took it back to Albany, back-combed it, re-arranged it, had her dinner in it, rehearsed to herself in the glass in it, had slept in it, and quickly given it a little ‘attention’ before returning to the theatre in it.
Everyone but Edith was aghast: everyone agreed that another wig must forthwith be made. Admittedly not quite so black this time, but still giving the effect of darkness, not a Japanese wig either, but still not the interior of an old sofa! It was only when, after the dress rehearsal, Binkie told Edith that she looked sinister with dark hair and couldn’t she envisage herself as a redhead, that she became upset. Edith looked tragically into the mirror and said, ‘I have so many disadvantages to overcome — perhaps I’d better retire to my farm!’ Nevertheless, next day her self-opinion was in no way dashed, and she was convinced again that another dark wig made of finer hair would be wonderful.
During the ‘try-out’ in the provinces I knew that certain alterations must still be made to Edith’s appearance. I suffered at the thought of approaching her, for I must be firm yet must not be unkind to someone so vulnerable. Perhaps I was not as tactful as I should have been for Edith complained to each member of the cast, ‘It’s very difficult for me, you see — I’m quite happy about myself, and Johnnie (the director) is quite content.’ But I knew that I must persist, and I knew how much these little details would make for improvement. Oh, dear! Edith had started to pout, fume, puff out her cheeks and blush down her neck. When eventually the alterations were made she said, ‘Now I don’t want to hear any more or I shall cry.’
Later: The play has been running for three weeks now. I have been away a lot and have had little news as to how it goes. However, Diana Cooper is not the only one who does not like it. Perhaps Diana is too logical. ‘Is it a real air raid? If not, what’s it symbolic of? If it is, why haven’t they spoken of the war at all?’ (I find it Shaw’s only poetical play, and the last act is like a twilight painting by le Sidaner.) Many people do not like Edith in it. They loathe her black wig, and find her sing-song inflections exasperating, but to me she is beautiful, magnetic and utterly spell-binding.
I rang up Edith to hear how she was getting along; it seemed that a sixteen-year-old girl, very intelligent and gay, was speaking to me, someone with all the airs and graces of a beauty. ‘Yaais — yais (tentatively). Yais, I’m very happy about it. No one knows anything, of course, but we think we may play for a nice long time. It’s a lovely play.’ ‘Were the critics good about it?’ I asked. ‘Oh, I think so. Johnnie (Burrell) says the weeklies are good — but then I only see those papers that I get. I hate reading about myself. If they’re unkind you suffer so terribly, and you can’t alter your performance straight off like that. It’s very unsettling.’ ‘But don’t you have a Press clipping agency?’ I asked. ‘Oh no. What’s the use? All these little green things arriving — I’ve not got room for them. No — no, I’ve given them up long ago, but if you could get the Vogue people to send me a copy with the pictures of me you took I’d like to see it — I’d give it back — but otherwise I don’t like to see about myself in the papers.’
Edith has done what she knows is her best, and to her the rest — the lobbying, the gossip, the adulation, even the audience — is unimportant. She retains a remarkable purity of spirit and an innocence that is most impressive.
August, Ashcombe
For several days now I have been clearing out cupboards and boxes and drawers, thereby studying my past. There are so many albums, such an accumulation of papers, letters, and all the old oddments that for years I have refused to throw away: even the old cheque foils, income tax reports, and letters from my father to Miss Joseph[34] about my accounts when I was in America. Looking through this old rubbish I have a terrible feeling of despair. Most of my life, since I grew up and became independent, has been one long hectic rush. I have never put the date at the top of my scribbled letters, the writing is almost illegible — and it is typical that the years should have gone by in a dateless void of rush — people — acquaintances — parties — nonsenses. If the war has done anything it may have had a calming effect on me. Let’s pray it has! so that when all this horror is over I may relish a certain leisure. T. S. Eliot said, ‘A vacant mind is the greatest treasure of all.’ Even this sorting and rummaging is part of a restlessness. I should be settling down to read a book.
‘A NEAR THING’
London — December
The M. of I. boys have at last decided that they want me to do the same job for them in the Far East as I did in the Near East. My first stop is to be India and they want me there quickly.
But I have discovered that to fly is not always the quickest means of travel. For the past arctic two weeks — the entire country under snow and ice — air activity in England has been at a complete standstill. The weather experts have watched anxiously the slow movement of a depression; but several times have, at the thirteenth hour, cancelled all departures. The order to ‘go’ came unexpectedly. ‘They’ve got you on another route. You’ll avoid Lagos and fly direct to Delhi on a Service transport plane.’
