The Sheila Variations

In praise of Sanaa Lathan

Wonderful actress. Fluid, emotional, easy on the eye, funny, deep, unconventional in some of her responses, she creates characters - and very specifically - she does not repeat herself - and you also don't catch her working. It looks easy. I've been a fan for some time (my writeup of Love and Basketball is here). I saw Something New last night and fell in love with it, and with her specifically. She's the kind of actress your heart goes out to. You want her to succeed. You want her to be happy. This is the kind of thing all great romantic female leads have - from Irene Dunne to Marilyn Monroe to Kate Winslet. You worry about these people a little bit - they don't seem self-sufficient, not completely anyway ... and so your heart goes out to them, you hope for them, you invest. It's a rare kind of contract between an audience and an actress ... and not all romantic female leads can pull it off. I think it's somewhat intuitive ... it's a thing that cannot be taught. Whether or not you agree with my choices of female romantic leads is not really the point. The point is that when you are an actress in a romantic film, and you are the lead, it is crucial that the audience want what you want, that they leap into the action (in their hearts) and root for you ... as though it were a sports film. Sanaa Lathan has always had that, and I will look forward to seeing her work for years to come. I'd like to see her hit the big-time, although her last couple of years have been pretty damn spectacular, what with movies and a Broadway hit ... She's a damn fine actress. The character in Love and Basketball, the fiery-tempered tomboy, is nothing like the uptight vaguely sad and yet driven career woman she creates in Something New. Not the same person. I love to watch her work. Her face, even with that scar on her right cheek, maybe even because of the scar, is made for the movies. It's a very beautiful face, but human, open, itself. Emotions are not strived for, or sought after ... they are experienced organically. You don't catch her pushing. Ever. She goes through the gamut of emotions in Something New, and although the movie itself has some issues (mainly with the direction) - the acting, across the board, is a delight. But it's Lathan's movie, and I'm happy for her.

I'm a fan.

What can I say, I'm invested.

The Books: "Cary Grant: A Celebration" (Richard Schickel)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Cary Grant: A Celebration, by Richard Schickel

This book and Pauline Kael's essay "The Man From Dream City" are indispensable to understanding Grant. Both are brilliantly written, first of all, and second of all - both provide fascinating interpretations and analysis of Cary Grant's persona, his thing ... and this is harder than it looks. If you've seen the body of work, you can get a sense of how complex it is ... the Cary Grant of Affair to Remember put up alongside the Cary Grant of Bringing Up Baby ... Is there a thruline to the career? An organizing principle? What the hell is it? It's easy enough to say Grant was elegant, or funny, or talented, or had star power ... but to dig into the nuts and bolts of the exact elements that made up Grant's particular persona ... Pauline Kael gives it a shot, as does Schickel, in this book-length analysis of Cary Grant's career. Schickel came up with one of the best lines about Grant - which I reference here in my piece about Jeff Bridges: Schickel is talking about Grant's portrayal of Geoff Carter in Only Angels Have Wings:

Grant's character here isn't playing hard to get. He is hard to get.

This goes a long long LONG way towards explaining the specificity of Grant's particular appeal ... because not all leading men have that particular energy - but I had never heard it put so well, so perfectly. The difference between "playing hard to get" and actually "being" hard to get is huge. Grant has something un-gettable in him. This is what Pauline Kael focuses on in her essay - how Grant was usually the "object" in any love story, it was always the woman who did the pursuing. I think Kael called him "the most pursued man in Hollywood". He truly IS hard to get - it's not a GAME to him ... and so, of course, women, like men, love a challenge. They are off chasing him because he IS hard to get ... in the same way that men chase women who seem un-gettable ... It's part of the whole love-chemistry thing. But Grant embodies a particular aspect of it that really is his own, if you compare it to his peers. Gary Cooper, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable ... These are not interchangeable men. You couldn't really plop Bogart into a Cooper role and have it work. Each one has a staked-out territory. Grant, though, remains elusive, and therefore flexible. He made his name in the screwball comedies of the 1930s ... but Hitchcock had always sensed a darkness beneath the crazy humor, maybe a remoteness ... who knows what it was he sensed. So he put Cary Grant in Suspicion. Hitchcock was not altogether happy with the results, since he was forced to tack on a last-minute happy ending. So he tried again. This time he hit the jackpot with Notorious. Cary Grant had never been asked before to reveal so much, and my God, what a fantastic movie. He is so so good in it. Everyone is good in it. Grant is truly remote in this film ... without the softening aspects of romantic comedy ... and to allow yourself to be revealed like that ... Grant wouldn't trust just anyone with his persona, but he trusted Hitchcock. Hitchcock is responsible for some of Grant's greatest hits, and it is amazing to look at those films side by side with the films Grant did for Howard Hawks. It is only then that it becomes clear as day just how versatile this guy really was. Untouchable, really.

Richard Schickel, in his book, analyses all of this as though it is a science experiment. Or, more accurately, a recipe. In this film we had a smidgeon of this, a dash of that ... in THIS film we added a tablespoon of this, took out the smidgeon, and poured on a dose of THIS ... It's truly obsessive, a book for true obsessives, and for me it was a revelation. I had already seen all of Grant's work by the time I found Schickel's book, and once I read the book I had to go back and watch it all again. So that I could see it at work.

One of the best sections of the book is Schickel's analysis of what happened in Cary Grant's career in the early to mid 40s. Screwball comedy is over. Notorious hadn't happened yet. It's not that Grant lost his way, but there are a couple of "transition" movies in there ... which probably didn't feel like "transitions" to Grant ... He was just trying to continue his career in the new more serious 1940s. Would he survive? Many screwball comedy actors did NOT survive the transition. But Grant not only survived, he went on to dominate. How did that occur? What choices did he make that helped him survive? One of the key aspects of talent and a long career is flexibility. To know when you need to change. I guess that's one of the definitions of evolution as well. The creatures that survive are not, perhaps, the strongest, but the ones who are able to change. Grant always had a madcap level to his humor, but the styles of movies had changed in the 40s ... He adjusted. Some of the movies are more successful than others, and when Notorious came out, a whole other aspect of Cary Grant was shown to the public - who all said, in unison, "WE LIKE!!"

Two of the "transition" movies are Talk of the Town, with Jean Arthur (his costar in the earlier Only Angels Have Wings) and Ronald Colman (a wonderful performance) and Mr. Lucky - a movie I absolutely adore. I included it in my Under-rated Movies list.

Richard Schickel analyzes both of these films in the following excerpt. Brilliant.

EXCERPT FROM Cary Grant: A Celebration, by Richard Schickel

And so Cary Grant, having skipped blithely through the depression, his social conscience entirely unburdened, came at last to concern, involvement, the big issues: in The Talk of the Town (1942) and Mr. Lucky (1943). They are not bad. They are better, for example, than Once Upon a Honeymoon (also 1942) in which he was a newspaperman trying to get a stripteaser out of Europe ahead of the advancing Nazi hordes, or Once Upon a Time (1944) in which he was seen as the manager of a dancing caterpillar, two travesties which a merciful memory now almost entirely veils. By contrast, The Talk of the Town and Mr. Lucky are both well made. If they ground his spirit they ground it gracefully, with a certain intelligence. In the first, co-written by Irwin Shaw and Sidney Buchman, with George Stevens directing, he is Leopold Dilg, who has been a nuisance, a classroom cut-up in the town where he was born. Somewhere along the line his anarchical spirit was politicised. ("Some people write novels. Some people write music. I make speeches on street corners.") One does not quite believe it - Cary Grant on a soapbox! - but since the film does not actually require us to contemplate this depressing spectacle, we can perhaps ignore the naggings of disbelief. In any event, he has been falsely accused by the town's leading citizen - the owner of its principal factory - of arson and murder, and the film opens with him escaping jail and taking refuge in a country house owned by Nora Shelly (Jean Arthur) which she is preparing for a new tenant, Prof. Michael Lightcap (Ronald Colman), a legal scholar and civil libertarian - Justice Douglas with an English accent - who is moving in to write a book in peace. We are on the bring, here, of violating one of the madcap comedy's most sacred conventions. The green place is about to be polluted by politics, the disorders of the world are about to intrude upon the retreat, the purity of which was essential to the restoration of bedevilled perspective. There is, however, some nice knockabout as Arthur tries to keep Grant hidden from her visiting professor, some nice irony when, her secret revealed, the two men take a liking to one another, and begin discussing the gap between the law as theory and the law as reality - the idea being largely to disabuse the professor of his innocence on the latter point. That's good populist stuff. And his involvement in Dilg's case, which includes doing a little rough-and ready private detective work before taking it to court, gets him out from behind his books and will surely make him a better, more humane Supreme Court justice, which is what he becomes at the end of the picture.

Grant makes a good fugitive. He can use his natural wariness, his alert passivity, to advantage. And sometimes when the talk is thick we can see that he is not paying attention to it. What does all this chat have to do with the fact that the cops are on his tail, and have previously demonstrated but small interest in defending him from a lynch mob? It is right and good that his mind wanders from abstractions to survival. Archie Leach's would have. If he has a problem here, it is not with his playing but with his image. That he is a man of mischief has been long since established; that he is a man of the serious left, a true radical capable of inflaming a whole community, no, that does not quite go down.

Mr. Lucky is, on that ground - but only on that ground - shrewdly calculated, for it does not discover Grant committed to anything. His Joe Adams is at the outset a gambler with a boat, a floating casino which he anchors offshore to conduct his business, with an eye fixed exclusively on the main chance. Nor is his history an open book. "Nobody ever knew what he was - except tough," says his friend, narrating the story after it appears that the criminal had died a heroic wartime death, torpedoed at sea. Especially since the lighting is noir-ish, it seems that what we are about to witness is Grant's Casablanca, the story of a shady soul regenerated by popular front idealism. But as we move into the tale, the mood brightens and the pace quickens. Looking for a respectable cover, Joe aligns himself with a war relief organisation managed by a group of society ladies, and is soon enough smitten by its deputy director, Dorothy Bryant (Larane Day). We are now suddenly in the country of romantic comedy - society dame and a mug from the wrong side of the track (or docks) falling for each other. Whereupon we fall over into the land of the screwballs. The ladies set Grant to work knitting in a window where passers-by can see him. It is a great Grant moment - a drag scene without a drag outfit, and charmingly goofy. Not long thereafter, Joe and Dorothy head in the classic manner to the green world - Dorothy's family home in the country. We expect a romantic peacefulness to fall over their scrappy affair. Wrong again. When she proposes marriage, he fires back the opening barrage in what will quickly turn into class warfare: "To people like you, folks like me are animals ... We're so bad and you're so very good ... You look through me like I was a dirty pane of glass ..." and so on. Then, however, a priest tells him tales of children suffering under wartime hardships and the filthy pane is cleansed; one can see through it now to a heart of gold. A plan by some of Joe's mob pals - to steal the take from a gambling concession Joe is managing at a charity ball managed by Dorothy's organisation - is foiled by him and ... It is by this time like a breathless tale made up by a child, all hasty twists and turns, eager to please at any cost.

It is amazing. It is weird. It defies description. What is this movie? What is its main line of business? It never makes up its mind. And that reflects its curious beginnings. The original story is by one Milton Holmes, who was a tennis pro at a club where Grant played. He approached the star with the basic idea and the actor got the studio to buy it and assign Holmes to turn it into a script. Given his inexperience, however, it was thought prudent to bring in a more seasoned partner - none other than Adrian Scott, who would soon enough find a larger fame as one of the Hollywood Ten. There must be one of the great unwritten farces in this situation - the tennis bum and the gentlemanly communist sitting down to collaborate on a comedy for one of the world's most glamorous stars.

And one in which he was taking a personal interest. For there is a third element of interest in the film - a minor but palpable autobiographical note. Grant occasionally uses Cockney rhyming slang (most notably "Lady from Bristol" which means "pistol" in the argot). There are references to a poverty-stricken past and of a mother going hungry so that her child would be fed. His character is also given a rationale for not entering military service, which was something of a touchy subject for Grant who, despite his age - he was close to forty - seems to have felt guilty about not entering the service. "I had my war," says Joe, "climbing out of the gutter. I won that war. It's the only war I recognize."

It might have been a recipe for disaster, this unlikely collaboration between a man who had been a servant in the upper class world that madcap comedy had purportedly represented, a critic of that world (educated on a scholarship at Amherst, Scott's background was working class) and an actor, who besides trying to breathe new life into the genre that had given him life as a star, was also, at this moment, as we shall shortly see, interested in expressing something of his own lower-class roots in his work.

The result, perhaps surprisingly, was not a disaster. If Mr. Lucky is hardly a great movie it is not a bland one or a stupid one either. It is in fact more memorably dislocating than many of Grant's smoother and better loved movies. At least on the subject of class it is, for example, more abrasive, more emotionally honest, than something like The Philadelphia Story.

But of course, it is critically a dangerous movie. The mixture of personalities in the writer's office, the resultant mixture of moods and motives in the film itself, have such a tempting historical symbolism - that one perhaps finds it more interesting than it really was. But if one must guard against claiming too much for the picture, this much is certain: it is an apt and convenient place to mark the end of an era, an end to the giddy delights of a kind of movie making for which we lost the taste for seeing, then the knack for making.

Grant lost something almost immediately - his main line. He would, in time, find another one, though never one as interesting, as quirky, as full of surprises for us, for himself, as the comedies of this period had provided.

Blue and white

This past weekend we threw a bridal shower for my sister Jean who is getting married in September. It's all very happy and intense. I love my family so much, and I love Pat's family (the groom) ... and Jean's friends - many of whom I have known since they were toddlers rolling around with Jean on a blanket in the backyard covered in popsicle juice - are phenomenal women. Siobhan and I got up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday and drove up to Rhode Island to meet up at Leslie's house where the shower would take place. It was a blazing blue and white day. You can feel the ocean in the air. Leslie lives walking distance from the Atlantic. As I wrapped streamers around the fence, smeared in SPF 70, I could feel the caravan of cars converging from all over New England - aunts and cousins and friends - coming to celebrate our dear Jean's wedding. This is not an unambiguously happy time. There are things in our lives that put a shadow over the event. A big family thing. Which does not temper our joy, but seems to bring it out into even starker relief. It's so intense that I am considering Xanax as a coping mechanism. Jean is a beautiful woman, and Pat is a beautiful man ... a member of our family from almost day one ... so to be on the brink of "making it official" is glorious indeed.

It was a good day.

Oh, and Jean and Pat got great gifts. There are many funny stories from the shower. Sarah, hugely pregnant, sitting with her feet in the pool, watching Jean open identical glasses from a box - Jean was blabbing on, caught up in the moment ... opening each glass, even though they all were the same - and suddenly out came a booming voice from the side of the pool: "STOP OPENING GLASSES!" commanded Sarah. We are all still laughing about that. Let's keep the event moving, keep it snappy ... STOP OPENING GLASSES.

Us four bridesmaids worked our ass off to make this thing happen, and happen right ... so once people started showing up, the event stopped being a phantom in my mind, something I worried about ... and started becoming something to revel in, to enjoy.

Especially the acute happiness of seeing my sister so happy.

Xanax, please.

The Books: "Cary Grant: The Lonely Heart" (Charles Higham & Roy Moseley)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Cary Grant, The Lonely Heart, by Charles Higham & Roy Moseley

What confuses me is how it took TWO authors to write such a yawn of a book!

This is what happens when you try to "explain" your subject, as opposed to just describing his actions - and letting the actions speak for themselves. The Lonely Heart isn't a smear book. But it is interested in pulling Grant down off the pedestal. Now, I'm cool with that, in some ways: he was a man, after all ... and the practical choices he made, the everyday choices, went a long way towards creating that spectacular persona we all recognize. But all these two authors can really come up with in the end is, "Wow, Cary Grant is contradictory! THIS wife said he was loving, and THAT wife said he was paranoid! How can that be??" Uhm, maybe because Cary Grant was a human being, and we all have contradictions within us? Irreconcilable? We aren't just the same, through our lives - and if we are, we probably wouldn't get biographies written about us, because it would be the most boring biography ever written. I'm shy in some circumstances, and a raging extrovert in others. Some people would call me a bitch or cold, and then other people would declare to the moon that I was the best friend a person could ever have. That's life. If you fall down in shock over that, then you need to get out more. You need to expand your consciousness about, oh, what it means to be a human being. Higham & Moseley want to iron Grant out and in so doing completely miss the mark. It is, indeed, possible, to be two contradictory things at the same time. One woman reports that Grant was a sensitive caring lover. One woman reports that he was abusive, cold, and cheap. Yeah? So? Maybe he had chemistry with one, and felt threatened by the other. Who knows. I had to force myself to finish the book. I guess, in my opinion, you're better off not coming to conclusions about a person. Just let them be. To quote Philadelphia Story: "The time to make up your mind about people is never." I totally agree with that. Tell us what they did, and let the story speak for itself. I am thinking of the really good biographies now: Berg's Lindbergh, McCullough's John Adams, Ellmann's Joyce ... These are massive accomplishments. Each subject is highly complex. Alexander Hamilton thought one thing about John Adams, Abigail another. But of course. David McCullough does not try to reconcile those contradictions because they aren't to BE reconciled. Hamilton wasn't right, and Abigail wasn't wrong. They both are right, because, uhm, you know, we all have different perspectives in life, and different goals. Hamilton thought Adams was truly dangerous, and mentally unstable. Adams was also in his way. So of course he would have a negative reaction to Adams. Abigail was Adams' partner, his wife, his adviser in many ways. She also had a tribal sense of family, and if you dissed her husband, even if you were an old dear friend (calling Thomas Jefferson, call for Thomas Jefferson) - she would cut you out forever. That makes sense from HER perspective. McCullough doesn't seem baffled by this. He lets it stand. It's not for us to judge, or decide. Maybe it's for us to bring someone to the forefront (as has happened in the last 10 years with Alexander Hamilton, who is in vogue now) - and correct some misinterpretations that are out there in the public space ... But life is complex, we are all mixed bags, we cannot be nailed down to one or two adjectives ... because usually we are different in different situations. One of my boyfriends thought I was the best thing since sliced bread and still yearns for me to be in my life. One of my other boyfriends has let me go completely, probably thrilled that he escaped with his heart intact. I don't know. Doesn't confuse me at all.

So The Lonely Heart isn't good, is basically what I'm trying to say. It also really skimps on the movies. It's more interested in Grant's personal life, which, again, is rather interesting - I understand that ... For example: Can we please talk about Randolph Scott and the Christmas cards that they sent out to all of their friends?

This is just one example. The photos of those two together - roommates for many years - working out together, cooking, one of them wearing an apron ... This isn't tongue-in-cheek, either. What it is is "out" - no pretense, realizing the impression it made - and doing it for that reason - it fascinates me!

But then our co-authors have no idea how to talk about acting. They skip over it because they are completely out of their element. "Grant did a good job in North by Northwest and the public loved it." I'm not exaggerating. The movies are skipped over, they are just the context for the larger story about how CONFUSING it is that Cary Grant was so CONFUSING!!

And look, I'm fine with talking about that confusion. I think it is an essential part of Grant's long-lasting appeal. People like Pauline Kael and Richard Schickel - in their essays and books about Grant - go deeply into these contradictions, and how it either informed his work, or stayed out of his work, how he compartmentalized, but also how he knew which aspect of himself to bring forward in each particular role. They know how to talk about what it is that actors do. They also just flat out know how to write, and know how to make Grant's biographical details (that bit with his mother disappearing, and his possible long-term gay relationship with Randolph Scott) into fodder for his work. It becomes interesting, rather than prurient. Higham & Moseley are out of their element. And I guess I feel like: if you're going to talk about Cary Grant, you had BETTER be prepared to talk about acting in an intelligent way. You don't see David McCullough skipping over the whole "politics" section of his book, because he doesn't understand how politics work. You're gonna write about John Adams, then you had best learn it!

So. These are my thoughts. Take 'em or leave 'em. The Lonely Heart came out in 1989 and since then there have been many in-depth biographies (which are a bit more in vogue now than they were then) of Grant - some taking one focus, some taking the other ... there are books about his sense of style, or the gay esthetic of his life - closeted Hollywood and all that, his business sense, his development of the screwball comedy ... There's way more out there on the market now. The Lonely Heart has pretensions of importance, and to me, it comes off as banal. More than anything else, it made Cary Grant boring, and THAT I can't forgive!

I have always been interested in his long-term friendship with playwright Clifford Odets (one of my posts about Odets here).

By the time Grant and Odets met, Odets' star had fallen quite a bit from his meteoric rise in the 1930s. His reputation preceded him, but he had fallen short of what he had dreamt for himself. He was a huge drinker. He was volatile. He was a working-class boy who loved nice things and glitter and high-end nightclubs. Because of his plays which defined, in many ways, the "Left" in America in the 1930s - there had always been some kind of expectation placed on him, almost like he should be a pamphleteer or propagandist, rather than an artist. It nearly killed his art. He sat in Hollywood, struggling, fighting, writer's block, stymied by the business ... unable to function (Barton Fink, anyone?) He and Grant became friends (and remained so until Odets' death) - and Grant took a chance with Odets (and Grant was extremely cautious as an actor ... he only worked with directors he trusted ... reluctant to place himself in unknown hands - he was stubborn) - and starred in the first (and only) movie that Odets directed: None But the Lonely Heart.

If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. I think it has some major problems but it has much in its favor. First of all, there's Odets' language. It gives me goosebumps. I LOVE Odets' style. Sylvester Stallone has clocked Odets as one of his major inspirations for the script in Rocky - that mix of street poetry and rough-and-tumble romanticism. Odets was an idealist. Much of his stuff can seem naive now, in our more "knowing" eyes, but the language stands alone. "Don't give me ice when your heart's on fire," snarls one of his characters. Odets is very difficult for actors to play. You cannot wink at the audience as you are onstage. You cannot condescend to it. You have to "go there". In None But the Lonely Heart, Cary Grant goes back to his roots (never far from his consciousness) and plays a Cockney drifter, kind of a mama's boy, struggling to get a leg up in the world (classic Odets). Grant was a giant star when he made that film, and he was more often in a tuxedo than any other kind of clothing. In None But the Lonely Heart he wears a cap, a vest, baggy pants ... he has the accent - not HIS accent that he created - but how he actually spoke, how he grew up speaking. It's a dark film. Large forces are at work, the world occurs as a grinding crushing entity, there to keep the good and honest man down. Odets was all about compromise - sometimes to a fault (Golden Boy with his Brute Force on the one hand and Sensitive Artist on the other - is a good example) - but to Odets that compromise was always there for an artist: can you be an artist in a capitalist society that only values money? ("Life isn't printed on dollar bills!" shouts one of his characters) Or ... can you succumb to the lure of money, just to get a leg up, an escape, and THEN go live the life of your dreams? Odets struggled with these issues and None But the Lonely Heart is all about that. Another thing to watch, and it's astonishing: the LOOK of the film. God, is this a great-looking movie. George Barnes was the DOP, so much of the credit goes to him, but part of the director's job is to convey his idea, his dream of the film, to his DOP ... and so None But the Lonely Heart, with its noir-ish darkness, and gleaming cobblestones, and smoky streetlamps ... shows Odets' vision as a director. Each frame is a work of art. Makes me wish Odets had directed more.

The public wasn't wacky about the film - nobody wanted to see Cary Grant in a downtrodden Cockney part ... but it did get critical acclaim and Ethel Barrymore won an Oscar for her portrayal of Grant's mother. And Grant was nominated. It was an experiment ... and it was also a project dear to Grant's heart. Years and years later, when Grant finally got his Honorary Oscar - Peter Bogdanovich was charged with putting together clips of Grant's films through the years. Grant didn't care about any of that, he let Bogdanovich do his thing ... but his only request was that the clip of him crying by his mother's bedside in None but the Lonely Heart was included. He had never been asked to show such emotion, and he really wanted it to be remembered.

Odets and Grant were unlikely friends - at the opposite ends of the spectrum, politically ... and Grant was frugal (to a fault), and cautious, and committed to physical fitness his entire life. Odets could be a mess. Grant would lend him money, would sit by him when he was sick near the end ... remained a friend even when all of Odets' other friends had faded away. It was a deep friendship. I would love to know more about it. Higham & Moseley are not the ones to tell that story, however ... but I figured I would pull out an excerpt having to do with this topic.

Tip of the iceberg.

But when you're talking about Cary Grant, it is my opinion that you are always only at the tip of the iceberg.

EXCERPT FROM Cary Grant, The Lonely Heart, by Charles Higham & Roy Moseley

Clifford Odets, a reigning playwright of the American stage, was in town that season, following a stormy protracted divorce from Luise Rainer and a disastrous relationship with Frances Farmer. Author of a string of highly praised plays written under the aegis of the Group Theatre, he had recently scored a great success with Golden Boy (which was filmed in 1940 with the twenty-two-year-old William Holden). Tall, dark, brooding, capable of flashes of wit and charm, but more often morose, difficult, and profoundly introverted, Odets fascinated Cary as few men had ever done. He was the first serious intellectual with whom Cary had come in touch. Odets was well read in a number of different cultures he had a commanding knowledge of music and painting; he had a fluent, sometimes pretentious, but always stimulating line of speech. Peering through scholarly spectacles, he would rivet people but then exhaust them with his excessive knowledge, which made them feel uncomfortable. He was in every possible way out of place in the movie community. Yet his hunger for the bodies of beautiful young girls was insatiable, as burning and fierce as his talent in its demands upon him. At the age of thirty-four, he was at the height of his physical strength and of his power as a dramatist, and few women could resist his fame, his looks, and his lean, athletic physique.

Odets would remain the one human being who reached into Cary's soul and understood it. Clifford Odets's son Walt comments upon his father's relationship with Cary. In conversation, he told Charles Higham:

Although I do not believe they had a physical relationship, I think I am right in saying that they had an intense love for each other. My father was also bisexual, and I know he and Cary discussed this. Also, it tortured both of them. Yet at the same time, whereas my father was extremely repressed in private, never revealing anything of the other side of his nature, Cary often acted quite overtly effeminate in our home, startling me and my sister. Of course, I'm talking about years later; I wasn't born until the late 1940s.

Some part of my father - that part of himself which came from his very ambitious, immigrant father - clearly aspired to be Cary Grant, so to speak. This is partly what kept him in Los Angeles hanging out with movie people. Cary, on the other hand, must have aspired in some serious way to be like my father ... Both men seem to have been quite conflicted and pained about ... private parts of themselves. This was one of the reasons their friendship was often difficult; each was especially sensitive to the other's expectations, because those expectations also came from within.

Although it would be several years before they would work together, they remained in touch even when Odets was in New York and even though their politics were in opposition. Odets was a creature of the traditional left, Cary was still a dyed-in-the-wool Republican.

Steel magnolia

It's been scary times in my friend Alex's life. And scary for all of us who know and love her. Emails flying through cyberspace yesterday - "have you heard anything??"

Thank God Jan is on the scene.

My love to you and Chrisanne, dear Alex.

Master of LEGOs

LEGOs perform "Whiplash".

I love the shots of the gyrating "crowd". I love the guitar solo.

Who knew that LEGOS would remind me to get excited for the upcoming Metallica tour?

The Books: "Evenings With Cary Grant: Recollections in His Own Words and by Those Who Knew Him Best" (Nancy Nelson)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Evenings With Cary Grant: Recollections in His Own Words and by Those Who Knew Him Best, by Nancy Nelson

I can imagine that this is pretty much a book only for hardcore fans. It's almost an oral history, the biographical details are slim - everything is swayed in favor of the adulation of Cary Grant (the foreword of the book is by his last wife Barbara and his daughter Jennifer) ... but what is so terrific about it is that there are first-hand anecdotes about the filming of all of his movies - from his co-stars, his directors, his friends ... stuff that may seem trivial and might not make it into a "serious" biography, but THIS is the stuff I want to hear: what was it like on the set of Notorious? How did Cary Grant work on his part in Suspicion? What did Mae West have to say about him? There are funny stories about improvisational moments, and mistakes that turned into gold ... all of the stories of what it was like to be Cary Grant, as an actor. I loved this book. I still dip into it from time to time, when I want to write about Grant and one of his movies - because there's not a movie here that is not covered in detail, and I love it because the narrative voice of Nancy Nelson is completely unobtrusive. She basically gives bullet points to set up the anecdote ("On April 9, 1964, Grant started working on Father Goose") - and then she lets the voices take over. She lets Leslie Caron speak, or Cary Grant, or Cy Coleman ... lengthy first-person monologues ... I just love that crap.

Grant fans, you don't want to miss this book. It may not be "serious" but it is my favorite of all of my Grant books. It's the one I "use" the most, in my writing.

To me, it gives the most complete picture of the mystery that is Cary Grant - and that is because it doesn't try to pin down the mystery, it doesn't try to 'explain' Grant ... It just lets the movies speak for themselves, and also his behavior on the set - toward his co-stars, directors, leading ladies ... The man begins to emerge. Sort of. It still doesn't "explain" him, and I actually prefer that. Books that are hellbent on explaining him ("He was gay and THAT'S why he became Cary Grant!") are annoying (although sometimes interesting) - because they cannot handle the mystery, they must decide on a THEORY and then back that up ... I am not interested, for the most part, in that kind of thinking. Especially not when it comes to human beings. Based on the known facts, it seems that Grant probably was at least bisexual, who knows, I don't really care - Or I care inasmuch as it affects his work. That's what interests me. I'm also, though, suspicious of those who seem adamant that Cary Grant was straight as a board ... I'm talking mainly about fanboys/girls, naturally. You know, the types of fans who will go to the MAT that Clay Aiken is not only straight, but a gift directly from the Lord to help the downtrodden people, and he's a good boy, he's good to his mother, he just hasn't found the right girl yet! Claymates, I believe they call themselves. They are FEROCIOUS at any suggestion that their beloved Clay is Gay. It's odd. (Especially because ... hmmm .. I'm thinkin' the Claymates are headed for a pretty awful revelation one of these days and their entire worldview will come crushing down.) But there's a similar faction in Grant fan-land, because of the rumors that he was gay, had a long relationship with Randolph Scott, even some of the comments he made himself in his life ... I don't know, there are the fans who will get ENRAGED that you suggest their beloved idol was, perhaps, gay. I don't get it. What do you care if he was gay, straight, bi, whatevs? Isn't he still Cary Grant? Why are you so invested in him NOT being gay? I get annoyed at the Team America "everyone is gay gay gay" theme (Allison was laughing recently reading a bio about Hepburn, and she got annoyed at the author's insistence that everyone was gay - she found herself rolling her eyes at it) ... but I am also curious at those who seem vehement against it. I don't know. I don't know Cary Grant. I have my theories like everyone else (the man was bi), but that has nothing to do with who he is as an ACTOR. (Or, perhaps it does have something to do with it ... perhaps that "mystery" I keep referring to is part and parcel of Cary Grant keeping aspects of himself separated off ... something he did repeatedly, throughout his life. Nobody knew all of him.) Whatever, none of this is here, there, anywhere. If Grant was bisexual, it still doesn't explain the magic of his appeal on screen, and the continuous awe he inspires, as an actor. He was a top box office star for, what, 3 decades? Unheard of. And I believe it would have continued, if he hadn't retired. Cary Grant was never going to be an old guy with 2 lines in a movie. Sean Connery is similar. There's something still so vital about the man, he's still a valid leading man ... you don't want to see Connery in the background, or in a bit part ... it just wouldn't seem right. Grant decided to step down. And he seemed to do so with zero bitterness. He just amazes me. There's nothing about him that is even remotely like anyone else.

I decided to choose an excerpt from the book that had to do with the filming of Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby.

EXCERPT FROM Evenings With Cary Grant: Recollections in His Own Words and by Those Who Knew Him Best, by Nancy Nelson

In February 1938 Bringing Up Baby was released. The first of four films Grant made with director Howard Hawks, it has become one of the classics of screwball comedy. His costar for the second time was Hepburn, and the two now were working as a well-practiced team.

Both Grant and KATHARINE HEPBURN were meticulous about details. She recalls: "We wanted it to be as good as it could possibly be. Nothing was ever too much trouble. And we were both very early on the set. Howard Hawks was always late, so Cary and I worked out an awful lot of stuff together. We'd make up things to do on the screen - how to work out those laughs in Bringing Up Baby. That was all Cary and me."

CG: Kate's a joy. At the end of Bringing Up Baby she climbs up high on a ladder next to the brontosaurus, to apologize for what has happened. The ladder falls, and she climbs to the back of the brontosaurus, where I'm standing on a platform. She had to get over the brontosaurus. As she moves, the brontosaurus starts to collapse. I told her when and how to let go. I told her to aim for my wrists, an old circus trick. You can't let go of that kind of grip, whereas if you go for the hands, you'll slip. She went right for my wrists, and I pulled her up. Kate was marvelously trusting if she thought you knew what you were doing.

Brontosaurs were one thing, but HEPBURN knows that Grant never warmed up to the leopard in Bringing Up Baby: "He didn't like cats, so he would have none of it. I was the only one who would work with the leopard because Cary was so scared of it. I was too dumb to be afraid. They blocked the scene and caged in the leopard. Olga Celeste, the trainer, was hidden off camera - with a whip. I had three scenes to do with the leopard. The first was a walk-through. In the second I'm in a negligee with the leopard trailing after me. And in the third I'm in a short dress with weights on the bottom, so when I turned, the skirt flicked. And by jiminy, when I turned - and I was much too sure of myself - the skirt flicked. The leopard sprang at my back. I didn't see it. That was the end of shooting the leopard with an actor.

"During the filming we dropped a fake leopard through the top of Cary's dressing room. He was furious at us - but amiable, of course."

(Decades later Grant had noticeably overcome his fear of cats. ROY, of Siegfried and Roy, relates that "Cary and Barbara came to our home in Las Vegas, where we have about twenty animals - leopards, tigers, great Danes - living freely. Cary would sit with us in the garden room, with a tiger sitting at his feet and watch the others swimming in the pool. He was fascinated with our commitment to preserving the white tiger, which is almost extinct.")

KATHARINE HEPBURN appreciated Grant's humor offscreen as well as on: "Cary was a lovely, very generous actor. A good comedian. And so funny. He had a wonderful laugh. When you looked at that face of his, it was full of a wonderful kind of laughter in the back of his eyes. Of course, he was also very serious." Howard Hawks was fully aware of Grant's wider range, as he told PETER BOGDANOVICH. "Cary is a great comedian and a great dramatic actor. He can do anything."

When LOUIS JOURDAN first saw Cary Grant on the screen in Bringing Up Baby, he found him irresistible: "I discovered this extraordinary presence. I was in awe of this persona on the screen - the look, the walk. But mainly it was his extraordinary, innate sense of the absurd. He was a master of the absurd, a pioneer before the theater of the absurd arrived. The Cary Grant I fell in love with on the screen hadn't yet discovered he was Cary Grant. He was absolutely in the raw. All those mannerisms - everything that has been imitated for forty years - he didn't know yet.

"Pauline Kael, the critic, made me see what makes Cary unique. At the same second that he is delightful and charming and irresistible, there is also the threat he could have a black side. He is constantly in conflict. Behind the construction of his character is his working-class background. That's what makes him interesting. That's what makes him liked by the public. He's close to them. He's not an aristocrat He's not a bourgeois. He's a man of his people. He is a man of the street pretending to be Cary Grant!"

Grant confided to JACK HALEY, JR. the origins of one of Bringing Up Baby's funniest sequences: "It was the scene in which Cary steps on the tail of Katharine Hepburn's dress and tears out the rear panel. He based it on a real-life happening. He went to the Roxy Theater in New York. Sitting next to him were the head of the Metropolitan Museum and his wife. At some point he gets up to go to the men's room and returns. A little while later the woman gets up and crosses in front of him. They're right at the edge of the balcony, he starts to stand, and he sees that his fly is open. So he zips his fly shut and catches her frock in it. They had to lock step to the manager's office to get pliers to unzip his fly from the dress. He told Howard Hawks the story, and Hawks used it. He couldn't use the fly joke, but he used the lockstep."

Hawks liked to tell another story. "It may be apocryphal," explains PETER BOGDANOVICH, "but Cary never refuted it. There's a scene where Cary's supposed to get angry, and Howard said, 'That's pretty dull. You get angry like Joe Doakes down the block. I know a guy, when he gets angry, he kind of whinnies like a horse. Why don't you do that?' So Cary went like this ... [makes whinnying sound]. And then that became a part of his persona. Now, you could say that Hawks could have given that direction to anybody. But it wouldn't necessarily have worked. It wouldn't have worked with Bogart or Cooper or Gable. It worked with Cary Grant. Perhaps Hawks was inspired by the qualities Cary brought to the scene and knew Cary could make it work."

3 songs that really upset me as a child

These songs haunted me. I couldn't let it go. I kept going back to them in my mind, over and over, asking the same questions, trying to find a loophole in the lyrics ... Maybe THIS time the song won't end the same way ... maybe I can find the way out to a different ending.

-- the song "You take the low road and I'll take the high road ..." I never listened to it without feeling an ache in my heart and without trying to talk TO the song, and ask it why it had to be that way. I always just wanted to intervene and say, 'No, no, can't you BOTH take the low road, you and your true love? So you don't have to separate?" A small 7 year old intervention. The song really upset me, and I kept trying to negotiate with the song itself ... trying to figure out a way for the lovers to stay together

-- Little Jackie Paper's betrayal (that's how I saw it) and the last moment when Puff the Magic Dragon crawled into the cave. Can't even talk about it. To this day.

-- John Henry and his hammer. I learned that song in 2nd grade, I think there was even a picture book, and I remember the illustrations - particularly one very dark one, which showed John Henry - in the tunnel - swinging his hammer ... and I knew he was a big strong man but the illustration made him look very small, in the distance, coming through with his hammer. I hated that he died and it seemed so unfair, I remember sitting at my little desk in 2nd grade in a total funk about it. There was a line in the song about how his heart gave out - he had worked so hard - and it just made me sick to think about. It was another song where I wanted to intervene. I wanted to run through the tunnel in my little Keds sneakers, and drag John Henry out by the hand before his heart gave out. Not fair. Learning the lyrics to that song ruined my day. I still have a strong reaction to that song (which now comes up on my iPod all the time, thanks to Bruce Springsteen) and part of it is because of how upset it made me when I was in 2nd grade.

Geek Love in ink

A pretty spectacular slideshow of tattooes.

The slideshow came to my attention because of Book Slut's post about the tattoo of Leona the lizard girl from Katherine Dunn's Geek Love:

God.

Geek Love is one of the most shattering books I have ever read (excerpt here) - and I still believe that the less said about it the better (although I LOVE to run into people who have read it ... it's like we're members of some small elite cult). My friend Mitchell always thought it should be made into a film - but not live-action - he thought it should be a dark surreal cartoon, which I still think is a brilliant idea. With images like that tattoo ... wow.

The Books: "Goldwyn: A Biography" (A. Scott Berg)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Goldwyn: A Biography, by A. Scott Berg

I made a mistake and skipped ahead to "Grant" ahead of "Goldwyn" and now must go back. It would have haunted me otherwise. I have a ton of Cary Grant books, and my OCD would not allow me to pretend any longer that "Gr" came before "Go".

Besides, this is a terrific book, and I highly recommend it. Hard to imagine any other biography needing to be written, after the detailed analysis of A. Scott Berg's book. (On a sidenote: I would like to be A. Scott Berg. I would love to be a biographer who hits it huge and then gets to just choose which subject interests him next. His Lindbergh biography is a high-water-mark for biography in general, but this book on Goldwyn is up there as well). He uses the same tireless research methods on Goldwyn that he used on Lindbergh - and the results are amazing. There is nothing about Goldwyn (nothing important, anyway) that is left out of this giant book. Read it.

Born in Warsaw in 1879, Schmuel Gelbfisz made his way to the United States (a circuitous route) and worked in the clothing business for a while, making a nice success for himself before throwing his hat into the ring with the brand new motion-picture business. Involved in vaudeville and film (which was then based in New York City), he already put his focus into forming partnerships - some more successful than others - but eventually, of course, he became his own corporation.

(Naturally, he had changed his name from Gelbfisz - to Goldfish - and then to Goldwyn).

The man died in 1974, so his career and influence spanned decades, the entire birth of the motion picture industry. Goldwyn was a notorious tyrant, cold, calculating, and jealous of his power. He held on tightly to what he had, and manipulated events to the best of his ability. He was not just a businessman. He also had a desire to make good pictures and be given a stamp of approval (which is why the worldwide uproar - all positive - about The Best Years of Our Lives was so emotional for him). When Best Years swept the Oscars in 1947 - well, it was one of THOSE years ... when no other film (and there were same damn good ones that year) stood a chance. There's an anecdote told in the book by A. Scott Berg which really struck me. Goldwyn was well into his career by the time of Best Years. He had made a reputation for finding and developing new talent (he really is responsible for Gary Cooper getting his start - but there are many others) ... and for ruthlessness in his business dealings. We have gotten to know Goldwyn, through Berg's book, and we feel we understand him, or perhaps can anticipate his reactions to things. But there was a moment that really surprised me. After the Academy Award ceremony, when Best Years won everything ... Goldwyn went home, sat down, clutching his Oscar, and sobbed.

Always a bit of an outsider, as so many of those penniless Jewish immigrants were at the time, he made it his business to not only assimilate, but dominate. He was terrifying, could be cruel, did not suffer fools ... and a visit to his office was something people trembled about beforehand. There's a VERY funny story of Billy Wilder going to his office to pitch a story-idea to Goldwyn, a movie based on the life of ballet dancer and notorious madman Nijinsky. Berg describes the meeting:

"Mr. Goldwyn," [Wilder] said at the meeting, "why not do a picture about Nijinsky?" Goldwyn looked puzzled. Wilder explained that Nijinsky was the single most famous ballet dancer in the world, a Russian witih a "marvelous, touching story." Wilder proceeded to talk about this peasant with a passion to dance who met Diaghilev, the impresario of the Bolshoi, and of their becoming homosexual lovers. "Homosexuals! Are you crazy?" Goldwyn interrupted. But Wilder proceeded, insisting the story got better. He told of Nijinsky's going insane, and that every day, while exercising in a Swiss asylum, he believed he was a horse. "A homosexual! A horse!" Goldwyn interrupted again, rapidly losing interest. But Wilder plowed through to the end of the story, detailing Nijinsky's marriage to a woman, Diaghilev's revenge, and Nijinsky's neighing for the rest of his life. Goldwyn shooed Wilder from the office, shouting at him for wasting his time on such a miserable story. On his way out the door, Wilder poked his head in with an afterthought, "Mr. Goldwyn," he said, "you want a happy ending? Not only does Nijinsky think he's a horse. But in the end ... he wins the Kentucky Derby."

hahahahaha Goldwyn was very interested in Billy Wilder, since he had written the screenplay for Ball of Fire (bestill my heart!) - one of Goldwyn's pet projects, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper, an endearing sexy romantic comedy. But as that anecdote suggests, Goldwyn was not one to sit around being polite if he thought an idea was shit. And often Goldwyn missed the mark. He was baffled by what Hollywood had become at the end of his life. His fights with the Breen Office earlier in his career (detailed below) were now in reverse. He wanted more censorship, more limits ... He was out of touch with the times. I guess that'll happen when you live to be 546 years old.

Berg details this fascinating man's life journey and in its way it becomes one of the classic American narratives. All of those guys who created Hollywood - the early moguls - were Jewish immigrants, hard workers, determined to create something out of nothing, and profit from it. They were the smartest guys in the room. Always. Goldwyn had no education (a fact he was quite touchy about), and people tell stories of his terrible table manners, and rude jokes. He was not polished. He was rough. He could be brutal. But for 40 years, people tripped over themselves to get involved with Samuel Goldwyn, to be discovered by him, to be under his protection. He was that powerful.

He also wasn't afraid to be gobsmacked by something. So often when someone is in a position of great power, they are impervious to change ... perhaps they fear admitting they are wrong, perhaps they begin to believe their own persona ... who knows. Goldwyn certainly had a little bit of that himself - but when his eyes were opened to someone, to someone's talent, even an unknown ... he made it his business to step in and take that person under his wing. He was known for it. William Wyler probably wouldn't have had a career if it weren't for Samuel Goldwyn. And then of course there is the famous story of the "discovery" of Gary Cooper, and Goldwyn's no-nonsense summing up of the work of the glorified extra: "That kid is the greatest actor I've ever seen in my life."

The excerpt I chose below has to do with the filming of The Best Years of Our Lives, directed by William Wyler, and starring Fredric March, Myrna Loy and Teresa Wright. Oh, and Dana Andrews, too, in his big break. It was a phenomenal success. Way too long - but nobody felt they could afford to cut any of it ... the audience response was so emotional ... and Goldwyn backed up everyone on that. He screened it privately, and thought - well, it's a risk, but we're going to send it out into the world as is.

It was an enormous risk. It paid off tenfold. It is one of the biggest hits in Hollywood history (not just critically, and in terms of the awards it won, but in box office receipts).

Here's the excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Goldwyn: A Biography, by A. Scott Berg

Even Goldwyn, who was never interested in the mechanics of filmmaking, understood that Toland's cinematography in this picture was exceptional. He rewarded him with his own full frame in the credit titles, and he displayed Toland's name in most of the advertising posters.

Yet another moment in the film captured the spirit of the entire nation as it came home from the war in all its pain and glory: It practically summed up the decade. Fredric March arrives at his apartment, his children answer the door, and he shushes them, asking where their mother is.

INT. LIVING ROOM

It is small, but attractively, comfortably furnished.

We are looking out through open French windows to a small terrace, where MILLY is setting the supper plates on a card table. It is just about sunset. There are three chairs. Milly looks young and alluring and very much alive.

MILLY Who was that at the door? (she turns to look in the living room) Peggy! Rob! Who was ...