I had been having qualms about my trip, and become quite self-conscious when speaking to certain friends as if, perhaps, for the last time. Deborah Kerr, backstage at Heartbreak House had said, ‘Cheerio,’ and ‘if I don’t see you again’. I had felt embarrassed for her sake. The night before leaving I was not able to sleep, and for hours wondered about my possible early demise, and whether or not I should quickly make some sort of a will. I didn’t.
Nancy was up at dawn to help me with last-minute packing, while I went upstairs to say good-bye to my mother who was in bed suffering from a bad cold. She was tearful and anxious. Somehow I could not even blurt out the words ‘good-bye’, and left the bedroom abruptly. I stood outside on the dark staircase with my head in my hands. It was some time before I could ‘pull myself together’ enough to join the others and make a robust adieu.
In the early morning Paddington Station was dark, misty and bitterly cold. A group of army officers, some with red tabs, and a posse of rather seedy-looking civilians waited at the barrier to be conducted to the ‘reserved’ compartment. Long lingering farewells are always lowering to the spirit and this morning’s delays were exasperating. When, at last, the unpunctual train left I sank back with a great relief to sleep. There was no heating in the carriage and from now on I was almost perpetually cold.
At our secret destination we were met by RAF officers who doubted if the present North Pole conditions would make flying possible. We were taken to an anonymous mess and awaited further instructions. After hanging about all day in this frigid hut, we were told ‘no flying tonight’.
Rather than congeal in the lodgings provided by the RAF, I had the idea of telephoning Gerald Berners to invite myself to spend the night at near-by Faringdon. Never has a welcome been more heart-warming. And never before had his house appeared more comfortable and luxurious. However, the war has changed Gerald into an old man. Admittedly he is happier now than he was, but the shock at first upset his nerves so badly that he had positive plans for suicide. Luckily, someone took him to live at Oxford at St Giles where he was successfully psycho-analysed. By degrees he recovered sufficiently to make new friends, Clarissa Churchill, the David Cecils, Maurice Bowra and the Harrods, and for therapy he has worked hard card-indexing for Blood Transfusion.
Clarissa was amazed when I told her of Gerald the erstwhile eccentric firebrand. He is now no longer interested in painting or greedy for good food or amused by the jokes that were once important to him. Here, at Faringdon, he has built himself an all-weatherproof, watertight, anti-worry tower, and forgets the war by working on his novels and autobiography. Sitting with legs wide apart, his bowed head encased in a scarlet knitted pixie cap, Gerald murmured, ‘I don’t feel a bit older than ever I was. I get tired, but I’ve been tired for a long time now and I lik
e resting and sleeping. It’s such a relief when sex is put aside, it makes one so unhappy in ratio to the happiness it affords. And it’s so delightful to remember it all in retrospect. When I’m writing my memoirs I can remember everything of that nature so vividly that it gives me all the pleasure I had, without any of the awful tugging at the heart. When I see people going about tearing out their hair I feel, “Thank God I’m spared that anymore.” I never feel I’m out of touch with younger people, or that they are younger than me. But I agree with Byron’s Claire Clairmont who wrote, “There’s one thing to be thankful for — I shall never be young again.”’
After dinner Gerald played classical music on his hand-made super gramophone, and on going up to my linen sheets I realized how fortunate I was to have had this night’s escape, instead of...
It was a bright clear day when I left Faringdon early next morning. Excellent flying conditions. Later we climbed into a Dakota that was stripped of all but the minimum equipment. One side of the fuselage was piled with our luggage and miscellaneous cargo — huge rubber tyres for aeroplanes, crates, and ‘secret’ packages. The pilot of the aircraft was a young fair-haired Canadian of special beauty, with high cheekbones, lean, lithe figure and a stance like a gorilla. He had pale-almond eyes and a generous mouth continuously twisted in a smile. He piloted us to our takeoff point, and two hours later landed us at Land’s End. Here on the icy snows, dozens of transport aircraft were lined up, having been stranded here for many days thanks to the worst weather for years.
We were all herded into an already overcrowded vast Nissen hut in which the temperature, in spite of two very small stove-fires at each end, was below freezing point. By now it was 4 o’clock in the afternoon. We were told that by midnight we would know if we were to ‘take-off’ or not. When I saw Smuts waiting amongst us I realized the seriousness of the delay. Smuts was savouring a mug of tea and looked out at the last rays of a watery winter sun. Some young Canadians maintained high spirits by ragging one another in rather coarse terms. One said to a lean and lily-like pilot, ‘Phew! you are an anti-social louse. Why don’t you take some Epsoms and clear yourself out or put a cork up your arse?’ An elderly civilian, one of two tyre experts travelling for Firestone and Goodyear, described the night in the RAF lodgings, which I had missed, how his teeth had chattered all night long and that the sheets he slept in must previously have been used for wrapping ice.