Suddenly, instinctively, she knows. Throughout these years, Al has always been there, in her mind, and she has been thinking of the moment when he would walk in that door.

She puts down a plate, hard, and goes to the French windows leading into the living room. She sees Al, as he comes through the door from the corridor on the other side of the room.

For a while, both of them just stand there, looking at each other appraisingly, almost suspiciously, as though they were strangers. Their silence is strained, intense ...

Wyler recalled his own reunion with his wife at the Plaza Hotel, their walking down the corridor toward each other, and he staged it exactly that way. The emotion of every wife awaiting her husband's return could be read on Myrna Loy's face. Teresa Wright told the actress she thought it was so effective a moment because there was "real love in that scene". Later Miss Loy revealed the "motivation" that made it work. She said, "They just can't wait to get into the sack."

Halfway through filming Best Years, Wyler panicked. His doubts this deep into the picture started to rub off on Goldwyn. They both liked everything that had been filmed so far, but they feared that the scenes were not building to a climax. They grew anxious for Sherwood to write new pages that would punch up the end of the movie. Sherwood was not concerned. He believed all the characters arrived at dramatic and logical conclusions and that the three men meeting at Homer's wedding to Wilma, with the suggestion of Fred and Peggy pursuing their romance, was a resounding finale. For day,s frantic communiques between the two coasts filled Goldwyn with qualms. Wrestling with the script one midnight, he instinctively reached for the phone and dialed Sherwood in New York, oblivious of the time differential. As soon as Sherwood picked up the receiver, Goldwyn started in with his latest thoughts - stopping only when a groggy Sherwood asked, "Sam, do you have any idea what time it is?" The next thing Sherwood heard was Goldwyn's calling out, "Frances, Frances ... Bob wants to know what time it is!"

Sherwood stood by his script as written, talking Goldwyn and Wyler through the remaining scenes so they might appreciate the impact of the simple ending and all its implications. What Sherwood could not convince Goldwyn of, the Breen Office could. It found the film's ultimate message more than potent. It was poison.

The Production Code Administration, under Joseph I. Breen's iron hand, had many objections to the script of The Best Years Of Our Lives. They suggested that the scenes having to do with the breakup of the marriage between Fred and Marie be rewritten, "in order to get away any suggestion of a condonation of this tragedy." A subsequent letter from Breen's office said that Peggy's home-wrecking intentions would have to be eliminated. The rest of the Breen Office litany cited such cinematic sins as a "passionate" kiss between Milly and Al, a "vulgar" belch after Al downed a Bromo Seltzer, and any scenes involving alcoholic beverages. Producers were "free to accept or disregard any observations or suggestions" made by the Breen Office, but the Motion Picture Association fined a producer $25,000 for releashing any picture without the seal of approval of the Production Code Administration.

As late as sixty days into production, the Breen Office was still trying to impose its morality on the film - what Ben Hecht called "Mother Goose platitudes and primitive valentines ... [where] there are no problems of labor, politics, domestic life or sexual abnormality but can be solved happily by a simple Christian phrase or a fine American motto." Goldwyn replied that he would make no alterations - "since we believe this ending is honest, true, and within the bounds of decency and good behavior." When it realized Goldwyn had no intention of backing down, the Breen Office retired its objections, leaving an irreparable chink in the code.

Best Years wrapped on August 9, 1946 - with 400,000 feet of film "in the can". While the Goldwyns vacationed at the Moana Hotel at Waikiki Beach, Danny Mandell, in concert with Wyler, assembled a rough cut of the film that was 16,000 feet, about twice the length of most movies. Goldwyn knew that two hours and forty minutes of motion picture was too long to release, but when he watched it upon his return, it never felt long. On October 17, they sneak-previewed the film in a small neighborhood house, the United Artists Theater in Long Beach, hoping the audience would indicate where they might cut an hour out of the film. Goldwyn's staff sat in the back of the theater with stopwatches, at first timing between audience responses, then discovering long patches of rapt silence. Danny Mandell said "people stopped chewing their gum". There was a pregnant hush after the lovers' clinch at the finale, then a burst of applause that did not quit for several minutes. The audience's response cards were overwhelmingly favorable, almost unanimous in unqualified praise. Out on the curb, the Godlwyn staff held its conference - Sam and Frances, Mandell, production head Leon Fromkess, and a dozen others. Wyler approached them and asked if they could release a film that long. Goldwyn said they had no choice, that there seemed to be but one hundred feet to trim at most. After each test screening that followed, someone would timidly suggest a scene that might be sacrificed. "If I'd listened to them all," Goldwyn commented later, "the only thing left would have been the credits."

Goldwyn's decision to release the film in its entirety was more than a $2.1 million gamble. Theaters would be naturally loath to exhibit the film not only because of its unusual subject matter but also because its length would dictate half the number of usual screenings. He secured a booking at the Hollywood Pantages Theater for January 1947 and looked forward to opening it in New York shortly after that. When Wyler learned of these plans, he lit a fire under his producer. He suggested that Best Years would almost certainly get nominated for some Academy Awards, and they stood a better chance if they opened in Los Angeles before the year-end deadline for qualification, rather than waiting until the following year and risking its being forgotten.

A New York tycoon named Robert Dowling owned the Astor, which prided itself on screening prestigious films; his approval was needed before he would run a film. Goldwyn took a print to New York to show to him. In exchange for a pair of theater tickets, he rented Ben Sonnenberg's Gramercy Park house for the night and ran the film in his private screening room. When the Sonnenbergs returned, they all drank champagne to celebrate the November 22 opening of Best Years at the Astor. While Dowling was still awestruck by the film, Goldwyn finagled one of the best rental agreements out of him he had ever gotten from any theater - 40 percent of the gate. The producer used that to finesse other favorable contracts across the country.

In his $400,000 worth of advertising, Goldwyn created an air of distinction about Best Years. Certain theaters, like the Astor, would sell tickets only on a reserved-seat basis, some for as much as $2.40. Goldwyn arranged a screening of the film for Norman Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, and got him to promote the film in the paper's news section if the first night's Los Angeles proceeds were turned over to charity. The managing editor of the rival Hearst paper, the Herald-Examiner, said it would do the same if Marion Davies's pet charity was the recipient. The Reader's Digest announced a symposium - "Which are the Best Years of Our Lives?" - and Lynn Farnol lined up a team of famous writers to contribute responses. A representative from Louisiana took the floor of the House and said The Best Years of Our Lives should be "required seeing for every American. It is a credit to the United States, and I should like this made a matter of record in Congress." Virginia Mayo and Teresa Wright were photographed for covers of Life. Hoagy Carmichael plugged the film on his radio show; and it seemed as though all the other radio stars in America wanted Myrna Loy or Fredric March or Dana Andrews to appear on their shows.

Bob Hope wanted Goldwyn on his show. A few days before his appearance, Goldwyn asked one of his writers, Harry Tugend, what he ought to say on the air. Tugent wrote an exchange that Hope's writers liked. The comedian would say, "Well, Mr. Goldwyn, how have things been going since I left your studio?" Goldwyn would reply, "I'll tell you, Bob. Since you left, we've had the best years of our lives." Exactly as rehearsed, Goldwyn stood before the NBC microphone and Hope fed him his line: "Well, Mr. Goldwyn, how have things been going since I left your studio?"

"I'll tell you, Bob," he said confidently, "Since you left, things are better than ever."

The Best Years of Our Lives opened as scheduled at the Astor in New York and Christmas week at the Beverly Theater in Los Angeles. Goldwyn was petrified after the first noon show at the Beverly, which played to an almost empty house. For reasons he never figured out, a crowd gathered three hours later, and the evening show was packed. "The public doesn't know what they want until they see it," Goldwyn often said; "but it's a mystery to me [why they're drawn in the first place] - they smell it." In selling a picture, Goldwyn was ultimately certain of but one thing: "You can't beat the word of mouth."

He received unparalleled notices. Abel Green of Variety called the film "one of the best pictures of our lives". The New York Times said the film "sets the highest standards of cinematic quality and meets them triumphantly." Newsweek spoke of it as "epic" art; Time said Goldwyn had put together a "sure-fire hit ... with good taste, honesty, wit - and even a strong suggestion of guts." James Agee grudgingly doled out words of praise on a story he found inherently pat and timid. He granted that "this is one of the very few American studio-made movies in years that seem to me profoundly pleasing, moving, and encouraging." In a follow-up article two weeks later in The Nation, he wrote: "I can hardly expect that anyone who reads this will like the film as well as I do ... But it is ... a great pleasure, and equally true, to say that it shows what can be done in the factory by people of adequate talent when they get, or manage to make themselves, the chance." After the film had its Christmas-week qualifying run in Los Angeles, Goldwyn pulled the picture until its nationwide opening in the spring - at which time he hoped to garland the advertisements with Oscar nominations.

Best Years grossed close to ten million dollars in its first year of release. It became the second-biggest moneymaker in talking-picture history to date, bettered only by Gone With the Wind.

For months, letters both adulatory and congratulatory crossed Goldwyn's desk - from Rene Clair to General Omar Bradley, who told Goldwyn, "You are helping the American people to build an even better democracy out of the tragic experiences of this war." Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal said it was "a credit to both you and Industry." War correspondent Bill Mauldin said it was "the first real, honest-to-God sincere thing I've seen about the war and its aftermath."

The film had a healing effect on the wounds of the nation and, it seemed, of every citizen who saw it. No message moved Goldwyn more than the seventeen words Western Union relayed on the night of November 21: "I HAVE JUST SHED THE BEST TEARS OF MY LIFE. YOUR LOVING AND VERY PROUD DAUGHTER, RUTH." "When it is all said and done," Goldwyn wrote her back, "it's what our own think of us that really counts, and I don't mind admitting that I love being told you are proud of me, and I will always do my best to keep things that way."

On December 14, 1946, he and Frances had sailed from New York on the Queen Elizabeth for England. The Goldwyns spent the holidays with Sammy and arranged the London bookings of Best Years. The film opened there in the spring and played to crowded houses for over a year, grossing as much in its twenty-second week as it did in its second. It became a similar phenomenon everywhere in the world, from Sydney to Rio de Janiero. It received the British Academy's award for the best foreign or domestic picture of the year, and several international equivalents - the French "Victoire", the Danish "Filmprisen", the Japanese "Hannya".

The Goldwyns returned to New York on the same ship, ringing in 1947 with the news that the New York Film Critics had voted Best Years the best picture of the year. On January 6, Goldwyn picked up a bronze plaque from the Newspaper Guild of New York, their Page One Award for his "outstanding presentation of the responsibilities of society to the returning servicemen." The Hollywood Foreign Correspondents Association presented him with their "Golden Globe".

Upon returning to Los Angeles, Goldwyn learned that he was for the seventh time in the running for the one prize that still remained beyond his grasp. The Best Years of Our Lives led that year's Academy Award nominations with eight - Best Picture, Best Actor (Fredric March), Best Supporting Actor (Harold Russell), Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Sound Recording, Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture, and Best Film Editing. The Jolson Story received six nominations and The Razor's Edge four, including Best Picture. The three other competitors for the top honor were Olivier's Henry V, Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, and The Yearling. Goldwyn was not the favorite. The Yearling and The Razor's Edge were products of major studios, MGM and Twentieth Century-Fox, which voted in blocks; and Darryl Zanuck had already made it known that he intended to campaign hard for his Oscar.

I had forgotten:

... when you vacuum the rug, and you have a cat, it is as though you have unleashed a Balrog on an unsuspecting feline populace.

Poor Hope. It's been 24 hours and she still has not recovered. I go to the closet door (where I keep the Balrog) to get something else, and Hope sees where I am going and FREAKS, racing around the apartment, scampering under my bed, where I can see her green eyes gleaming out maniacally.

Accompaniment

I want to take a moment to point you to Afshin - who has taken the time to set some of my photos to music. I watched what he had created and found myself strangely moved.

Also you picked one of my favorite photos: the green-paneled storefront in Soho, reflecting the sunset light. I feel like I didn't even do anything to catch that shot. It was magic hour, the streets of New York flamed into beauty and magic, and I happened to have my camera. But I do love how that shot came out.

Thank you, Afshin. It's been a rough day. Your beautiful video was a gift to me.

The Books: "Cary Grant: A Class Apart" (Graham McCann)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Cary Grant: A Class Apart, by Graham McCann

I have written more words on Cary Grant than on any other topic, I believe. It's an inexhaustible obsession.

So the question for me, the fascination, (with Cary Grant more so than any other actor) has always been:

How did this:

become this?

There's a mystery at the heart of Cary Grant, which is why I believe he is our greatest movie star, and why he stands head and shoulders above his peers. He's not pin-down-able. He's a true odd duck. But odd ducks don't usually look like THAT. I mean, imagine the career he might have had, if he wasn't ... well ... who he was. Just based on his looks (excluding his bizarre now-you-see-it now-you-don't personality) it all could have been conventional and forgettable. His looks (especially as a younger man, before he filled out) were of the soft squishy leading-man quality, he was handsome, yes, but he did many films where he didn't "show up", to coin a phrase. Meaning: if you watch his earliest films, it's strange to see him before he found himself ... It's almost like he's not in his face yet. What a transformation! He showed the promise of his later movies in such early films as She Done Him Wrong with Mae West. The way Cary Grant says "You bad girl" in the last moment of the film is prophetic of the movie star he eventually would become. You can see it ALL, there, in that small moment. The gloves come off, and out comes this reeeaaaallly masculine tough sexy guy ... sexy by today's standards, sexy by any day's standards. He was basically hired to be the hottie to stand around for Mae West to ogle ... Cary Grant is usually "the object" in all of his films (see Pauline Kael's great essay about that) ... but in the "You bad girl" moment, you're suddenly like, "Who's that??"

Stars had personas in those days. They did not only play one thing (watch Joan Crawford in movie to movie, and you will see how deft she was at manipulating her persona, highlighting this or that aspect) ... but they were "types". Acting, back then, was not about how versatile you could be with accents or rubber noses or limps or total transformation ... Humphrey Bogart always LOOKED like Humphrey Bogart ... and what I love so much about these early films is how much variety is in each persona (if the actor is good, I mean. Many actors were just their "types". Nothing wrong with that ... that's the definition of "character actor". You want a crazy leering sweet drunk in a film? You call Walter Brennan. Who else you gonna call?) What is fascinating about Cary Grant is how deliberately he set about creating his persona. This is a man with a pretty dark damn background. He was born into lower-class Bristol in England, and there is some mystery surrounding his birth. Is he Jewish? People need to know! His mother is a mysterious character. One day, when Archie Leach was 9, he came home from school and his mother was not home. He was told his mother went away on vacation to the seaside. He wondered about that. Why would she go on vacation without the family? His mother never returned. She was never mentioned again. It had to have been devastating, what the psychologists call a "break in belonging". A moment when you are forever changed. Years and years later, when Cary Grant was now a major movie star, he found out that his mother actually was alive, and had been alive all this time. His father had had her committed into a mental institution - where she still lived. !!! Cary Grant reintroduced himself - the oddity of being a man the entire world knows, but unknown to his own mother. He had a relationship with her until she died. She was an odd woman, but probably NOT mentally ill. Maybe emotional, maybe a little unstable, but hell, I'm emotional and unstable! Whatever the diagnosis ... his mother was virtually erased from his life when he was a tiny boy ... and his father was a rather cold man, not someone Grant could lean on ... so when he was about 15, he ran away and joined the circus. Literally. He joined a tumbling troupe (Grant was always an incredible acrobat) which took him to America ... and the rest is history. But still: Grant's background is not at all clear. Even to himself. After all, his childhood was based on a lie: "Your mother is on vacation ..." I'm going on about these biographical details because it's so interesting to me, in lieu of who he would become: this was not a man who grew up belonging anywhere. He was a low-class Cockney. He had no mother. He went backstage once at the Bristol Hippodrome, when he was a young kid, and was blown away by the atmosphere:

The Saturday matinee was in full swing when I arrived backstage; and there I suddenly found my inarticulate self in a dazzling land of smiling, jostling people wearing and not wearing all sorts of costumes and doing all sorts of clever things. And that's when I knew! What other life could there be but that of an actor? They happily traveled and toured. They were classless, cheerful, and carefree. They gaily laughed, lived, and loved.

I think it's interesting that he used the word "classless", a very British sensibility ... and something that would obviously be very attractive to a young boy born to poor parents. BUT: he didn't come to America and play British people. Yes, he did create an incomprehensible accent (which just cracks me up - it is so HIM) - but he wasn't like, say, David Niven ... or the other "Brits" in Hollywood at that time. Cary Grant created an amalgam of British-ness and American-ness and neither side could be pinned down. That's what I think is so fascinating about Grant: his slipperiness. Gary Cooper was pretty straight-up who he was. (Thank God.) He was Grant's main competition when they were starting out (notice that Cary Grant chose a screen name with the same initials, only in reverse, as Gary Cooper). But Cooper wasn't slippery in the way Grant was. Usually someone as mysterious as Cary Grant comes off as "shady" on film, which can be a very literal medium. Films like to nail things down. Grant won't BE nailed down.

He is a great chameleon.

Not to mention the fact that that persona he created was his, and his alone. He worked at it consciously. He practiced posing in the mirror, putting his hand in his pocket. This was not a man who felt at home in the world. So he practiced poses (imitating people like Douglas Fairbanks and Noel Coward) who SEEMED at home in the world. How extraordinary. So often when we try to act like something we are not, the results come off stiff, stilted. And in Grant's earlier films, you can see some of that. He's not owning it, yet. Mae West leers at him, and he is vaguely cranky (Grant's characters are usually a little bit cranky) ... but apart from that (and the toe-curlingly sexy last moment, "You bad girl ...") - nothing indicates that this is going to be one of the biggest stars the world has ever known. Grant talks about the creation of his persona, which fascinates me no end:

To play yourself -- your true self -- is the hardest thing in the world. Watch people at a party. They're playing themselves ... but nine out of ten times the image they adopt for themselves is the wrong one. In my earlier career I patterned myself on a combination of Englishmen -- AE Matthews, Noel Coward, and Jack Buchanan, who impressed me as a character actor. He always looked so natural. I tried to copy men I thought were sophisticated and well dressed like Douglas Fairbanks or Cole Porter. And Freddie Lonsdale, the British playwright, always had an engaging answer for everything.

I cultivated raising one eyebrow and tried to imitate those who put their hands in their pockets with a certain amount of ease and nonchalance. But at times, when I put my hand in my trouser pocket with what I imagined was great elegance, I couldn't get the blinking thing out again because it dripped from nervous perspiration!

I guess to a certain extent I did eventually become the characters I was playing. I played at someone I wanted to be until I became that person. Or he became me.

9 times out of 10, such self-conscious effort will show in the results. But Cary Grant was a genius. It's like he created the space for himself before hand ... and then, when he was good and ready, stepped into it. Inhabiting it like he had been there all along. To say this is "rare" is to completely under-state what the word "rare" means.

Graham McCann's book is not, strictly, a biography. And you can tell from the title that it's biased towards its subject. Biographical details are discussed, of course, with lots of nice quotes from people who knew him when ... but I loved the book for its analysis of the creation of Cary Grant - by Archie Leach. Almost like an entirely other personality. Astonishing. And to have it work so well!! McCann takes a look at the steps Grant took to being so successful at this self-created personality (there's a whole chapter called "Inventing Cary Grant") - and I very much appreciated that aspect of the book. It made me see Cary Grant's in another light. I'm a "fan" of Grant, yes, but as anyone who reads me knows - when I get obsessed, I need to learn more. I need to watch all the films chronologically first of all, so I can watch the development. I need to read the critical studies of him, as well as the current-day reviews ... so I can see the response to his efforts. Graham McCann's book was hugely important to me when that obsession-thing came over me. He was able to articulate, in elegant yet every-day language, what it was that happened in, say, Sylvia Scarlett, with Katharine Hepburn, that was such a breakthrough. I saw it in a new light then.

I am going to excerpt today from the chapter about The Awful Truth, which really began Cary Grant's spectacular 1937-39 run (I would call it more successful than any other actor at any time, ever). In those years, Grant appeared in The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby, Holiday, Gunga Din and Only Angels Have Wings. Excuse me?? Then of course in 1940 came His Girl Friday and Philadelphia Story ... so it was just an incredible time in his life, which dovetailed with the height of the studio system, and the golden age of movies, and screwball comedy, and all that ... Seriously. Can't get any better.

In George Cukor's weird little Sylvia Scarlett, Cary Grant played a Cockney conman named Jimmy Monkley - and although he's the "bad guy" (in a movie where no one is truly bad - everyone's weird and on the edge ... it's like Midsummer Night's Dream) you miss him when he's not on screen. Cukor said that it was the first time Grant "felt the ground beneath his feet" as an actor. Sylvia Scarlett was not a hit, but it gave Grant more confidence. That was in 1936.

In 1937, Grant appeared with Irene Dunne for the first time, in Leo McCarey's screwball to end all screwballs The Awful Truth.

And it was with that film that Grant suddenly became important. A giant star. No turning back. You watch those early Mae West films, only a couple of years before, and it is amazing to think that it is the same person. And whatever it was that Grant did in those intervening years remains somewhat mysterious ... he can tell us he practiced putting his hand in his pocket and imitating Douglas Fairbanks ... and that probably made sense to him ... but to us? It can't explain everything. Putting your hand in your pocket does not always end up with Cary Grant. You have to leave room for magic. Genius. Invention. (Not to mention Cary Grant's unerring sense of business smarts - which played no small part in his success. He never had an agent, for God's sake. He was a freelancer!! In a time when NOBODY freelanced. And he negotiated that extraordinary deal for himself.)

The Cary Grant persona was breezily upper-class, full of privilege and assumptions. Martinis, tennis whites, tuxedoes. That was the world of the screwball comedy. But Grant came from poverty, his background was harsh and rough ... nothing was handed to him ... and I am sure that a lot of his far-seeing business decisions (getting himself Producer credit, for example - which now is done all the time - but then??) came from the deprivations of his childhood. He didn't forget being poor. He was notoriously cheap (it became a joke amongst his friends), and he, unlike many actors at that time, planned ahead. Later in life, he became good friends with Quincy Jones (who is quite eloquent about their bond and where their mutual affection and understanding came from - that the Cockneys in the England of Grant's youth were like the blacks of America in Jones' youth - and so they felt comfortable with one another, very similar attitudes towards life) ... but anyway Jones tells a funny story about money and Grant:

The way I expressed things cracked Cary up because it was so un-British. For instance, I would say, 'I'm getting to the age where I've got to start making some more horizontal money.' He asked me what that meant. I explained, 'Well, when I'm up in the studio conducting, that's vertical money. But when you're at home watching TV and An Affair to Remember comes on, that's horizontal money.' Cary talked about that for years. He told all his friends.

Grant, way back when in the 1940s, began "producing" his films - which meant he would always have "horizontal money", even as an old man. He would not rely only on ACTING to pay the bills. He would make his acting career a business.

A phenom, that guy.

The excerpt below has to do with The Awful Truth, and Grant becoming a star. It's a star performance ... but let's not forget: he WASN'T a star when he made it. It's my favorite kind of moment in an actor's life: when he, unaware that he is about to become a star, gives a star-level performance. And you can see - in his face - the years and years of work that will follow. Not every actor has that moment. But when one does? I love to pick it apart, look at it closely, examine ...

So does McCann.

(Excerpt below, as well as a clip from The Awful Truth - hard to choose a favorite part, but this sure is at the top of the list. Cary Grant busts into a room, thinking he will find his soon-to-be-ex- wife in another man's arms ... only to find that ... well, she's singing a private concert for an uptight group of people. And Grant does a pratfall which goes on FOREVER - at around the 3 minute point ... which I never ever get sick of. And make sure to watch Irene Dunne ... singing and starting to laugh ... and she finds herself laughing in tune. Brilliant!)

EXCERPT FROM Cary Grant: A Class Apart, by Graham McCann

It is a delightful moment: in a nightclub, on the dance floor, a large, cumbrous man is engaged in a frenzied jitterbug with his slight, refined, embarrassed-looking partner; a handsome young man in evening dress has just bribed the orchestra leader to repeat the music, thus sentencing the embarrassed-looking woman - who is actually his ex-wife - to further public agitation opposite her dancing partner - who is actually her over-eager new suitor; the handsome young man in evening dress, having accomplished his scheming, pulls up his chair to the edge of the dance floor, sits down, crosses his legs, folds his arms, breathes a self-satisfied sigh, and smiles a broad, contented, joyous smile as he faces the dancers, and, implicitly, the camera, and us, his audience. This man - elegant, blithe, mischievous, delightful - carries the holiday in his eye; he is a man, quite simply, having the time of his life. This man is a star. This man is Cary Grant.

The movie in which this scene takes place is The Awful Truth (1937). It was the first of a remarkable run of five movies - the others were Bringing Up Baby (1938), Holiday (1938), Gunga Din (1939) and Only Angels Have Wings (1939) - which not only justified Grant's gamble on a freelance career but also established him, beyond any doubt, as one of Hollywood's most distinctive and popular movie stars. Each of these movies would come to be thought of as a classic of its kind, each one was quite different from the others, and each one added something extra to Grant's range as an actor. Two years, five movies and, at the end of it, one hugely successful performer, secure in his on-screen identity and confident of his ability to attract and entertain his audience. There would never be a better time for Cary Grant; there would, of course, be more good movies, more memorable performances, more box-office records, more critical plaudits, but never again would all of the crucial components - the roles, the story, the dialogue, the directors, the cast, the mood - combine so felicitously and consistently to provide Cary Grant wtih quite so memorable, so rewarding, so rich a succession of starring vehicles. This, more so than any other, was Cary Grant's moment.

This extraordinary period in Grant's career began, oddly enough, darkly, with Grant coming close to dropping out of The Awful Truth, demoralised, convinced that he had made a disastrous error of judgment. The critic Richard Schickel has described the movie as 'a kind of tuning fork; by its reverberations one can test the comic pitch of almost any movie on a similar theme - and find them, to varying degrees, just off the note', yet it was made in spite of the fact that all of the co-stars (Grant, Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy) spent the first few days of shooting in various states of nervous tension. The director, Leo McCarey, had made his name at Hal Roach's studios, first as a gag writer and then as the director of movies by Charlie Chase, W.C. Fields, Mae West, the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy. His methods, however, bemused and alarmed the cast of The Awful Truth. Ralph Bellamy remembers the unnerving sense of chaos early on in the production: 'McCarey came in every morning with a small piece of brown wrapping paper on which he'd written his ideas. He'd say, "Cary, you come in that door on the right, and Ralph, you come in over there on the left. I'll runt he dog through, and Irene, you come through ..." ' Hal Roach, who had worked with Grant on Topper, knew that he would be surprised and unsettled by McCarey's 'odd' methods: McCarey, said Roach, 'kept improving on things. He'd give Cary something in the morning and then tell him, "I'm not going to do that." Cary decided that Leo didn't know what the hell he was doing and tried to get out of the picture.'

'At the end of the first day,' Bellamy recalled, 'Irene was crying - she didn't know what kind of a part she was playing. Cary said, "Let me out of this and I'll do another picture for nothing".' At the end of the first week of filming, Grant sent an eight-page memorandum entitled 'What's Wrong With This Picture' to the head of Columbia, Harry Cohn. He also offered to pay five thousand dollars in return for being released from his contract. Cohn ignored it.

It was not long, however, before Grant started to change his mind. One of the things that helped reassure him was McCarey's eagerness to exploit certain aspects of his actors' own personalities in order to make the characters more believable: for example, when Bellamy told McCarey that he did not even know what his character should wear, McCarey told him, 'The jacket and trousers you have on are just what I want!'; when McCarey discovered that Bellamy could not 'get from one note to another', he tricked him into accompanying a strained-looking Irene Dunne in a rendition of 'Home on the Range' ('you just blast it out with your Oklahoma accent'). Grant began to see that McCarey was well aware of his strengths and more than willing to help him put them to good use. Once he trusted McCarey, Grant felt liberated by the absence of a settled script and seized the opportunity to improvise. 'Cary caught on quickly,' said Bellamy. 'It was right in his groove, his kind of comedy, of humor ... He could laugh with you as you were watching him. He knew you were laughing and he was encouraging it.'

The man in the mirror

You didn't think I'd forgotten, did you?

I forget nothing.

I still haven't written the damn thing but I now have a file folder on my desktop filled with screengrabs of men looking at themselves (or at somebody else) in the mirror throughout cinematic history.

More to come, including my thoughts about it all - having let it percolate for a year and a half. It's been a lot of fun.

Here's a glimpse of just some of the images I have compiled. The third one down is particularly creepy ... and makes a lot of sense, in the larger cinematic context of images of men-with-themselves-as opposed-to-men-with-the-world/reflections-in-general/self-awareness/fantasy ... But I'll get to that when I write the thing. I'm getting ready. I can always feel it when I start to gather my forces ...

To Have and Have Not: atmosphere

This is a continuation of my post about Only Angels Have Wings and the rich atmosphere set up in the first 10 minutes.

Now in To Have and Have Not, another Hawks movie, we're in Martinique. The hotel, the bars, the streets, the casinos in Martinique ... it's the same old Warner Brother's "tropical" set you've seen in a million different movies. There are a couple of shots (where the shootout happens in the bar) where you could swear you were watching Casablanca, especially because there's Humphrey Bogart and Marcel Dalio (who played the croupier in Casablanca) - and while there is no Sydney Greenstreet, you still watch thinking: hmmm. This looks AWFULLY familiar. It even starts with the image of a map - although there are no trailing lines of refugees like in Casablanca. But still. Same opening device. Same bar with stairway up the side like at Rick's, same upstairs hallway, same columned foyers where shootouts happen. Same bullshit ceiling fans, random "natives", swaggering sailors, Venetian blinds ... and it's fake fake fake. It's delightful! True make-believe. These guys, these directors, were masters. They were all directing films using the same damn sets ... and you even recognize some of the extras ... but it's the atmosphere created that is distinct. They just knew how to set up scenes and moments ... so that the entire place breathes to life. We KNOW we are not looking at Martinique, but who the hell cares about Martinique? It's not a documentary. Howard Hawks always filled his screen with action ... the random woman dancing by herself in the crowded bar, the drummer sitting back and then deciding he wants to join in the music, the people standing bellyup to the bar ... it doesn't matter that it was the same bar in a million other movies. Because it's the story that is paramount. Story story story. Who cares if you have a custom-made bar, or who cares if you travel to Martinique to film on location if the movie itself is shit? I don't mean to set this up as an either/or kind of conversation, because "either/or" usually isn't my game. It's just that when I look at To Have and Have Not, and I watch the same fake bunches of bananas go by that I saw in a million other movies, when I see that there is barely a pretense of making the bars look any different from the bar in Casablanca ... and when I realize that it doesn't matter ... I am a happy happy viewer. Keep it simple. Keep it simple. Hawks knew how to do that like nobody's business.

More screengrabs from Something's Got to Give

And more in-depth thoughts on the film here.

Screengrab

... from a movie that won my heart the first moment I saw it. I see it, on average, once every couple of months.

It always makes me cry, it always makes me laugh. Deeply satisfying film.

The Books: "In the Moment: My Life as an Actor" (Ben Gazzara)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

In the Moment: My Life as an Actor, by Ben Gazzara

It's my favorite type of career. Long-lasting, diverse, a little bit chaotic, not overly managed, with moments of brilliance, moments of just good workmanship ... and you can tell, you can just tell, that his career has been about acting, yes, but it has also been about forming relationships. He works with friends. He's a people kind of guy. He's a collaborator. He devoted his time and his focus and his love on John Cassavetes' films, starring in quite a few of them, but he had already been in the business for eons by that point, a highly successful Broadway actor, live television, movies (he was in Roadhouse, let's not ever forget) ... but I believe it is for his work in Cassavetes' films that he will be remembered. It was the most unconventional choice he could make, to throw his hat into the ring with someone like Cassavetes, and Peter Falk, and Gena Rowlands, and Seymour Cassel ... that merry band of lunatics.

He was in his 40s when he found himself on the cutting edge of the independent film scene in America. He wasn't a young, hungry guy. He was middle-aged. Married. With a kid. They all were married, with kids. It wasn't a hipster sensibility, or a Bohemian type of "let's make a movie with my friends" kind of thing. They were artists. Who understood compromise, they all had had extensive careers, but nothing compared to the roles that Cassavetes gave them. Gazzara had already been around forever. He had worked with Hitchcock, for God's sake. And Kazan. So to take that risk ... to sit in the theatre watching Cassavetes' Faces and admitting that he felt jealousy. Jealousy of Cassavetes' talent, and also - an ambition: I must work with that guy. Gazzara was no dummy. He had been looking for something in his life and his career - something that could make him feel creative again, a sense of agency in his own talent. So much of film acting is about hitting your mark, being a good boy, not being any trouble, and just doing what you're told. Lots of actors (Brando, Penn, Crowe, Mickey Rourke) have admitted that they find some of it emasculating, humiliating. Especially if the director, or the producer, or whoever ... is a moron. But that happens all the time. Gazzara's a tough guy. If you've ever seen interviews or met him, you know that he's a no-nonsense kind of tough Italian dude. Cassavetes allowed him to tap into the Gazzara-ness of his identity - his true self - in a way no other director had ever done. Cassavetes just let Gazzara be. With an actor like Ben Gazzara, it is my belief that the best thing you can do is just let him be. He'll come up with shit better than you ever dreamed. It's like Kazan's comment about how Brando re-did the taxicab scene in On the Waterfront, changing the focus of it:

"What other actor, when his brother draws a pistol to force him to do something shameful, would put his hand on the gun and push it away with the gentleness of a caress? Who else could read, 'Oh, Charley,' in a tone of reproach that is so loving and so melancholy, and suggests that terrific depth of pain? I didn't direct that; Marlon showed me, as he often did, how the scene should be performed. I never could have told him how to do that scene as well as he did it."

What generosity. To hand over credit like that. Cassavetes did not micromanage Gazzara (or any of his actors). He set them up in situations where they could behave naturally, and have accidents, messups, flaws, show up and be a PART of it, rather than something to be edited out. It is not true that his films were 100% improvised. There were scripts. All you need to do is read the script for Opening Night to know that those actors were letter-perfect with their lines. It's hard to believe. It looks completely improvised. It's astonishing.

Ben Gazzara loved Cassavetes. They were two tough guys, and their main bonding was about film and about sports. That was what they talked about, not their feelings for one another - but when Cassavetes died, Gazzara was devastated. He only realized at the very end how much he loved his friend. How much he relied on him, and also ... how much Cassavetes had done for him. Gazzara felt that Cassavetes had handed him his full talent and genius right back to him ... "Here you go. Play." it was as if Cassavetes had said.

Gazzara's career since Cassavetes has continued in that trajectory. I'm so happy when he shows up in something. Aren't you? Don't you feel in good hands? Watching him and Anjelica Huston battle it out in Buffalo 66 made me so happy. It was such a funny and ridiculous scene. I loved watching his smooth corrupt character operate in The Big Lebowski. You think he's one thing, then you realize ... oh no no no I have underestimated him. This guy is a bad dude. But Gazzara plays the whole thing with a bemused smile on his face. Almost gentle and kind. I loved his work in HBO's Hysterical Blindness (I loved everybody's performance in that film - great stuff all around) ... and it was particularly poignant to watch Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands, both of them old now, but friends for decades ... she is the widow of his best friend ... play scenes together ... There's one scene where they slow dance in an Italian restaurant and there is such intimacy between them, merely because the two actors know each other so well ... It killed me. Beautiful work, the two of them. Gazzara works quite a bit in Europe as well, and continues to do stage work (although his voice is nearly gone ... his famous voice). Recently, he did a one-man show about Yogi Berra that got great reviews.

So I just love him. I love the scope of his career, I love his dedication to his craft - he's an old-school crazy Method actor, and I love him for it ... and I also love his dedication to his relationships. He's not a careerist, although he is tremendously ambitious. He's one of those guys who has managed to have both in his life, and weaves the two together. Watch him and Cassavetes in Husbands, or in Opening Night ... and you can see how he's having it all.

His book is chock-full of anecdotes, enough to make a crack-ho like myself satisfied. Glimpses of Hitchcock, Tennessee Williams, Mariliyn Monroe - Gazzara was a member of the Actors Studio back in its heyday in the 50s ... He was an up and coming Broadway star. He got involved in an Actors Studio project (notorious to us theatre people) called Hat Full of Rain, by a playwright named Michael Gazzo. The script was developed out of improvisations at the Actor's Studio and if you read it, you can tell. The whole play not only starts in the middle of an argument, but mid-sentence. Now Clifford Odets had done this before, but Gazzo was a new generation ... Gazzara got the lead (he was also quite instrumental in developing the piece) and Shelley Winters played the part of his suffering wife. It's one of my greatest sorrows in life that I do not have a time machine so I could go back and see that production.

Gazzara is not shy about writing about his talent, or how difficult he could be. He did not suffer fools, and he's quite honest about how that got him into trouble. He's a hothead. Much of acting, obviously, is about "playing well with others' and Gazzara sometimes found that problematic. But his reputation was growing, and his performance as Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway, with Barbara Bel Geddes, and Mildred Dunnock - was a sensation. OH TO HAVE SEEN THAT PRODUCTION. People still talk about it and talk about how even when Gazzara whispered he could be heard from the back balcony. His voice was quite striking - and he knew how to use it. He could modulate his voice perfectly, a la James Earl Jones, so that you either found yourself leaning forward in your seat to catch everything, or it seemed to go directly into your ear - a true instrument. I love the memories of people who saw Gazzara as Brick. He became a sex symbol, playing the part of that tortured gay man, drinking himself to oblivion, until he feels "the click". (What a great great line. Why don't you stop drinking?? people ask Brick. I haven't felt the click yet, he replies. Chilling.)

I was really torn on what excerpt to choose from his wonderful book. I loved the section about the filming of Husbands, the first film he did with Cassavetes ... but I decided to go further back, and take an excerpt from the rehearsal period and opening of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I love looking at those moments when people, to quote Mercedes Ruehl who quoted Joe Papp in her Oscar speech, "find their light". In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Gazzara found his light.

But I also love, in the excerpt, how he talks about the struggle he had with that part ... which, I believe, is the toughest role in the entire lexicon of Tennessee Williams' work. Tommy Lee Jones played it, and he is eloquent on the challenges in that role ... He feels that Cat is Williams' only "truly great" play, a challenging opinion, but one that interests me a great deal. Jones knew that Williams had read a lot of Nitsczhe, and he felt that there might be a clue there in that connection. An unthought-of connection, unexplored actually in critical examinations of Williams' work (which usually focus on either the hidden gay themes, or the sweeping Southern gothic tragedy/romance or Williams' artistry as autobiography). But Jones thought the key to Brick was Williams' reading of Nitzsche ... and found a lot of things to play off of, using that connection. I love smart actors.

One of the things that is so great about this excerpt is Gazzara's honesty about his continual struggle to "find" that part ... and how he got conflicting messages from people like "Gadge" (everyone's name for Kazan) and others ... don't show contempt for Maggie! But make it clear you don't like girls! But don't be overtly gay! You were in love with your friend Skipper - so try to SHOW that ... without really SHOWING that ... You love Maggie ... but not as a wife! I mean, playing ONE of those things would be difficult. But to get it all in?

I love love love Gazzara's talking about his process here. And how even when the show opened - he was far from DONE working on his character. He kept getting notes up until the last minute ... and he messed around, not sure what he was looking for, and then decided to 'go back' to what he had originally been doing. Easier said than done. He lost his confidence. He lost his vocal power (which he goes into below). He didn't know what the hell he was doing, and he was on Broadway! I would hazard a bet that it was that very uncertainty in Gazzara, that ... not being sure of himself ... that helped to make his performance of Brick so memorable that people who were in the audience still talk about it, they still remember the BLOCKING, they remember his voice ... even though it was almost 50 years ago.

Oh, and one last thing: he said that because of his confusion, he wasn't able to enjoy his big Broadway debut. He was more focused on figuring out what the hell he was doing. Having sat through many a Broadway show, where someone is making their debut, and that person's entire energy is: "HOLY SHIT. LOOK AT ME MAKING MY BROADWAY DEBUT. AREN'T I AWESOME???" ... I can say that I would prefer to see an actor focused on the matter at hand, meaning: the PLAY.

Anyway, enjoy the excerpt.

An amazing career, and a lovely book.

EXCERPT FROM In the Moment: My Life as an Actor, by Ben Gazzara

All the action in the play takes place in Brick's and Maggie's bedroom. The only furniture was a bed and a stand where Brick could refill his drink. He's been injured during a sporting event and he's drinking a lot. His leg is in a cast and he uses a crutch throughout the play. I had to find a way to move like the athlete he was. And I had to make his melancholy and reticence understandable. The audience had to be made aware of his painful secret.

BRICK
Why can't exceptional friendship, real, real, deep, deep friendship between two men be respected as something clean and decent without being thought of as --
BIG DADDY
It can, it is, for God's sake.
BRICK
... It was too rare to be normal, any true thing between two people is too rare to be normal. Oh, once in a while he put his hand on my shoulder, or I'd put mine on his, oh, maybe even, when we were touring the country in pro football an' shared hotel-rooms, we'd reach across the space between the two beds and shake hands to say goodnight, yeah, one or two times we --

He's married to a beautiful woman, and I had to make it clear to viewers that rejecting Maggie doesn't come from his dislike or disgust, but instead from the death of Skipper, the friend he'd loved with a love he never admitted, even to himself. The loss of Skipper leads Brick to more and more booze and even greater disgust with people's mendacity, especially his own.

Gadge liked what I was doing. I had heard that he got his nickname, Gadge, from the fact that he often came up with the perfect gadget to make something work. He kept his direction to a minimum, letting me find my own way. I worked on reaching into myself to find the broken part of Brick. On the whole, rehearsals went well, but Tennessee thought that Barbara Bel Geddes, who played Maggie the cat, wasn't enough of a cat, not complex enough. She was much too wholesome for his taste. He was looking for something more neurotic, but I'm sure that Kazan had cast Barbara precisely for that wholesome quality. Theatergoers loved Barbara and therefore she would be able to make audiences embrace this complicated and not always likable character. Gadge was absolutely right about that.

But Tennessee felt there were problems during the scene where Barbara is on her knees embracing my legs and making a plea for me to take her to bed. Tennessee said something like, "Gadge, she's fuckin' with my cadence." He may have thought he was whispering but Tennessee had a deep, mellifluous voice which at that moment was too loud. And he'd been drinking. Well, I looked over and Barbara was gone. She'd run off the stage in tears, so I went after her to console her. When I came back Gadge looked at me for a long time and said, "You're a nice guy." I didn't understand. Wasn't it normal to help a lady in distress?

Mildred Dunnock played Big Mama. When she came onstage you saw a lean, almost frail-looking woman, but her vocal equipment was commanding. In most of her entrances she was followed by Pat Hingle, who played Brick's brother, and Madeleine Sherwood, who had the part of Pat's wife. Here again, Pat was the only southerner in a play about the South. There was an innocence in his performance that made his character's greed less melodramatic. I was shown Millie Dunnock's motherly affection both as Big Mama's son Brick and as Millie's fellow actor Ben. I will never forget her warm, comforting smile.

Before leaving for out-of-town tryouts, we had a run-through on the stage of the New Amsterdam Roof. This was the first time I met Marilyn Monroe. This time she came backstage, she wore no makeup, her hair was windblown, she was girlish and very pretty, and she was ecstatic about what she'd seen. She arrived with Lee Strasberg, who liked it - in fact, he was very enthusiastic, which made me proud.

We opened in Philadelphia to great reviews. William Faulkner came to see it, as did Carson McCullers and John Steinbeck. One day in the bar of the St. James Hotel where we were all staying, they were seated at the same table. Kazan invited me over and as I sat down, I thought, My God, look who I'm sitting with. I felt pretty inadequate. But they were pleasant and complimentary about my work. They talked about fishing, hunting, and good restaurants, but not one word about literature. They do it, so why should they talk about it?

Only two days before we were to open on Broadway, Tennessee and Kazan came backstage. Tennessee said, "If you like Maggie too much, Ben, then we have no play. If Brick likes her, we have nothing." In those days you couldn't be open about homosexuality on Broadway. It would not sell. So Tennessee clouded the matter masterfully. What probably disturbed him was that I was not cold enough toward her. Gadge said, "Distance yourself from her, Ben."

So I tried something I didn't have much faith in but took a chance on anyway. At the time of the New York opening my performance was still pretty much intact. The play received terrific notices and the critics raved about my acting, using words like "marvelous". But that confused me even more. What the hell was going on? Why were Williams and Kazan asking me to tamper with a good performance? Even though I didn't fully understand what the hell they wanted, I tried to do it. I tried to distance myself, but didn't really believe it, so I never found a believable way to do it.

A month into the New York run, I decided I couldn't make their idea work. I needed to reverse direction to find my original performance. I'd felt that it had always been clear to the audience that Brick won't go near his wife because he's mourning the loss of his friend Skipper. To me, mixing the affection that had once existed between Brick and Maggie was far more interesting than the changes I was being asked to make. But when I tried to get back to that original performance, I found myself being tentative and my vocal energy was low, so low that it resembled my work in the beginning of rehearsals, when I was still finding my way, working to get ahold of the character. One night, from the balcony of the Morosco Theatre, someone yelled, "Louder!" It happened on other nights, also. It was the actor's nightmare, the audience demanding something you can't give. I knew Barbara heard it, too. What was she thinking? I felt a hot blush of embarrassment. I was mortified, but I didn't know what to do, where to go for help. Kazan was in Greece on vacation. The character of Brick had been my creation but I felt Gadge and Tennessee had damaged it. In fact I never got it back to what it first had been. I was starring in my Broadway debut and I should have been thrilled. But instead of Cat being an event for me to enjoy, it had become a problem. Going onstage was no longer fun. I had to find my way back. I was determined to slow things down, to simplify my movements and remain in the moment until Brick was again fully realized. I knew then that oly by going moment to moment would I recapture what I'd lost.

Blyton is one of my "best-loved" authors, too

The winners of the 2008 Costa Book Awards have been announced and children's book writer Enid Blyton (along with Roald Dahl) has been named the UK's "best-loved author".

I've never done a post on Enid Blyton - and sadly, I no longer have any of her books, although I used to own them all. And that was quite a hefty collection, girl was PROLIFIC. As a child - from about 8 to 10 - I was obsessed - obsessed I tell you - with the "Adventure" series: Island of Adventure, Mountain of Adventure, Valley of Adventure ... wherein 4 children continually got mixed up in international intrigues, involving smugglers, gun runners, counterfeiters, and God knows what else. I'm pretty sure Osama bin Laden was somehow involved. Children were kidnapped and thrown in trunks of cars. They emerged in captivity in an unknown location and had to somehow find their way out. They are ADDICTIVE books - and I was totally obsessed. Like so much else in my childhood, I have my cousin Susan to thank for my Enid Blyton mania. We lived those books. We would play-act them out. Like I've mentioned before, I was quite an Anglophile as a child (not knowing that I was embracing what should be my mortal cultural enemy as an Irish person! Ha!) - I think it began with Oliver Twist and Alice in Wonderland ... but, in general, if it was a book about kids and it took place in the UK, and people used words like "frocks" or "macks" instead of "dresses" and "raincoats", I was hooked. It also helped if it took place between the World Wars. Hence, my adoration of all things Noel Streatfield (excerpt here). Enid Blyton's books have that echo of grimness Vera Drake sensibility ... with rationing still a memory, and people saving their big brown paper bags, and the rain pouring down as everyone put on their macks ... oh, it was all very British. But the scrapes these kids got into! I LOVED them.

Lucy Mangan has written an article about Enid Blyton, in response to her winning the prize, that made me cry. Yes. Yes. She gets it!

She opens with:

I myself can barely bring myself to talk about my Enid Blyton years. Who wants to let daylight in upon magic?

Mangan talks about how the Blyton books don't quite hold up to adult scrutiny ... but I was very interested to hear Blyton's own words about her process, and her extraordinary output:

She describes having her characters always walking and talking in her head, and needing only to look in on their dialogue and actions for her next story. It is, she says, "simply a matter of opening the sluice gates and out it all pours with no effort or labour of my own. This is why I can write so much and so quickly - it's all I can do to keep up with it, even typing at top speed".

And you know what? That's how I read all of her books, too. So quickly it was like I was inhaling them and it was all I could "do to keep up with it".

Blyton has not been voted the "best" English author. That would be a travesty, in my opinion. But "best-loved"?? Oh, hell yes.

At a certain stage of development, you ask for nothing more than a satisfying story and an unbroken contract of delivery from your author. You care not a jot that stumbling across a smuggling ring would be unlikely to end as well in real life. Although I do remember, even at the age of eight, feeling in some vague, inchoate way, that you could go a long time without ever coming across a more unforgivably prosaic, deadening and literal title to a series than The Five Find-Outers and Dog.

But this latest nomination is not for best children's writer, it is for best-loved writer, full stop. Blyton's gold medal position in this table, along with the high preponderance of children's writers elsewhere on Costa's list (Roald Dahl took second place and JK Rowling third, while JRR Tolkien and Beatrix Potter made the top 10), is evidence that it is the books we read, wholeheartedly, passionately, uncritically, in childhood to which we remain most firmly and irrevocably attached. The flaws we see in them as adults, the criticisms - and some pretty hefty ones, in the shape of accusations of sexism, racism and class snobbery have been flung Blyton's way over the years - do not weaken those bonds. For hundreds of thousands of us, Blyton was the wedge that cracked open the pleasure-filled world of reading and allowed us in. Our rational adult sides reject and mock Kirrin Island and all the adventures played out there; our inner children remember it rightly, and gratefully, as the promontory from which we caught our first glimpse of the promised land.

Tears.

Oh please go read the whole thing!

Everything is Everything

Wonderful thoughtful review of Lauryn Hill's first and only solo album "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill", which was certainly one of my favorite albums in the last 10 years. I'll never forget watching her break down into tears during a performance on MTV Unplugged. It was gripping ... but it wasn't supposed to happen. It reminded me of that infamous blurry concert footage of a grown Judy Garland dressed up in the tramp outfit trying to get through "Over the Rainbow" and you truly feel that she won't make it through. You also feel (or at least I did): "Wow. I hope she's going to be all right." The feeling that comes up in the performer is so raw and unbidden that you definitely feel like: I probably shouldn't be watching this.

What's most remarkable, in retrospect, as the cult of Lauryn Hill grows stronger (sporadic concert appearances becoming the stuff of myth) is how slight some of her songs are on record. For being almost 80 minutes long, Miseducation is a surprisingly easy listen, coasting mostly on Hill's simple repetition of phrases to emphasize a mood. By album's end, a cover of "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" (with beatboxing) seems obligatory but still a part of what she does best: Like Amy Winehouse, Hill gets at the heart of '60s soul while slyly turning it into her own postmodern art project. The album's simple authenticity is one of its strengths, turning backup vocals into rap refrains and stripping bare much of soul music's bullshit. She casually tosses off lines like "C'mon, baby, light my fire" on "Superstar" with the awareness of someone who also knows how little those words can mean.

A beautiful article about a wonderful album.

Video of "Everything is Everything" below (which came out when I still, you know, cared about videos). Love this song.

Romance

In keeping with the book excerpt today.

I love this photo so much.

One of my "happy place" posts was about Carole Lombard. Love that lady. So did he. Gable did eventually marry again (twice, actually!), but he had it put in his will that he would be buried beside Lombard. Thankfully, his last wife, Kay Williams, was apparently a sensitive (and sensible) lady who totally "got it", knew that Lombard had been the love of his life, and whatevs. Clark would be buried where he wanted to be buried. And that was beside Lombard.

Their faces here. Yum!!

Erin and Zachary: an ongoing project

Revisiting it after not looking at it for over a year. Most of it is offline ... I don't "share" my writing in that way, that's not how I use my blog - it's for other kind of writing... but sometimes I dip into something I've written and post a bit online.

More in this same story:
the rocking chair soliloquy
answering machine messages
what did they talk about
he only had one fork
the haircut
things
tenderness

work in progress ... the parts as of now do not add up to a whole, but I'm workin' on it. Most of my friends have read this whole thing, they will recognize it.

the ice cream cone

She and Zachary walked through the drizzle, side by side, heading to her bed three blocks away. Erin didn’t worry about making nice chit-chatter with him. They did not hold hands; Erin felt that that would have been ridiculous. Erin’s fingers were jammed in her pockets, face down as she walked. The rain beaded up on her glasses, pointless to wipe the drops away. They strolled beneath the coliseum walls of darkened Wrigley Field.

Zachary suddenly said, breaking their silence, "It must be pretty cool to live so close to Wrigley Field." He stared up at the looming quiet structure in the middle of the block.

"Well, it gets kind of nuts, actually."

"Can you hear the roar of the crowd at your apartment?"

"Totally."

"Wow. That's great. I'd love that."

And then her scuffing sneakers squashed something on the wet pavement. She turned back to look, and saw a soggy flattened ice cream cone. It looked so pathetic, so forlorn. A whole world swam before her blurry eyes: baseball games, fathers and sons, joyous sunny afternoons, a child weeping over dropped ice cream. A day ruined.

"Ohhhhh," she breathed, as though it were a crushed Monarch butterfly.

Zack turned and squinted at the object of Erin’s pity. He saw what it was, but said not a word, only straightened up, and the two of them continued on, Erin leading the way across the empty avenue.

A block and a half later, Zack said, without looking at her, "Uhm … excuse me … but did you just feel sorry for an ice cream cone?"

The empathic moment with the soggy cone was already completely forgotten by Erin. She had moved on and had no idea what Zack was talking about. Then she realized and burst into laughter.

"Yes! Yes! I did!"

He grinned down at her sideways, husky eyes gleaming in the shadows of the side street. "Yeah. I thought so. Just checking."

Erin's brother Nate said to her once, "Erin, you idolize men. Don't do that." Good advice. Which Erin proceeded to completely and repeatedly ignore.

She made an idol of Zack, and his subtle acceptance of her.

But there was no subtlety in the way he attacked her in the elevator ride up to her apartment. He pounced, jamming her up against the wall, holding her head still, kissing her. She resisted for about two seconds, attempting to maintain some decorum, after all she had just met the man, but then it was useless to resist and she attacked him back, in true sex-starved librarian fashion. The night felt like it lasted eons; or a millisecond. There were more dinosaurs, bursts of laughter, timeless wordless stretches of liplock, Chinese food ordered in at 3 a.m., an intense discussion about the difference between meteors and comets, more liplock, lazy eternities where she lay with her head in the crook of his arm, the two of them breathing together, not talking, and a spooning formation as they passed out as one.

Erin was accustomed to boyfriends who treated sex as something precious and sacred, who read The Kama Sutra and suggested new positions to keep things interesting. To be honest, this did nothing for her. In the middle of the Bounding Kangaroo, or the Downward Anteater Maneuver, her mind wandered off, going through her To Do Lists. But the anarchy of sleeping with Zachary never gave her a moment to ponder, "Okay, so when will I go grocery shopping tomorrow?" The thought of doing this was ludicrous, actually. Also ludicrous was trying to imagine Zachary showing her a Kama Sutra diagram, saying, "That looks cool – Wanna give it a go?" There was nothing conscious in his sexual behavior. It was all instinct. And listening. On a supersonic level. But Zachary would never have talked about it in this way. He was too busy doing whatever the hell he felt like doing, when he felt like doing it.

Erin's face was rubbed raw the next day. She had a hickey, for God's sake. It was June, and she was forced to wear a turtleneck to her downtown-Loop temp-job the next morning. There were tiny grey bruises on her twig wrists. On the L-ride, she kept bursting into laughter like a crazy person. She was completely unable to concentrate and kept transferring calls to the wrong people. "Hi, Erin, that last call is supposed to go to Dave in HR …" "Erin? Who was that person you just transferred back to my phone?" "Yes, hi, I have someone on hold here who is looking for someone in R&D … could you handle it, please?" Erin spent the entire day murmuring, "Sorry … sorry … sorry … Yeah, I'll handle it … sorry …" She felt transparent, as though everyone on the planet had Infrared vision and could see the lingering hand-prints of Big Z all over her body. Glowing redly through her black turtleneck on a humid summer day. The Mark of Zorro.

Lifeguard off duty

Charlestown Beach.

The daily Hope

When a paper bag is lying on the kitchen floor, there really is nothing else one can do but crawl into it. And start gnawing on it ferociously. With intermittent breaks for feverish bathing and introverted contemplation.

The Books: "Clark Gable: A Biography" (Warren Harris)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Clark Gable: A Biography, by Warren Harris

Warren Harris also wrote a book about the romance of Carole Lombard and Clark Gable (she famously said once, "Lord knows I love Clark, but he's the worst lay in town ..." Ha!) ... and so now Harris has taken all of that former research and honed in on Gable. Within 1 or 2 pages, I felt a familiar pang of disappointment, realizing that despite the nice matte-cover, the well-done production of the book - it wasn't written well. It's amateur hour. I am not aware of a big serious biography out there about Clark Gable, and I had hopes for this one. But nope. He uses the word "umpteenth", for example. Time and place, Harris. Time and place. This isn't supposed to be the rantings of a fanboy. Put your "umpteenth" away. He describes conversations as though he were there. At one point he says, "Gable blanched" at some bad news. That's a description. You can't do that. You weren't there. Unless it's a quote from someone else, you can't say "Gable blanched". Or, you CAN, but then you certainly lose MY trust as a reader. You're making shit up, sir. He also reports rumors. "Rumor has it that ..." No, no, no. Joan Crawford very well may have had an abortion due to getting pregnant by Gable, or a few abortions, who knows, but don't set it up with "rumor has it ..." Do your legwork, Mr. Harris. That's your job. Get quotes from people to confirm or deny. Don't just repeat the rumor. Bad form. It's kind of a bummer, because I really wanted to like the book. I liked the information, but I didn't appreciate the writing at all. It didn't make me MAD like Peter Manso's axe-to-grind style, it's relatively harmless, and hell, I can enjoy a good fangirl ranting with the best of them (Cooper's Women, anyone?) - but this book was packaged to look like something else. Unlike Cooper's Women, it has pretensions. It doesn't hold up.

Gable's origins are a little bit unknown - many of the details lost - even his birth certificate is wrong. I think he was even listed as a girl. And the date and time were wrong. It's indicative of the difficulties in putting together a picture of Clark Gable's childhood. He had a lot of sadness as a boy - his mother died, there was some wrangling over religion - the two sides of the family fighting over baptisms and the like, and Clark Gable (which probably wasn't his real name at the time) got a little bit lost in the shuffle. He seems to have been a mixed bag. He was great with cars and machines, loved working on them. He had ears that stuck out to here. He was shy.

Gable actually got his start in stock companies - he had no experience, he was a teenager, and needed to make some money. He learned his craft on his feet. He didn't even know it was a craft, until he encountered some pretty damn fine actors in stock ... who showed him the way. Or he learned by observing. As he filled in, and started to grow into his tallness (although his ears always stuck out) - women started to take notice. There are a couple of quotes in the book from colleagues and directors - basically saying that his sex appeal couldn't be denied - he walked onstage and you could FEEL the reaction in the audience. (Which makes Carole Lombard's quote about him not being a good lay even more interesting. He had grown up basically sleeping with prostitutes, that was his experience ... and Lombard understood that, she had had plenty of sex, she knew he was no good, but that he was a good man and that he loved her.) He was never quite the same after her untimely death.

But back to his sex appeal: It was electric, and visceral - what went on between Gable and an audience (particularly a female audience) - and it was only a matter of time before Hollywood beckoned.

The stories about Gone With the Wind are well-known, the stuff of legend, so I thought I'd pick an excerpt having to do with something a little bit earlier in Gable's career - either Red Dust with Jean Harlow (her husband of, what, one day? killed himself while filming Red Dust, or maybe just after wrap) or It Happened One Night with Claudette Colbert, one of my favorite movies of all time. Ironically, the Best Picture From the Outside In series is going on now - (that's where two film critics and writers "screen and compare two best pictures from either end of Oscar's 80 year timeline until eventually we meet in the middle in the 1960s several months from now") - great idea, right? I've been really loving it. So the latest installment is It Happened One Night, Oscar- winner in 1934 and A Beautiful Mind, Oscar-winner in 2001. Quite a jarring contrast, no? I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who was annoyed by Beautiful Mind but that's another post entirely. I LOVED reading the thoughts about It Happened One Night, and so I pulled out the book today and knew I had to choose an excerpt dealing with the filming of that classic.

Here's an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Clark Gable: A Biography, by Warren Harris

A Hollywood legend claims that Louis B. Mayer loaned Clark Gable to minor-league Columbia Pictures as punishment for the problems he caused during Dancing Lady, but that's not true. Between his illnesses and his suspended salary, Gable had been "punished" enough. It was simply a business deal that benefited both studios. MGM had no project of its own ready for Gable, and it also earned $500 per week by charging Columbia $2,500 instead of the $2,000 he received at home.

Undercapitalized Columbia couldn't afford a large contract roster like MGM, so president Harry Cohn was always borrowing stars for the "A" releases that he produced to upgrade the studio's image as a factory for cheap programmers and short subjects. While borrowing Gable for Night Bus, Cohn also took MGM's Barrymore for Twentieth Century. From Paramount he obtained Claudette Colbert for Gable's costar and Carole Lombard for Barrymore's.

To Gable personally, going to work at Columbia probably seemed like punishment after the posh comforts of MGM. He remembered the small sstudio in drab central Hollywood from his struggling actor days. He used to frequent the nearby intersection of Gower Street and Sunset Boulevard, known as "Gower Gulch" because shoestring producers came there daily to hire extras and bit players for westerns.

According to Frank Capra, who would be his director for the four weeks of the Columbia loan-out, Gable had to fortify himself with booze before he could face reporting to the studio. When Gable arrived for a script conference, he called him "Mishter" Capra and said, "I've always wanted to visit Siberia, but why does it smell so bad? And why ain't you wearing a parka?"

Infuriated, Capra said, "Mr. Gable, you and I are supposed to make a picture together. Shall I tell you the story, or would you rather read the script yourself?"

"Buddy, I don't give a shit what you do with it," Gable replied.

Capra saw that Gable was too intoxicated to reason with, so he simply handed him the script and escorted him to the door. As he left, Gable started singing the old saloon favorite "My Gal Sal".

Once he'd sobered up and read Night Bus, Gable decided that it wasn't any worse than some of his MGM scripts. Ironically, the original short story by Samuel Hopkins Adams had once been optioned by MGM after it was first published in Hearst's Cosmopolitan magazine, but when the studio decided to pass, Harry Cohn purchased it for five thousand dollars for Capra and scriptwriter-partner Robert Riskin.

Due to a recent flurry of bus movies, including MGM's Fugitive Lovers and Universal's Cross Country Cruise, Cohn ordered Capra and Riskin to find a more provocative title. The It in It Happened One Night could really stand for almost anything, although the neuter pronoun had been widely used as a euphemism for sex since the Middle Ages.

Retaining only the shell of the original short story, Robert Riskin wrote a script that started or at least perfected the genre known as screwball comedy. A hot-tempered newspaper reporter, just fired for impertinence while on assignment in Miami, heads back to New York by bus to find a new job. Sitting next to him and traveling incognito is the runaway, spoiled-bitch daughter of a millionaire. Daddy has posted a ten-thousand-dollar reward for her return, so it's not long before the reporter recognizes her and realizes his good luck. Besides collecting the reward money, he can also write a juicy story about her and sell it to the highest bidder. To make sure that others don't recognize her, he persuades her to leave the bus and to travel the rest of the way to New York by hitchhiking on the back roads.

Much of the script was left open to suit the improvisational style of Frank Capra, who had learned the ropes by creating visual gags for Hal Roach and Mack Sennett slapstick two-reelers and who had done his first feature directing the silent comedy star Harry Langdon. Since joining Columbia in 1928, Capra had directed nineteen comedies and/or dramas. From his first collaboration with writer Riskin on The Miracle Woman in 1931, his films had become increasingly laced with social comment that championed the ordinary citizen and moral goodness.

Gable had met Claudette Colbert during his Broadway period; she was an established stage star by the time of his debut in Machinal. He also knew that she was a lesbian in a sham marriage with gay actor-director Norman Foster, so he never tried to make a pass or to entice her into the temporary dressing suite that Columbia gave him.

"Clark had a ball making the film," Frank Capra remembered. "He was playing himself, and maybe for the only time in his career. That clowing, boyish, roguish he-man was Gable. He was shy, but a lot of fun with people he knew. He was very sensitive about those goddamned ears, but he made jokes about them. After a shot, he'd ask, 'What'd they get - an ear?' He didn't look like anyone else. It was not only physical. He had mannerisms that were all his own: ways of standing, smoking, and a great flair for clothes. Whatever came natural to him, I let him do it."

"Gable, I believe, idolized Capra," said the director's longtime sound mixer, Edward Bernds. "Gable's initial hostility was gone by the time we started, which was with a night scene at the Greyhound bus depot in downtown Los Angeles. Gable very quickly became friendly with the crew. I think he found that with Capra, picture making could be fun."

The story builds to a scene where Gable and Colbert must share overnight accommodation in a one-room tourist cabin. Colbert's actual reluctance to undress in front of the cameras gave Capra the idea for the "Walls of Jericho", a blanket hung from the ceiling to divide her bed from Gable's. While undressing behind the blanket, she drapes some of her clothes and undies on it, which turned out sexier than if she'd actually revealed herself.

As Gable stripes down in the same scene, he removes his shirt and has nothing on underneath. In real life he never wore undershirts, so he didn't want to be bothered with one for the film. Capra went along with i.

During the filming of the "Jericho" scene, Gable and Capra pulled a prank on Colbert. The director called her over to Gable's side of the curtain with "We've got a slight problem here. Clark wants to know what can be done about it." When she came around, Colbert found Gable under the bedcovers, smirking, with a large bulge rising from his crotch line. He'd taken a prop kitchen utensil and positioned it under the blanket.

"Awww!" Colbert laughed. "You guys!"

In his handling of Gable, Capra erased the dividing line between hero and comic. He gave Gable routines that were usually reserved for slapstick comedians. Gable teaches Colbert how to dunk a doughnut and also how to thumb a ride. She does him one better by sticking out a shapely gam and getting a passing car to stop immediately. The audience could laugh at the hero as well as admire him.

The thirty-six-day filming ended just before Christmas and cost $325,000. "Clark and I left wondering how the movie would be received," Claudette Colbert recalled. "It was right in the middle of the Depression. People needed fantasy, they needed splendor and glamour, and Hollywood gave it to them. And here we were, looking a little seedy and riding on our bus."

No. No. No. No.

Special Ops has heard a rumor, and Special Ops says in response: No.

Go.

Away.

I'm not yelling or hysterical. I'm just telling you firmly, MK, because I almost care about you: Your time is done. Give it up. Go away.

“I have a silver and a bronze, and you how everyone says there’s something missing?,” [Michelle] Kwan said. “I don’t know what that is, but I feel like something is missing, as well.”

Oh, cry me a river, Kwan. I feel something's missing in my life too. Like love, peace of mind, financial flexibility and overall emotional contentment. Oh, and my address book is missing too. That's the way it goes. You can't always get what you want. Life's unfair. Tough. Suck it up.

I have expressed myself on this score before. I don't want to go through another Winter Olympics listening to your bitch-bitch whining about your missing gold, and how you have every medal but a gold!!! (aboo-hoo, aboohoo), somehow thinking (incorrectly) that the "outrage" about this is universal ... No. It ain't, Kwan. You don't have a gold because you didn't skate well enough the last 35 times you competed in the Olympics. Oh, and also: it would help if you didn't do the same routine TWO OLYMPICS IN A ROW. Why should you be congratulated for such stupid (and cautious) behavior? Those little teenage girls skated circles around you. That's the flat truth. I roll my eyes, knowing I will have to watch you swoop around the ice with your damn leg in the air as everyone cheers for ... what reason? No idea. I was bored by that move of yours in circa 1987.

"Signature moves" don't win the gold, Kwan. Go join the Icecapades if you want to be congratulated for that kind of thing.

I KNEW this moment would come. I KNEW I was not done with Kwan.

"You know, I've left all doors open and I haven't closed any doors yet."

Hey, Michelle. Let me close that door for you. For all our sakes. There ya go!

To quote Mitchell's long-ago haiku that he wrote for Tonya Harding:

Pink spandex falters
Guilty skates have no rhythm
The world is unmoved.

That haiku NEVER grows old. Mitchell, my dear. It's brill.

And so Special Ops says:

The world is unmoved, Kwan.

Vintage advertising

I love stuff like this.

I particularly like the illustration to the ad for the "Lux toilet soap". The guy in a silk dressing gown, the woman still in her pearls and furs ... THAT'S what you wear when you go to wash your hands. But of course!

I just love those old drawings.

A Providence kind of night

Beth and I drove up to Providence on Sunday night. We dropped off her daughter and her daughter's friend at an all-ages show at The Living Room, and then went to meet up with Michele. It's been a long time since I've hung out in Providence. We went out for appetizers at Ri Ra, an "upscale Irish" place that I remember going to in Dublin, so it must be a "chain". There was an Irish band sitting around at a table, playing. Then we walked along the Providence River at sunset. We saw a tepid protest having something to do with socialism, we saw a man walking around wearing a headdress, we saw a traveling merry mariachi band, with bells on their boots. The statehouse caught the side of the sunset glow and just struck my heart with its beauty. I've always loved that building. Then the three of us went up to Federal Hill (you know, where the colors of the flag of Italy are painted down the middle of the street) and sat outside at an Italian restaurant, with a fountain nearby, and a Frank Sinatra impersonator (pretty damn good), and yummy food and wine. Then we walked through the soft summer night to Pastiche, a great dessert place, for coffee and dessert. We were basically waiting for Ceileidh's show to get out, and there was much texting back and forth between mother and daughter, but still, it was great to get out and have time to spend with my old dear friends. We missed Meredith and Betsy! Beth and I then made our way back to the club, through the wandering throngs of post-concert mania ... and picked up Ceileidh and her friend ... and drove back down to the southern part of the state.

It was a lovely night. It was very nice to see my friends, and also very nice to reacquaint myself with the beauty that is Providence.

Yesterday morning

11 a.m.

Breakfast on the deck of the Ocean Mist.

The Books: "The Salad Days" (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

The Salad Days, by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

The first of his two autobiographies, The Salad Days takes us up to 1941. His second book has to do with his extraordinary experiences during WWII, and I have not read it, but I very much want to. The Salad Days is a self-portrait of a charming, intelligent, honest man ... not all that ambitious, but born to Hollywood royalty, and learning his craft as he went. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was not the swashbuckling giant that his father, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was, but he was tremendously handsome, and had a nice career. (A long one, too.) He played small roles, starting out in the silent era, and then graduated to supporting parts. Meanwhile, he was married to Joan Crawford (or "Billie", as he called her) and focusing mainly on his personal life, and negotiating the sometimes difficult relationship with his famous father and his young stepmother, cinema giant Mary Pickford. Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Mary Pickford were really our first major movie stars - and in a way, just because of the time and the place, they were more famous than anyone had been on earth, ever. At least in terms of being instantly recognizable, due to this new-fangled medium called the "motion picture". Stardom was able to jump a notch in power, a couple of notches ... so that these people, who lived in that time, has worldwide cache of a level that the stars in past generations couldn't have even dreamed of. I mean, Ellen Terry was a huge stage actress - does anyone outside of theatre buffs know her name now? (Here's a quote from her, and some photos, for those who are interested.) We know John Wilkes Booth's name, but not because of his acting! Could you pick Eleanora Duse out of a lineup? These people were huge stars of the stage. But with motion pictures, actors joined the realm of the pharaohs, and they lived accordingly. Much of the money they made was not taxed (at that time), so the lifestyles were even more extraordinary than they are now. It was the Wild West of filmmaking. Pioneer spirit. Excess. Only one or two huge stars. They were a different breed.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. grew up with his mother (who had gotten sole custody when she and Fairbanks, Sr. divorced), and his father had gone on to the greatest success possible in Hollywood, marrying America's sweetheart Mary Pickford. Fairbanks, Jr. was famous as a child, merely because of who his father was. Fairbanks and Pickford lived in a giant mansion and I suppose the name of the mansion reveals that the whole socalled currentday trend of calling famous couples as a blend of their two names (Brangelina, etc.) is nothing new. They lived in a mansion called Pickfair.

Based on nothing but his last name, Fairbanks was given a contract, and he started making pictures. It had to have been difficult, to have a father who was the most famous actor in the world - well, him and Charlie Chaplin (who was also his business partner). Fairbanks (Sr.), Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and DW Griffith formed United Artists in 1919, an extraordinary act of business acumen - and that studio flourished until it was brought down by the debacle of Heaven's Gate in 1980. The history of that particular studio, and its collapse, is one of the saddest in Hollywood (a book was written about it: Final Cut : Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film That Sank United Artists - an incredible book). What a loss. But Douglas Fairbanks and his colleagues had created it to get more creative control, first of all, and also to control the distribution of their films. Brilliant. They were far-seeing people. They were not just in it for the momentary flash of glory. These people saw the future - which was in distribution (and still is today) and did what they could to get some control. It's so rare to find artists who are also excellent businessmen/women ... and those four were.

But, sadly, here I am talking about Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. when this post is about JUNIOR'S book! Typical. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. had to deal with that his whole life. He even shared his father's name! How could he ever compete?

The most charming thing about Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (and I mean charming in the best most true sense of that word) is that he did NOT try to compete. He liked the good life, yes. But he liked it for the right reasons. He enjoyed nice things. He had a great sense of aesthetics, not just in how he dressed and behaved, but in how one should live his life. The Salad Days describes a world that no longer exists. A world of ocean liners, and white linen suits, and cocktails before dinner, and elegant manners, and a kind of bemused acceptance of the foibles of others. He was a gentleman to his core. He was married to Joan Crawford (the marriage did not last) but years and years later, when Mommie Dearest, the smear book to end all smear books, came out, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was quick to say how biased it was, and that was not the Joan Crawford HE knew. He was old-school. You are a gentleman. You do not bitch and moan about the ladies in your life. You treat your wife with kindness, and perhaps she exasperates you, and perhaps you do not understand why she has to have an entire room filled with bottles of moisturizer, but you do not make yourself undignified and unmanly by bitching, and you do not speak of her with contempt. You do not speak of anyone with contempt ... that's what good manners means. It is more important to comport yourself with dignity and grace, and try to have a little compassion, even for someone who might have hurt you, betrayed you, whatever. He stood up for her, in the crazy aftermath of that book's release, and I think that's pretty classy.

They were a young couple together. Glowing and beautiful. This is one of my favorite photos of them. It might be one of my favorite photos ever.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was in Gunga Din with Cary Grant, and it was one of his most successful pictures. Grant offered him the part (Grant was another one of those rare actors with an acute business sense) ... Grant had admired Douglas Fairbanks Senior tremendously and had modeled much of his own behavior after him. The casual bon vivant glow, the easy grace, the immaculate wardrobe, the commitment to physical fitness, all of that ... he had seen in Douglas Fairbanks Sr. something he wanted to emulate, something he - a poverty-struck Cockney boy - was not born to. He had to imitate it (which is one of the most extraordinary things about Grant: his entire thing was a persona created out of wholecloth ... but it seems completely natural. He seriously has no peers). But anyway, due to his great regard for Fairbanks Jr.'s father (who died in 1939 - the same year Gunga Din came out) - he thought it would be wonderful to act with the son. The ridiculous results are one for the ages. Fairbanks, Jr. did not have the silent-screen swashbuckling melodrama of the father. But he did have a spectacular body, a rakish energy, and he was pretty much up for anything. Is there anything more fun than watching those three guys race around India and Afghanistan in Gunga Din??

Fairbanks, Jr. had a wonderful time on that picture, was very proud of it - and remained friends with Cary Grant until the day he died.

Check it out. Here are the two old friends with then-president and former acting colleague Ronald Reagan.

Amazing. The sweep of 20th century motion pictures embodied by two white-haired gents.

The Salad Days is an entertaining, gentle read ... He has no illusions about himself, and yet you also realize, as you read it, that you are in the presence of a thoughtful intelligent person, a man who is able to tell his own story without seeming gaga about his own life, an honest gentleman. In white linen and bucks. Ready to put on his swimming trunks and do a perfect dive into the blue swimming pool. A cocktail on the nearby table. A glimpse of an America - pre World War II - that is gone for good. A time-machine this book is.

It's not just wonderful for the show-biz anecdotes, but because it's really nice to hang out with him for a while. He's a lovely companion, a trustworthy guide.

Here's an excerpt involving his wife "Billie" and other matters.

EXCERPT FROM The Salad Days, by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Neither Billie nor I had much opportunity to settle down in the conventional sense; we both worked too hard and hectically. Never, before or since, have I known any other professional who expended more personal energy on self-improvement courses and on her relations with her fans and the press as did the girl known as Joan Crawford. With one or two really dear friends from Kansas City, she kept up a loyal handwritten correspondence. But if she decided that some particular fan was consistently ardent and devoted enough, or if someone in the studio made a voluntary slave of himself for her (as some certainly did), they were favored by her frequent thoughtfulness and extravagant generosity.

Inclined as she was to exaggerate in so many ways, Billie went about physical fitness in typical fashion. She went to dance classes (when not filming) once or twice a week, took swimming lessons and daily exercises and massage. The cubes of ice she rubbed over her body were always as handy as her face creams and cosmetics. She did not have a notable sense of humor, and was memorably indignant when anyone pulled one of her famous legs about this routine.

She had a chosen few favorites among the members of the press with whom she shared confidences, knowing just how far they would go in printing them. Sometimes her pet fan-magazine writers submitted their articles in advance so that she could amend them if she chose. She paid fake-friendly obeisance to Louella Parsons, the shrewd and vengeful syndicated movie columnist for the then-great Hearst chain of newspapers. But then so did most of Hollywood, including me.

"Lolly" Parsons had been a friend of Marion Davies in Chicago, long before Marion had gone to New York and found her most loyal and magnanimous patron, the press titan William Randolph Hearst himself. Everyone - and no contrary voices were ever raised - loved Marion personally, although her films never quite caught on. She was delicious, irreverent, and generous. There were some who liked Hearst and some who admired him, but almost everyone feared him. His power in those days can hardly be believed in these. I recall my father once asking him, "Tell me, W.R." - as he was called by those who knew him - "now that you've got your own film company for Marion, and your own newsreels are shown everywhere, why don't you concentrate your energies more on motion pictures? That way you can have a worldwide public, instead of just the city-to-city fame that comes from journalism."

Hearst thought a moment and then, in his high, piping voice (so strange coming from that towering giant of a man), answered, "Well, Dough, I have thought about it but I've decided against it. Movies aren't that powerful, really. Why, you know, you can crush a man with journalism but you can't with motion pictures."

When Orson Welles made Citizen Kane, the brilliant, fictional story of Hearst, he was virtually blackballed from the American film world his talent graced so well.

Warner Brothers, once a quickie company and now nouveau-riche because of their successful pioneering investment in sound movies, took over First National (and me with it, of course). My total credits for that work year of 1929 amounted to six pictures. As indifferent as the Crawford pictures had been, mine were several notches lower. MGM at least mounted their trash well. Warner Brothers didn't; most were just mediocre. I did make one picture that, though not very good, may be of some interest to movie buffs. It was called The Forward Pass and it was a football story, with myself as the quarterback hero and Loretta ("Gretch") Young as the heroine. It so happened that I was a fervent fan of the USC Varsity Football team and felt no honor could be greater than to be allowed to watch practice or visit a fraternity house. Many directors and producers who were also fans did what they could to help the USC athletes get summer jobs to help pay their tuition (that should indicate how long ago all this was). And that was how we happened to hire the whole USC football team to be the "school team" in The Forward Pass. Most of them were nice fellows who were unimpressed by movie people. When the cameraman began to shoot, the players thought it great fun to rush through my so-called protective linemen and, instead of letting me run with the ball or pass as rehearsed, to crash into me, set me down hard on my backside, pile up on top of me, and then apologize. The director, Eddie Cline, was in on their joke and thought it fun too. So did everyone, except me. It was summer, it was hot, and I was not prepared for such rough going. But I knew if I so much as cried, "Ouch!" I'd never hear - or feel - the end of it.

Two of the fellows on the team were friends of mine, one a quarterback, Marshall Duffield, and the other a huge guard, named Marion Michael "Duke" Morrison. Three years later, I got Morrison a job in another picture of mine called The Life of Jimmy Dolan in which he was to have one spoken line, perhaps his first. As one of my fight trainers, he came in while my gloves were being tied on, slapped me on the back, and said, "You okay, boss?" I nodded and he exited. Morrison decided to stay in films, but under the name John Wayne.

It is impossible for me to recapture the degree of happiness or compatibility that existed between Billie and me that first year or so. I should say we were both sufficiently imaginative so that, inasmuch as we firmly decided we would "damn well be happy..." we were. This is not to suggest, however, that we were content - which is, of course, a more important state of mind and more impervious to passing influences.

There are accounts that after our marriage the atmosphere at Pickfair reverted to the marked chill Billie had caught the year before. It was said she was tense and unhappy whenever we went up there and that I had been neglectful of her when my father asked me to join him and his friends for a game of "DOUG" or a steaming first, meeting her at the house later.

Dad and Mary had been away again (he was beginning to make occasional trips alone) but had now returned. He was deep into the production of The Iron Mask, a sequel to The Three Muskateers, with another chance to play D'Artagnan.

I admit there was a discernible coolness emanating from "the Big House on the Hill" and invitations were few. Indeed, I myself was rarely relaxed there. I often felt I was "on sufferance" and I do remember Billie being occasionally uncomfortable about it. But as the outside world was not aware of this, she did not seem to take it with any real seriousness. There was certainly no outright unpleasantness between my father and me, but there was no great warmth either. Some said that Dad's fetish of youth made the reality of my marriage to a spectacular young star a disturbing factor. He and I hardly ever discussed personal or family matters. Nor did he seem to know or care much about my professional progress. Usually our conversation was limited to sports and the news.

It may well be that I have up to now been a shade too "understanding" of my father's variable feelings toward me. Perhaps, in balance, I have been too impatient with my mother's overdemonstrative devotion. Probably, because Dad had been my "hero of heroes", I overlooked many slights and rebuffs noted by others just because I didn't want to think they had happened.

Putting myself in Dad's shoes, I could see that, despite Mary's poise as wife and hostess and her shrewd business acumen, he preferred her public image of a little girl. Dad had created a child-bride for himself. He was always a very jealous man, and Mary and her world were the principal targets of that jealousy. He never let her sit next to anyone else but him at any dinner table. Nor could she dance with anyone else. He had built his career on a vision of himself as the ever-young champion. I belonged to him reluctantly - biologically, if not financially or emotionally. But I was by now physically bigger than he and becoming fairly well known to a new generation, so he couldn't exactly shake me off, or hide me.

Dad was never overtly unkind or unfair. Only rarely did he openly show anger or irritation - and then, with cause. He tried hard to be a conventional father but just couldn't quite bring it off.

He could not have enjoyed hearing Billie's frequent talk about having children. In fact, I never quite believed her. She often claimed she had had two miscarriages, but I had done some medical snooping that indicated nothing of the sort had happened. As she frequently voiced her fears that child-bearing might affect her figure, I suspect that was the real reason she never had children or her own. I was still too young to give it much thought. There was plenty of time for fatherhood and I was certainly not averse to it.

Nevertheless, the hint of a grandchild in the offing would not have been warmly welcomed by my father at that time - nor, I suspect, by Mary either. They enjoyed a status in the world's imagination that is totally inconceivable and incomparable by today's standards, and it was their serious business to keep it that way. I may have been uncomfortable in the private role of an unwitting threat to all of that, but I never realized the full extent of my influence on their lives until I heard family talk of it many years later.

In 1929, Billie made four pictures and none quite measured up to the best of the six she had made the year before. Our Modern Maidens (the one I was in too) was the most successful, though Untamed, late in the year, brought a splendid young actor, fresh from New York theater, as her leading man. Robert Montgomery and I became great companions and would share many agreeable adventures over the next dozen years. In order to get better stories and better parts, Billie carried on as hard a battle with the front office as she could without getting into trouble. She was too much in awe of Garbo to be jealous of her, but she made no bones of her jealousy of Norma Shearer, who was unquestionably given most of the plums. Since Norma was the wife of Irving Thalberg, boss of production, there was little Billie could do except grouse and protest, discreetly, to the press.

I have read that Billie tried to work single-mindedly at her career but found it difficult because of my insistence on a more "social life". Though reluctant to dispute the views of a revered person who no longer can rebut my rebuttal, I must say that that is so much rubbish. Billie let nothing stop her admirable though humorless dedication to professional advancement. It was useless to remind her that such other star actresses as Mary, Garbo, Gish, Hayes, Fontaine, or those younger ones who came later, like Hepburn, Leigh, and Davis, hardly ever bothered to curry favor with producers, directors, critics, columnists, or groups of fans. They learned their trade thoroughly, allowed their personalities full professional exposure, exploited their best qualities, and generally stayed away from all the circuising. Billie Cassin lacked some of the natural magic of some of her peers. Yet by dint of bloody-minded determination, intelligence, and guts, she invented Joan Crawford - and in that guise she stood proudly as an accepted equal to the best of all the others.

Although I doubt if she ever heard of Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theater or "the Method", she was one of a group of motion picture actors who really believed that to play a happy scene once must first get into a truly happy mood. For instance, she could not believe that Lynn Fontaine might feel physically dreadful yet be able to perform high comedy with supreme and subtle wit. Nor could she believe that a great actress like Helen Hayes could consciously reduce audiences to uncontrollable tears while she thought about having a juicy steak sandwich after the performance. Joan relied more than most silent movie actresses on the "mood music" created by a small two- or three-man combo that was, in those days, a regular part of a company's production crew. Her great saucer eyes could spill over with tears at the first chord of "Humoresque" or whatever sad incident she chose to think of at that moment. She was so very canny about the great size of her eyes that not only did her makeup carefully exploit them but in a picture she almost always tried to hold her head down and look up so that they looked even larger.

Sleepaway camp

My cousin Kerry watched Hope while I was in Rhode Island for the last 5 days. I think Kerry sent me more photos of Hope during that time than I have actually taken of Hope myself.

I am also happy to see that Kerry set to work indoctrinating Hope into the traditions and customs of the O'Malley clan right away.

Hope is now a true convert.

I believe she is bowing towards Fenway Park.

Time well spent at the O'Malley Sleepaway Camp.

The moonpath, and Justin Timberlake's awesomeness ...

Mitchell, Rachel and I sat on the sea wall last night, and the ocean was as flat as a lake. There was a full moon and the glimmering path of white in the water stunned us. If only I could have followed that path. A yacht lay anchored out a bit, close to the sea wall ... I've never seen one so close ... normally that area is much more rough ... and off in the distance we could see the lights of the Newport Bridge glowing. We had gone out to dinner, we went and got some homemade ice cream, and then we sat and talked ... about Mitchell's trip, about my writing, about horrible bug stories (prompted by Alex's recent apocalyptic struggle with a grasshopper) and about Rachel's most recent adventure in the employ of Justin Timberlake.

Rachel is a humble person, so I hope I'm not embarrassing her too much but here goes: any time Justin Timberlake has to do anything, host an awards show, show up and blab, Rachel is called in to help write the material. JT loves her and she has written a ton of stuff for him so far. We loved hearing all the INSANE stories about Rachel's recent experience writing the material for the ESPY's, which Timberlake hosted. INSANE. The project was a hydra, in many ways - a multi-headed beast - and it was also a beast with many masters. The folks at ESPN, the producers, the athletes themselves, and Justin Timberlake.

One of my favorite parts of the story was Rachel saying, "At one point, we realized that we needed a breakaway tuxedo, and a copy of Matlock and Debbie Does Dallas." The randomness of it. So off someone was sent ... to create a breakaway tuxedo, and someone else was sent off to track down copies of Matlock and Debbie Does Dallas. hahahaha Mitchell said to her, "I swear to God, if you say 'breakaway tuxedo' one more time ..."

Mitchell's analysis of what it was that is so great about the "I Love Sports" number which was the big production number at the ESPY's (written by Rachel and her writing colleagues) ... will be left for another post. Needless to say, I completely agree with him ... about the entertainment value of the number, and how the whole variety-show entertainer aesthetic is pretty much dead in American culture - due to a fear of seeming cheesy, perhaps? - but once upon a time, we had entertainers like Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin who knew how to handle themselves as entertainers. And Justin Timberlake does, too.

Watch him in the number. This is a hard number. He had a week to learn all those lyrics. And the dance moves. And "making it work". It looks effortless.

So he deserves the kudos, obviously ... and he also deserves the kudos because he's nice to my friend, he's a hard worker, he takes advice, and he treats her well. If it's a challenge? Justin Timberlake wants to do it. But I'm biased. I think RACHEL deserves the kudos, too. Brava!!! She was responsible for a couple of the best "bits" in the number ... but I won't point out which ones, since this was also a group effort. But if something seems to really "pop", that seems really funny? It's probably Rachel's idea.

LOVE. IT. Old-school. It's old-school variety-show entertainment.

Enjoy! (If you haven't seen it already) ...

Tickets on sale: Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival

One of these years I'll go! Last year, the artistic director of the festival contacted me to write something about Camino Real (one of the shows being done last year) for their program, which was a great opportunity for me. This year it's impossible for me to go, for such and such a reason, but they have a great program lined up. The Olympica Dukakis night in particular intrigues me.

Tickets just went on sale. More information here.

The Books: "The Kid Stays In the Picture" (Robert Evans)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

The Kid Stays In the Picture, by Robert Evans

Great book. Great great great. You want to know how Hollywood works? Read this book. Read the story of a man who RAN Hollywood for a good decade, and then had one of the most spectacular (meaning: awful, on a Greek-tragedy level spectacular) falls in Hollywood history. Don't look for a cool unbiased voice here. It's Robert Evans, in all his snarly "here's lookin' at you, baby" cheesiness. But there's a brilliance here. A shining brilliance, and honesty. You love him. You're glad you never married him, and you glad you never crossed him, but you love him. This is a book so full of great lines that you can't even process it. Even with all the coke and the bad tans and the ridiculous ubiquitous glasses and the women ... Evans was an old-school mogul, along the lines of Louis B. Mayer, with the wisecracks, and the power - but also, let's not forget, the intelligence.

Most people who get into the movie business are eccentrics. Not the middle level people, perhaps - but the talent, and the big power guys. Now Michael Ovitz may be a "suit", but you cannot tell me that that guy is not deeply eccentric. I'm not saying good/bad ... that's not what eccentric means. I mean, the guy is out there. This may be a minority opinion, but that's how I see it. Perhaps all really really successful CEO types and moguls are, on some level, deeply eccentric people. It's not easy to break ahead of the pack. Or to decide to break ahead of the pack, to make breaking ahead be the main focus of your life. We're human beings, we're collective, we instinctively group together ... we are not sharks. So those who DO act like sharks ... I don't know. I see a deep eccentricity there. An individualistic spirit. Don't assume I'm equating "good" or "bad" with any of this.

Robert Evans started out as an actor (that's where the awesome title for his book - perfectly, really - comes from) ... but his dream was always to be a producer. He grew up in New York City, of hard-working parents. His father was a dentist. Evans always worked his ass off, at whatever he did. He did a little bit of this, a little bit of that ... working for his brother's clothing company, where his gifts were recognized, and doing a bit of acting. He moved to Hollywood. He was a gorgeous man. Not my type, but absolutely gorgeous. Sleek and smooth and very slick. A poor man's Cary Grant. He was noticed immediately, he had "movie star looks". So he got into pictures, and I've never seen any of them - no idea if he was any good - but it certainly wasn't his passion. He was always very smart (all of his problems notwithstanding) and in the 60s he bought the rights to a novel he thought promising and ended up producing the film of the book - and it wasn't a shoddy production. Frank Sinatra was the star. Evans was in his element. He knew how to produce. He knew movies. Some of his comments about movies and production remind me of Hal Wallis, in my opinion one of the greatest producers of all time. (His memos during the filming of Casablanca are masterpieces of cinematic insight.) Anyway, Evans was going places fast. The New York Times profiled him, mentioning his aggression as a producer, and so it began.

Charles Bluhdorn was one of the main players in making Evans the mogul-phenom that he became. Bluhdorn headed up Gulf + Western, of which Paramount Studios was a part. Paramount was not doing well. Heads were gonna roll, and they did. It was a bloodbath, and Blurdorn, who had had his eye on Evans for a long time, hired him to head up Paramount and turn that ship around. It was an incredible decision on Bluhdorn's part, very risky. Evans was a young man, only in his 30s. He hadn't been tooling around Hollywood for 20 years, he was a relative newcomer. He didn't climb his way to the top. He was plucked out of the crowd and placed there. There was always a lot of resentment towards him, and yet at the same time, once his reputation began to skyrocket, nobody cared about that, and everybody just wanted to get involved in his projects. He was Midas there for a while, he really was.

Evans went to work. Paramount was not successful at the time, but at the end of Evans' time there, they were responsible for some of the most giant hits of the time - as well as some films which are now considered classics, and among the greatest American movies ever made. Harold and Maude, Love Story, The Conversation, The Godfather, etc. He also produced things independently (with Paramount's permission - which was a hugely unpopular decision at the time) - and finally stepped down as head of Paramount so that he could focus solely on producing. He is responsible for Chinatown, let's not forget.

He was one of the golden bad boys of Paramount. His friends are Jack Nicholson, Joe Esterhauz, Warren Beatty, Roman Polanski ... famous enfant terribles. Evans, actually, had always been kind of a straight guy, didn't really drink ... It was drugs that did him in. Well, that and The Cotton Club.

His relationship with Francis Ford Coppola had always been stormy. Evans insists that much of The Godfather came from his head. He had Mario Puzo write the book, he saved Coppola from himself many times (according to Evans) - but Coppola was very much interested in being seen as an independent auteur, and so having Evans take any credit at all for any of The Godfather was enraging to Coppola. Evans felt he deserved more props. A lot of the book is him telling his side of the story - because he has been so smeared ... but at the same time ... well, you have to read it. It doesn't come off as whiny. It comes off as pissed. If you've ever heard Evans speak, then you know that he wrote every damn word of this book ... he wrote it as he speaks. Wouldn't surprised me if he dictated the book, it sounds so much like him. Example. He takes Ali McGraw (his future wife who he then lost to Steve McQueen) to lunch. He wants her to star in Love Story. Listen to how he tells this tale. There are moments where I want to laugh, because he's so ... earnest, even in his vague sleaze ... and then at the same time, he comes out with these zingers (like the "plan" line) which show his smarts and why he became who he became.

I set up a lunch date with Love Story's mentor and star, MacGraw, at La Grenouille. By the time dessert was served, I would have made the phone book with her. Would you say she got to me? I sure in hell knew I didn't get to her. With all my props, my position, my "boy wonder" rep, she was as turned off to me as I was turned on to her. My competition was a model/actor she had been living with for three years, sharing the bills in a 3 1/2 room apartment on West 77th Street. Almost purposefully, she kept on interjecting how in love she was. Leaving the restaurant, I hailed a cab. As it pulled up she gave me her last zinger.

"Hope we shoot in the summer. Robin and I are getting married in the fall. We plan to spend October in Venice. Ever been there?"

"Nope."

"Then wait. Only go there when you're madly in love."

That's it. I grabbed her arm, whispering, "Never plan, kid. Planning's for the poor."

She tried to snap back. "No way--"

"Let me finish, Miss Charm. An hour ago, Love Story was even money to end up in the shredder. You win, I lose. Got it? Stop being Miss Inverse Snob, will ya? It doesn't wear well. Don't turn your nose down to success. If anything goes wrong with you and Blondie between now and post time, I'm seven digits away."

"Never plan, kid. Planning's for the poor"?? I LOVE that. The whole book reads like that. Whether or not he actually said it becomes irrelevant. He's riffing, he's telling it like he remembered it. Like I said, he does come off as "sleazy" at times - but he never comes off as anything other than himself. There's a self-deprecation to Evans, believe it or not, that makes him funny. Also, and this is one of the best things about the book: he does not protect himself by trying to be politically correct, or hanging his head. This guy was a shark. Sharks do not apologize for who they are. They act according to their nature. On the flipside of his wacko personal life, there is his WORK ... and his comments about movies are phenomenal. He knew how to put projects together. He took huge risks ... which sometimes worked out, sometimes failed ... but without a sense of risk, you're never gonna make something like Rosemary's Baby.

Evans flew HIGH. Listen to him here:

Let's get down to facts -- like agents, managers, lawyers, money. Writing about where it's at is easy pocket money; about how it feels, that's different. Not only does it take talent, which most of these penholders don't have, but writing about feelings takes a helluva lot more time. We're in the business of deals, not excellence. The ten percenters know their clients can write three concept scripts a year. To write texture takes time; time is money and money is what pays their light bills.

You may not like Evans, and often I didn't ... but I'm not interested in him because I like him. He's got one hell of a story, one of the great (and awful) Hollywood stories ... and thank God he decided to tell it.

It was The Cotton Club that ruined his reputation. He was supposed to direct the film, and at that time he still had a ton of cache. But things started to go badly during the production (it's one for the books, really, all the things that went wrong) - and Francis Ford Coppola was called to come in and save the production.

Costs escalated. The money was being spent - but it wasn't on the screen. Evans was not doing well at that time. He had already been arrested for cocaine once - and things were spiralling out of control. Some of the folks who invested in The Cotton Club were really sleazy, unlike Evans - who was Hollywood sexist sleazy. Like, these people were the criminal fringe. One of them ended up getting murdered. I'm sure we all remember the trial. I won't go into it. It's too complicated for me to recount, and Evans goes into it at great length in his book. The feeling at the time, and I was barely paying attention and I got that feeling (as Vincent Bugliosi says, with certain trials, certain things are "in the air") ... that Evans was somehow involved in the murder. It seemed like he was on trial. Joan Didion wrote a great essay about that phenomenon called "LA Noir - where she analyzes the trial, and Evans' peripheral part in it ... but how the feeling "in the air" was that somehow he was involved.

Inside the system, the fact taht no charge had been brought against the single person on the horizon who had a demonstrable connection with The Cotton Club was rendering Cotton Club, qua Cotton Club, increasingly problematic. Not only was Robert Evans not "on trial" in Division 47, but what was going on there was not even a "trial", only a preliminary hearing, intended to determine whether the state had sufficient evidence and cause to prosecute those charged, none of whom was Evans ...

There was always in the Cotton Club case a certain dreamland aspect, a looniness that derived in part from the ardent if misplaced faith of everyone involved, from the belief in windfalls, in sudden changes of fortune (five movies and four books would change someone's fortune, a piece of The Cotton Club someone else's, a high-visibility case the district attorney's); in killings, both literal and figurative. In fact this kind of faith is not unusual in Los Angeles. In a city not only largely conceived as a series of real estate promotions but largely supported by a series of confidence games, a city even then afloat on motion pictures and junk bonds and the B-2 Stealth bomber, the conviction that something can be made of nothing may be one of the few narratives in which everyone participates. A belief in extreme possibilities colors daily life. Anyone might have woken up one morning and been discovered at Schwab's, or killed at Bob's Big Boy. "Luck is all around you," a silky voice says on the California State Lottery's Lotto commercials, against a background track of "Dream a Little Dream Of Me". "Imagine winning millions ... what would you do?"

Evans paid a huge price for the Cotton Club debacle. It's okay if you're a sleaze in Hollywood, most people are, it's the culture ... but when you get dirty and involved with something shady, people drop you like a hot potato. And that's what happened. Evans dropped off of the radar completely, and became a recluse. People like Jack Nicholson stuck by him, his friends would come visit him where he was holed up in his mansion, hiding from the world ... and it is my impression that Evans spent about a decade in that manner, until he wrote Kid Stays In the Picture, which was a giant hit, and garnered him quite a lot of good will. A documentary was made of the book. That was a hit, too. I wouldn't say his reputation was rehabilitated, but a lot of the memory of The Cotton Club has now vanished with time ... and what remains is Evans' body of work.

He's a complicated character. He is easy to spoof. I mean, the prose of the book is sometimes laugh out loud funny. You think: He can't be serious! But he is.

I can't recommend it highly enough. Self-serving? Hell, yes. He deserves to defend himself in the public eye. Sleazy at times? Yes, this is a Hollywood story. But it's never anything less than riveting. And man, is it about the business. To Evans and most people in Los Angeles, there is only one business, and that's the business of making movies. The Kid Stays In the Picture is one of the great movie-business books of all time.

Here's an excerpt about The Cotton Club, and his fallout (his 10th or 11th fallout) with Coppola.

EXCERPT FROM The Kid Stays In the Picture, by Robert Evans

The circuslike trial with its surprise knockout-punch victory, caused mucho media interest. More important, it illustrates, through the verbatim quotes, the difference between man and man.

Walking down the stairs of the federal courthouse, Channel 11's Larry Atteberry asked me, "Do you think the picture will be a success despite all these problems?"

"Francis's work is brilliant. And I hope we'll be working together. We've fought together many times, only it wasn't in court. I just hope we have the same luck as we had in The Godfather."

Catching Coppola, Atteberry had a question for him. "What you were saying, that Evans would second-guess you if he were back in command."

"That's his middle name ... that's what he does all these years."

Coppola had taken the stand earlier to defend the Doumanis and assert that "Evans caused chaos". He had never experienced anything like this before, he stated.

How do you cause chaos when you're barred from the set? Unquestionably the chaos was deeply lodged in Francis's cerebellum. Yet I wouldn't dignify his malicious diatribe. Publicly, I continued defending him and the brilliant work he had done on The Cotton Club.

Through good times, friendship comes easy. But when you have to weather grit, threats, and disasters, coming out friends is what true friendship is all about. Today both Ed and Fred Doumani and Victor Sayyah remain my close friends.

On October 1, 1984, Orion had its first preview of The Cotton Club in San Jose. Though I wasn't invited, I was there, stared at as if I were a leper. Two hours later when the curtains closed and my blood pressure was way up, I grabbed the Doumanis. "Come back to the hotel with me, please."

Their heads between their legs. Full depression time.

"Fellas, it can be saved. There's a great picture there, but it's not on the screen - it's on Coppola's cutting room floor. The guy went double budget and gave us half a picture. He took eleven musical numbers out - the most important one, 'Stormy Weather', cost over a million to shoot. The fucker didn't put it in. He's made a collage out of an era."

The Doumanis now knew they'd been Elmer Gantryed by the Prince. I felt bad about it; whatever our fights, our arguments, I was the one who brought them in. Forget the fact that I had no points, no involvement. I wanted to help.

Like two prepubescent kids they looked up. 'What should we do?"

From the darkness of night till the midday sun, I wrote a letter to Coppola, pouring my heart out to the maestro. Problems are easy to criticize, but solutions don't come easy. Thirty-one pages of solutions, and fourteen hours later, I signed off.

Starting with the opening credits, I enthusiastically expressed how our original vision - The Godfather with music - could evolve into reality.

If the "Making of The Cotton Club" were a book rather than a chapter, I'd insist by contract that this entire critique be part of the text. For good reason hyperbole comes easy; the critique's text, however, pinpoints the importance of what is commonly thought of as a nondescript profession - producer. What follows is the cover letter and the first paragraph of the thirty-one page critique, which exemplifies the spirit in which the entire document was written:

October 1, 1984

Dear Francis:

Many years ago Moss Hart told me that relationships in our business are built on such strange personal emotions that they become three-sided: your side, my side, and the truth ...

With this in mind and putting all personal feelings aside, what you are about to read bears greater consequence to our lives and careers than any decisions we have ever fought over or agreed to in the past ...

But now, you must know I have no personal financial involvement in The Cotton Club. If the picture does ten dollars or three hundred million it bears no effect on my bank account. It does on yours, however. My involvement now is totally one of pride, professionalism, moral obligation to the investors, and from a selfish point of view to our audiences who are anxiously awaiting your vision of the Cotton Club era. When Francis Coppola takes on a subject matter which combines the richness of the roaring Twenties, the Depression that followed, and interweaves as the foreground the struggle, birth, and sense of discovery to the world of the black entertainer and the greatness of his music, one expects an event. Anything less leaves you open to a backlash both from the audiences and the critics. Your pictorial investigation of it has been shot in the best Coppola fashion. And what are we left with? Montage followed by montage followed by montage followed by montage. What a cheat - to you as a storyteller ... to you as a director ... and to the audiences who expect more than MTV when they pay their five dollars ...

You have shot, and brilliantly so, an 'era film'. What we are left with, however, is a slick flick that is only somewhat entertaining. If Phil Karlson made The Cotton Club and it cost twenty million dollars, you could get away with it, but Francis Coppola's name is on it instead, immediately making the audiences and critics anticipate something magical ... Phil Karlson would not have had the brilliance of film that you have shot, but unforutnately much of that film is presently on the floor and not on the screen.

The picture has been shown twice. The consensus of the cards more than evidences what I'm saying. This is not Orion patronizing you, whose sole interest is to get the picture for Christmas. This is me telling you cold, hard facts that will affect your future even more than mine. There have been six pictures previewed that are being released for Christmas. Our picture has had the lowest audience ratings of the six. If it went out for bidding today, we would get theaters - not the ones we want, and certainly not the terms we want. This I know for a fact. I have spoken to two of the biggest exhibitors in the country. They already know the disappointing reaction to the film. And their hard-ons have become very soft. And these are friends, Francis - close friends. For Orion it is fine. With their deal they will get their money out if you delivered them a postage stamp. Believe me, Francis, their entire concern is to get their money out. For the Doumanis it means bankruptcy. They will never see one dime from the film. The renegotiation of the Orion deal gives Orion all first monies and leaves the Doumanis holding the bag. The only hope they have is that The Cotton Club is a smash - a big one. In its present form it is not, Francis. It is lackluster, not blockbuster. Let us not be ostriches. The audiences have told us. The exhibitors have told us. Bad word spreads quicker than good ...

Am I negative on The Cotton Club? I most emphatically wish to express to you I am not. I would be less than candid, however, not to say that I am worried. Very worried. And terribly frustrated by not being used to my fullest abilities at this pivotal moment to help make The Cotton Club the smash it can be. It is your film, Francis, not mine. [But] not having communication at this very pivotal moment is very counterproductive. My god, Francis, if Gromyko and Reagan can meet and have an exchange of dialogue, who can't we? You owe it to yourself - if no one else - to put personal feelings aside. use me. Use my objectivity, which you cannot have at this moment, being so closely attached to the film. Francis, you are shortchanging yourself, and badly. I state to you unequivocally that there is a great film here. I know it. I see it. A film that can be remembered. Unfortunately and understandably, you are running scared, not sure of what you have. You are taking shortcuts and by doing so you are irreperably damaging your canvas. Allowing The Cotton Club to fall into the category of just another movie. Don't run scared, Francis. Go all the way. Give them a show. Give them the Coppola texture that is now on the floor. There is brilliance there. The longer and more textured the piece, the shorter it will play. Again, what better example is there than Godfather I? If I didn't think it were there I would certainly not be this passionate in my plea to you.

With my feelings expressed the best I can, I will now be specific as to what I think will make the difference between a slick flick, which we now have and which could be open to terrible criticism, vs. what I know is there - a critically acclaimed blockbuster, which has the opportunity of being long remembered ...

Evans

Critique

Credits: I think the credits that were on the film before which were handwritten on black had simplicity and style. The credits as they are now open the picture with the wrong note - they are a title company's jerk-off and more importantly they are most difficult to read. The simplicity of the other credits is far more you, and for that matter me, than the Deco credits presently on the film. Don't let some half-assed artist sway you into being overly fashionable. Style and simplicity always overshadow and outlast fashion.

Reading and rereading the pages, suddenly smiles crossed the Doumanis' faces, a first in months.

"What's in the letter, has it all been shot?"

"And more."

Like kids in a candy store. "We could have a winner!"

Holding the thirty-one pages in his hand, Ed spoke out. "Leaving now, driving up to Napa, delivering this by hand. Francis better listen, I'm gonna stand watchin' him read it."

With forty million of green on the line, Ed would have driven to Hong Kong. Napa was no short drive. At high speed six hours. For the first time the brothers saw light from darkness.

Twenty-eight hours later, the three of us sat together commiserating. After twelve hours of driving to and from and five hours patiently waiting for his highness to grant him an audience, he read the thirty-one pages. Ed related Francis's reaction to us.

"He would rather see the picture do three hundred thousand and not three hundred million than have Evans get credit for being the saving grace."

That December 8, The Cotton Club had its gala premiere in New York. The Prince purposely ignored my every written word, and the finished cut didn't include one of my suggestions. It had hardly changed from that first underwhelming preview in San Jose. Cotton Club the film, unlike Harlem's club, was not the talk of the town - any town. Somber would best describe its audience reaction. Somber as well described its box office results. Royalty always gets covered. Prince Machiavelli royally fucked all. He collected millions.

Film critic Ken Turran put it most succinctly when asked by Ted Koppel on "Nightline" what he thought about The Cotton Club.

I think that there's no coherent story there just for openers. It really feels to me as if the film was thrown together, as if Coppola didn't want to put in the work that goes in before, didn't want to have a coherent script, didn't want to take the trouble to do that. He wanted the exhiliaration of when you get on the set, which can be very exhilarating to a general in front of all those people. But I think you can't just wing the movie. Movies have to be thought out ahead of time. They have to have, as The Godfather did, a book with a very solid plotline. You just can't make it up as you go along.

What did I learn from this failure, this disaster, this five-year nightmare? A fat fuckin' nothing! To say you "fucked up but learned from it" is bullshit, a cop-out. You can learn from a mistake. A mistake done twice is not a mistake, it's called failure.

At an early age, a man of great wisdom gave me the key to making it.

"You learn from success, kid - not failure. If you've only touched it once, a term paper, a temp job, hitting a homer, dissect it. Was it timing, focus, homework? Get to the core. Find out the whys, the hows. That's the key. Use it ... go with it, don't be afraid. When you get your shot, then you'll be ready. Success ain't easy, kid, but the more you taste it, the easier it gets. No different with failure." The wise man smiled. "The more you taste it, the more you get it." Putting his finger to his lips, "Shhh ... Don't spread it. It's tough enough out there. Keep it to yourself."

Spectacular spectacular

So the Pioneer Woman has been posting some stunning photography of the dawn hours on her ranch. Here are some more. These are photos you can just fall into. Melt into. I've always preferred the dawn to, say, the dusk (and I prefer anything to midday) ... so it's a shame I'm not up often enough to revel in it. But when I do catch the dawn? I mean, come on. It's enough to make you fall to your knees in gratitude.

It has a bit of a different feeling than a quiet pond and field on a ranch ... but the dawn is the same. Love it.

In lieu of a bird or a mouse ...

Hope has discovered the deadliest and most persistent of enemies in my own apartment. The wilyness of her foe cannot be overestimated. It is a cunning opponent, keeping her on her toes, and Hope has not yet been the total victor in their many MANY battles.

Besides the windowsill and the sink ...

this random spot on my floor is Hope's favorite place in the world. She can be found there at any given moment, sometimes sleeping, sometimes chasing her own tail, sometimes bathing, sometimes glaring at me with resentment, othertimes staring at me with outright curiosity and wonder, and sometimes just Sphinx-ing away the long hours of her afternoon.

More from La Dolce Vita

Because it makes me happy.

No time for my big post right now, but plenty of time to upload some luscious screen grabs from the first 15 minutes of the movie.

The Books: "Are You Anybody?: An Actor's Life" (Bradford Dillman)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Are You Anybody?: An Actor's Life, by Bradford Dillman

One of the side effects of being obsessed with Dean Stockwell is that you suddenly find yourself needing (yes, needing) to buy the autobiography of Bradford Dillman, who starred with Stockwell in 1959's Compulsion (a movie I wrote about here) - just in case Stockwell was mentioned Dillman and Stockwell were not friends. As a matter of fact, they didn't get along. Stockwell had done the play on Broadway with Roddy McDowall (post about that here) - and McDowall was not asked to do the film (not because he wasn't good, but because the studio had a contractual obligation to Dillman, so they put HIM in the project) - and apparently Stockwell was, how you say, less than gracious to this interloper!! (In a beautiful moment of dovetailing narratives, McDowall, years and years later, would play a part on Quantum Leap in the final season ... when Al is threatened, by a moment in his past, to no longer be in charage of the project in the future ... and suddenly Roddy McDowall shows up to help Sam Beckett - played by Scott Bakula - and Bakula is like, "Where's Al???")

But is a small connection between Stockwell and Dillman any reason to buy an entire book, Sheila?? Well, yes, it is. Obsession follows its own pathways. Just find a used copy on Amazon for 20 cents and grab that sucker up.

I think Compulsion is terrific (not perfect, but a terrific psychological thriller, quite daring in the context of its day) - and while I think Stockwell far outshines Dillman (who does a lot of maniacal laughing - "indicating" that he is crazy) - somehow the pair ends up working. There's a scene where Orson Welles interviews the two boys after they have been arrested. Stockwell is chain-smoking, pacing in the small cell - but it's not "actor" pacing. It's not cliche. He is pacing because he has so much nervous energy that he must move. He's cranky. Welles asks questions that seem to imply that Stockwell's character might, uhm, not be into girls (it's 1959, so it's subtle and coded ..."No girls?") ... and Stockwell is sliced open, psychologically, in that moment. Meanwhile, sitting over on the windowsill, is Dillman, at first cocky and assured, and you can already feel how the boys are separating ... Dillman's character leaving Stockwell's out to dry. "Sure, I've got alibis ..." croons Dillman. So while some of Dillman's work here seems "showy" to me, and unnecessarily so, it ends up working for the character. He's also a "showoff" - that's his whole thing. He's a big phony, a liar, a con artist, and a manipulator. One of those Ivy League boys who had everything handed to them ... and so, because things were so easy, he ends up having contempt for the whole world. Dillman really does play that well. I think Stockwell is riveting, however ... and acts Dillman off the screen.

(If you haven't seen Compulsion, I highly recommend it.)

I bought Dillman's autobiography on this slim-pickins basis. But it's actually a hoot. I loved it.

Dillman has 3 kids, was married to the same woman for 40 years (an actress - who passed away a couple of years ago), and - very much like his character in Compulsion was being bred for upper-class greatness when he horrified his family by deciding he wanted to be an actor. Like so many other people at that time (early to mid 50s) he gravitated towards the Actors Studio. That was the place to be. It was the kind of work that everyone wanted to do now. Everyone wanted to be Brando. It seemed like if you took 1 or 2 classes with Lee Strasberg, perhaps you could BE Brando?? No? Maybe?? But it was also a place to study, to get serious about your craft outside of the public glare, to stretch yourself, etc. etc. Dillman was no dummy. He knew it was the place to be.

He had his big break on Broadway, where he appeared as Eugene Tyrone in O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night (a very famous production, with Jason Robards and Fredric March). Another weird Stockwell connection: when the play was finally filmed, Dean Stockwell played Eugene, the role Bradford Dillman had originated on Broadway. Ouch. But regardless, that was a big big moment for Dillman - in 1956 - being in this huge hit show, that won accolades left and right, prizes, literary and theatrical - the production was a sensation. Fredric March (who played James Tyrone) took Dillman under his wing a bit, mentoring him, teaching him about the business. And Dillman's career was off and running.

He was being groomed for stardom - but as so often happens in this life - he didn't quite make it. His "star" slipped very quickly. He had been in big important projects, and then a couple of years later ... not so much ... However, Dillman kept working, and was involved in some pretty cool films (look him up!) as well as appearing in guest spots on every television show known to man. He had a recurring role on Falcon Crest, for example. Dillman's career was LONG. I love guys like Bradford Dillman. They're the ones who were "disappointed", by perhaps not becoming as famous as their peers ... but who kept at it. I know so many people like that, and it's truly inspiring to me. Stockwell was one of them for many years. He has famous as a child, famous as a young man - and then dropped so completely off the radar as a man in his 30s and 40s that he finally moved to Taos and got his real estate license. Couldn't make a living. He didn't count on David Lynch resurrecting his career, and he didn't count on being more famous at the age of 50 than he ever was as a little kid. Love that! Dillman remained good-looking and dapper, perfect for shows like Murder She Wrote and Love Boat, and despite his good looks there was always something a little bit ... sketch about him ... which worked in his favor. It worked in his favor early in his career (that character in Compulsion is the epitome of "sketch") and it worked in his favor later. He could play the dashing shallow man accused of murdering his wife, and you thought, yeah, that guy probably did it, and he'll probably get away with it. You can have a nice career playing things like that!

Now let's talk about his book. There probably isn't one serious word in it. Sometimes it feels like he's writing a How-To book for young actors. He dispenses advice on how to deal with criticism, or how to concentrate on a busy movie set ... and yet at the same time, it's NOT an advice book, it's also just a long compilation of funny anecdotes about his famous co-stars ... So it's a mixed bag. But some of his anecdotes are so hysterical ... and you still get the sense that Dillman was like, "Can you believe how lucky I was that I got to work with so-and-so???" Not in an obnoxious way, but like a little kid gets excited. I find that kind of non-seriousness very refreshing, and also, as I've mentioned, I'm a sucker for an awesome anecdote.

For example, he recounts this famous anecdote, one of my favorites in Hollywood lore:

In The Greatest Story Ever Told [John] Wayne was cast as a Roman captain who visits the scene of the Crucifixion and says, standing at the feet of Christ, "Truly this was the son of God."

Director George Stevens was riding a crane when the actor stepped in for a take. Wayne said, "TrulythiswasthesonaGod."

"Cut. Duke, let's remember you're talking about Jesus here. You might want to take the speech a bit slower."

"You got it, George."

Take Two. The Centurion says, "Truly. ThiswasthesonaGod."

"Cut. Duke, not reverent enough. Let's try it again, and this time give us a little awe."

"You got it, George."

Take Three. The superstar says, "Aw, truly. ThiswasthesonaGod."

Now why Dillman is relating this anecdote that has nothing to do with him is unclear to me. The book is full of stuff like that. It seems to me that he is relaying the story because it pleases him, and I don't know, seems like a good enough reason to me.

So although there is little to no Stockwell in Dillman's book, I had a lot of fun reading it. You'll see why in the CHATTY excerpt below.

First of all, he relates one of my favorite anecdotes ever about Robert Mitchum, and he also relates a story about Orson Welles. Neither Stockwell nor Dillman had good things to say about Welles' behavior (his acting is another story) ... by that point in his life, Welles was a big mess in terms of his personal life, could only work on certain days on the month because he couldn't be in America for longer than that time due to tax problems ... so he would sweep in, be a total nightmare, sweep out, leaving everyone to ... clean up, basically. Stockwell, who had been in the business forever by that point, although he was a young man, always felt that kind of bullying was unnecessary. There was always a trickster element to Welles ... and you can see it operate here, in a less than benign manner.

If you like a gossipy book (well written), full of anecdotes about all the greats - with little to no segue between anecdotes - they serve no POINT, they are just amusing stories... I would recommend Are You Anybody? It's a lot of fun.

Oh, the places you've led me, Dean Stockwell.

EXCERPT FROM Are You Anybody?: An Actor's Life, by Bradford Dillman

For the past fifty years Robert Mitchum has been captivating filmgoers with his sleepy demeanor. He was the first actor to be jailed for marijuana, and it's no state secret he's enjoyed a cocktail or two in his time. But his toughness is no pose.

Before beginning a film with him, Henry Hathaway, a director acknowledged as a card-carrying sadist, felt impelled to explain himself.

"Listen, Mitch," he said. "I got this thing. Sometimes I get a little excited, call actors names and cuss them, but I want you to know it's nothing personal. It's just me."

"I hear you, Henry," Mitchum replied. "I know how it is. I've got this thing, too. See, whenever somebody calls me names or cusses me out, I haul off and bust him in the mouth. Nothing personal. It's just me."

Yet few know what an intelligent, articulate man Mitchum is, how charming he can be. He's also a prankster. When I worked with him on location in Hong Kong, our director was hearing-impaired. In the briefcase used for transporting his script he carried several hearing aid battery replacements. We'd rehearsed a scene in an office, we were doing Take One, I'd fed Mitch his cue, when he mouthed his response. No sound.

"Cut." The director was pounding his ear. "Damn," he said, removing the device, opening his briefcase to install a fresh battery. "Okay, let's go again."

Take Two. I give the cue, Mitch mouths his line.

"Cut." The director pounding his ear anew. "Who makes these things, anyway?"

It took four takes for him to realize he'd been victimized by an imp.

The imp struck again during a scene in the lobby of the Hotel Peninsula, he and I seated at a table. Normally spectators keep a respectful distance as they observe the moviemaking process, but a blonde plumper spilling out of her pink pants suit couldn't restrain herself. Between takes she rushed over and did a five-minute number on how Robert Mitchum ruled her life, how jealous he made her husband, how her friends teased her about her crush. It went on and on, the actor grunting occasionally before pretending to nod off.

The lady's moving lips were right in his ear when Mitch jolted awake. Feigning shock, he thundered, "Suck what?"

**

Orson Welles was a genius. In my judgment Citizen Kane is the greatest motion picture ever made, and I told him so. Its innovations will be copied by filmmakers to the end of time. He transformed the medium forever.

Welles' experience in radio taught him to "hear" a scene. When he directed he was as much conductor as filmmaker, asking his actors to overlap one another in such a way that only pertinent dialogue emerged. Out of seeming confusion he created clarity.

Orson was also a creative bully. I worked with him twice, in Compulsion and in a movie where he, Juliette Greco and I each played two roles. It's called Crack in the Mirror.

During our weeks doing Compulsion, Orson was cordial and helpful, but evidently he neither anticipated nor appreciated that Dean Stockwell and I would earn critical acclaim to equal his.

When we began shooting Crack In the Mirror in Paris he was laying for me. The plot involves a love triangle at two levels. The first is a wealthy older barrister whose wife is having an affair with an ambitious young lawyer. The second is an older laborer whose wife is having an affair with a young punk. After the latter two conspire and kill the laborer, they are prosecuted and defended by the upper-crust attorneys.

The dual roles required special makeup. As the lawyer my hair was sprayed blond. As the punk I inserted plugs to expand my nostrils and my hair was ironed into tight dark curls. Orson noted the difference daily; depending on the schedule, he either called me "Blondie" or "Curley". More than once he ruffled the carefully sprayed hair or ironed curls in what was purportedly a good-natured gesture. But it required time to repair.

Orson did his own makeup, working from a makeup box that must have dated back to his days at the Mercury Theater. Inside he had all his paints and putty noses, an unsanitary mixture that caused my fastidious makeup artist to sniff and whisper, "C'est une boucherie." A butcher shop.

One early morning, seated side by side in makeup, Orson remarked, "You seem damn cheerful this morning."

"Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I'm pumped up. My wife's arriving from California today."

Orson put down his powder brush to study me. "You're kidding. You're married?"

"Sure."

He snorted.

"What about it?"

"Well," he said. "No offense. I always thought you were a fag."

I looked to see if he was joking.

He wasn't.

I gave some sort of light-hearted response but I was badly upset. My stomach churning, I went downstairs to the soundstage. As I walked on the set it hit me: I was about to play my most important scene in the movie.

And he knew it.

More than a courtesy, it's important when doing coverage on a scene that an actor give off-camera dialogue to the person performing his close-up. The eye contact is essential. On opening day Welles demonstrated his despite by waving me away. "Stand over there," he directed. "Get me a gobo." A lighting stanchion was set in my place. Unseen, I fed him his cues.

But bullies are usually cowards, and Orson was no exception. I cherish Darryl Zanuck's story about sitting with Welles in a restaurant, listening to an ongoing diatribe about the injustices done the director by some studio executive, how much he hated the man, what he'd do to the swine if he ever saw him again. A waiter interrupted to present a card. It was from this selfsame executive, inviting Zanuck to join his table for a drink. A feisty, combative man, Darryl showed Welles the card, then went over to the table, listed a bottle of champagne from its bucket and doused the villain with its contents. Triumphant, he turned to Orson for applause.

Welles had vacated the premises.

**

Frequently, live TV shows were rehearsed in a ballroom on the lower East side, a few doors away from Ratner's, an outstanding Jewish restaurant. When I was rehearsing There Shall Be No Night I ate there almost every noon.

I was impersonating the son of Charles Boyer, one of the most charming men I ever knew. Tempted as he was, Charles would never agree to join e for lunch because he was fearful of being recognized. As Gallic sex symbol he'd had some unfortunate brushes with overheated ladies.

One day I had an idea. "Charles, if you'll forgive a rude suggestion, I think you'd be perfectly safe to join me if you'd, ah, leave your hairpiece behind."

He must have been hungry because he wasn't offended. Instead he put the toupee aside and we marched arm in arm over to Ratner's, where we were seated at a table in the middle of the room. Delighted with the menu, Charles ordered a sequence of specialties, beginning with the chicken soup. He was delighted, too, that his disguise was so successful no one had given him a second look. I was congratulating myself when I glanced over his shoulder to see a large, beaming woman rush across the room, homing in on him from behind. Charles was about to bring matzohs to his mouth when she crushed him in a linebacker's embrace, causing the spoon to fly, inundating him with soup.

Hugging him, she cooed, "Cholly, Cholly. Take me to the Kezbah!"

**

Before he became an actor Burt Reynolds was a stuntman. In his early TV series he liked to be seen participating in a lot of action because it was what he did best. In those days, he wasn't much of an actor. But as one series led to the next he became more confident, more magnetic.

I was a guest on what he thought would be his swan song, present the day his show Dan August was canceled by the network. "That's it," said Burt. "I'm dead. This is the third horse I've had shot out from under me. I'm history."

The problem was, he'd never been given the chance to flaunt his sense of humor. But after he posed for a male centerfold and appeared on all the talk shows to jest about it, he built a whole new career as a lovable, laughable guy.

Why I love Judge Judy:

The following clip.

I just think she's magnificent.

The last time I was in LA, Alex and I talked about going to see one of her tapings. Because along with a love of roller coasters, admiration of Lana Turner, obsession with kitty cats, the Manson family, Lucille Ball and American history, making fun of morons, adoration of great theatre, hatred of people who use air quotes and a fascination with all things $cientomogy ... we also share a love of Judge Judy. But alas it didn't happen. Next time in LA, I WILL GO SEE JUDGE JUDY. SHE CANNOT ESCAPE.

SHE IS MAGNIFICENT.

In praise of Len Cariou

One of the reasons I love bloggers who write mainly about film is that (unlike in the print-world, you don't have a word count, and you don't have to focus on only the "new" or the "fresh") we can pretty much write about what we want to write about. If I want to devote 4 months out of my life to ONLY writing about Dean Stockwell, I can do that. And you know what? If you build it, people will come. Sure, you lose people along the way, but who needs those people anyway? You write about what you love - people will show up. The right kind of people. True passion has triumphed! Long live Dean Stockwell!

To my point:

Jonathan at Cinema Styles has a generous and in-depth post about Len Cariou. You may not recognize that name, but you definitely know the guy. And theatre-goers definitely know him.

I loved The Four Seasons when I was a teenager - it's been years since I've seen it but many of the scenes remain almost word for word in my head. ("Shalimarrrrrr? Thank you!" "Danny ... are you telling me that you are afraid of your underwear?" "MY WIFE'S ITALIAN!!") I think I first saw it at Mere and Jayne's house. Those were the days when you had to RENT a VCR in order to see a movie! So we would choose verrry carefully what we wanted to see. What's Up Doc was a favorite. I remember watching Fame on one of those fun sleepover-movie nights. And The Four Seasons - a great ensemble piece, with some first-rate acting.

Anyway: go read Jonathan's post. It's a great tribute to an under-rated really solid actor.

As a wise man once said:

I am beginning to understand the deep truth behind those words.

Abraham Lincoln, Harry Truman, and Edmund Burke look on ... in approval or dismay we cannot be sure. Perhaps The Federalist Papers will have something to say on the matter.

The Books: "James Dean: The Mutant King" (David Dalton)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

James Dean: The Mutant King, by David Dalton

I described my obsessive-compulsive response to seeing East of Eden here in this post about Carroll Baker. James Dean was the first. He was the first time I went off the edge into obsession - at least in a way that I now recognize. I had been obsessed with things before ... but with James Dean, I went to work learning about him. That was a first. I could not believe my eyes. I had to know more. I had to know everything! The Mutant King was in the library where I worked, and I devoured it. Much of it went over my head, but not a hell of a lot. It's quite a good book, and THE book I would recommend for anyone who wants to know more about James Dean. It does not take a cynical eye towards his talent, it is not trying to turn him into a gay icon, it does not have an axe to grind - it does not fall into any of those traps of biographies ... But it does attempt to explain the "myth" of Dean, and where that all came from (besides his dying at the age of 24, I mean). David Dalton is not afraid to speak about that myth in a serious way, and there are sections of the book that almost feel like literary criticism, or film theory, or an art-critic's in-depth analysis of one particular image. Dalton "goes there". There's a whole chapter about James Dean's face and how he, as a young unknown actor in New York, learned how to be photographed. It was a process with him - and you can see the stilted good-boy smile results of his early photos, as compared to the iconic images of him in the ripped sweater (taken before he was famous):

Dalton analyses the transformation, taking an objective eye - trying to see what exactly it was that had changed in James Dean, in terms of him allowing his soul, his interior, to be showed by the camera. This is not a surface "he was born on a cold dark day" type of book. This is analytical.

Dalton also delves into each one of James Dean's films, and puts together as full a picture as is possible of each experience. First of all, he interviews everyone. You get to know people who were in Rebel Without a Cause who barely had lines - but they were in crowd scenes and have good stories to tell. So you learn about the shooting of each film, on an almost day-to-day basis. But Dalton also analyzes the films themselves. He calls out certain moments, and speaks of their symbolism - but also speaks of how such a moment (Dean with the milk bottle in Rebel, for example) added, later on, to the Dean myth. Dalton looks for the small gesture that reveals psychology, and points it out. It was QUITE an education for me, as a 13 year old kid ... to look at movies in this way. I had seen East of Eden and it blew me away. From Dean's first entrance on the railroad tracks, I could not look away. I didn't know what I was seeing, I couldn't analyze it - I just knew that every moment just killed me. I wrote about it extensively in my diary. (Here, here, here ... that's just the tip of the iceberg!) I remember tears streaming down my face the first time I saw the scene when James Dean tries to give his father all the money - it is such an unexpected moment ... The father (played by Raymond Massey) rejects the gift. He doesn't just reject the gift, he rejects the son. (You know. The ol' Cain and Abel story). And Dean's response ... It could have been conventional, a regular old scene of betrayal that we have seen a thousand times ... but Dean, always a master, even at a young age, at gesture ... takes it to the next level. He picks up all the money and tries to give it to his father, his father rejects, Dean starts to fall apart, he's moaning and whimpering ... his father is even more embarrassed ... and Dean sort of gently falls into his father's chest, pushing the bills at him, as they fall to the floor ... It is a deep swoon of grief, truly mortifying to watch ... and apparently Massey was horrified by the scene. It works. His embarrassment is real, Dean's Greek-tragedy level of betrayal is real ... I just couldn't believe it when I first saw it.

David Dalton picks apart each film methodically. He backs up his theories with quotes from the actual players. For example: the red jacket in Rebel, and what it meant ... and how deliberate that was on Nicholas Ray's part. Here's how Dalton writes, it's a good example of the feel of the book:

Color plays an important thematic role in Rebel, as it does in all of Ray's films: the purple and gold in Party Girl, the red and green in Johnny Guitar and the red and blue in Rebel - the blazing red of rage, passion and fire, and the cool blue of space and isolation. The tones are raw and the combination as abrasive as adolescence itself.

Ray's use of color has been described as apocalyptic, "une palette en feu" as a French critic called it. The colors in Rebel change like banners, symbolizing the evolution of the characters.

"I started Jimmy in this neutral brown and he graduated to the blue jeans and red jacket," said Ray. "And Natalie graduated from the gauche red in the beginning to a soft, pink sweater. When you first see Jimmy in his red jacket against his black Merc, it's not just a pose. It's a warning. It's a sign."

Often, biographers focus on the details of the life. That is all well and good. But they neglect to look at the work, and how it adds up, and how it explains why we need yet another biography of, say, Cary Grant. It's interesting, Cary Grant's business acumen, his seriousness about money, his ability to negotiate for himself ... but without understanding what it was that made him such a giant movie star ... or without attempting to understand, the book can feel tepid. (There are a couple of Cary Grant biographies that short-shrift the acting. I know it's difficult to talk about acting. It's difficult to describe why something is good, or why a performance lasts. But it seems to me an essential job of anyone taking on a subject such as Grant, or Bogart, or Dean.) David Dalton works on multiple levels. He digs into the details of Dean's short life, he analyzes what it was that was striking in him as an actor, he looks at what it was in the performances that added to the myth that came up later on ... and then, he just flat out analyzes the films themselves. The Rebel Without a Cause chapter is as good as any "director's commentary" track on a DVD. It is its own "special feature". Any fan of the film (or anyone who's interested in film analysis) should check it out. It's one of those things where you think, "Yeah, yeah, I did notice that in the film ... but I wasn't aware how much THOUGHT went into it ..."

Dalton doesn't just keep his focus on the details of Dean's life. He analyzes, and you only realize how rare that is when you read a lot of other actor biographies, which tend to focus on the off-screen shenanigans. I've never been interested in that stuff ... only in how all of that impacts the work. The Mutant King stands alone, in my opinion. It could be taught in any film appreciation class. It makes you see things. It was a revelation to me as a teenager. It changed how I looked at films. It helped make me serious about them.

My thoughts about James Dean have changed over the years. The impact he had on me did not last past adolescence, although I still love those movies. Elia Kazan, who directed Dean in East of Eden, said that he always felt that Dean was a "sick kid". There was something wrong with him. Self-destructive, yes, but also manic, depressive, wild highs, crushing lows ... His friends sensed this in him too. He was not developed as a person. He was competitive as an actor, much of what he did was attention-getting (and that's not a bad quality in an actor, it's actually a job requirement!) - and because of a mixture of lucky breaks, chemistry with a camera (which cannot be taught), and innate ability - Dean surged ahead of the pack. He wasn't well-liked. Lots of people found him annoying, childish, and nearly impossible to have a conversation with. Who knows who he would have developed into, had he lived. I would have been VERY interested to see. I think he had something innate, a true gift ... but was he in control of it? In the way that Marlon Brando (his arch rival) was in control of his? I'm not sure. We'll never know, I guess.

One of Dean's big breaks was in the Broadway play See the Jaguar in 1952, with Arthur Kennedy:

Dean played a boy who had been locked in an icehouse for the majority of his life, and finally emerged ... a neophyte Mowgli-type, uncivilized, feral, unbearably sensitive ... He apparently was magnificent, and I would have loved to have seen it.

Instead of choosing an excerpt about one of Dean's three movies, I decided to choose an excerpt having to do with See the Jaguar.

EXCERPT FROM James Dean: The Mutant King, by David Dalton

See the Jaguar begins as a young boy about sixteen, who has been kept locked in an ice house all his life by his mother, wanders out for the first time and stumbles into town. His only connection with the outside world is a note his mother gave him before she died, addressed to the town's good-hearted teacher: "Dear Davie Ricks: This is my son Walter that I hid from all the meanness of the world ... Maybe I was wrong to hidden him this way - maybe I was right. But I loved him dear and didn't want for hurt to come his way."

Dave takes a look at this boy and says, "I've always wondered, if I could see it new what would it look like?" And Wally, says, stretching out one hand to the bigness, "You can't touch nothin'."

Director Michael Gordon said, "He can't understand why everything is not within his grasp. To be someone who's discovering that for the first time was what Jimmy could do. He was able to use that magical quality, that as if I were, and make it happen to himself."

Jimmy had no trouble learning the part of Wally Wilkins. But since he was tone deaf, he found it practically impossible to sing the little song which Alec Wilder had composed for the show. "Rehearsals helped him with his acting, but nothing could help him with the singing," Bill Bast said. Bill and Dizzy spent long torturous hours going over it with Jimmy and would often hear him in the middle of the night moaning it over and over again, trying to get it right:

I won't cry in the daytime.
I won't think of Ma.
I'll think of her at night time
And cry then.

Other than this, Jimmy seemed delighted with his role. He fit the part perfectly, and the producer and director were behind him. But during out-of-town tryouts a story circulated that Jimmy pulled a knife on someone during a rehearsal.

"In Hartford, the ruckus began during the rehearsal of the third act," said Michael Gordon. "The tension during that scene was pretty high and Jimmy took out after a prop man. I was sitting down in the audience. I jumped up on stage because there was a commotion, but by the time I got there it was all over. I think Jimmy actually pulled a switchblade on the guy, but I never did find out."

Arthur Kennedy, who played the benevolent Dave Ricks, later told writer Ed Corley that Jimmy had pulled a knife, the same switchblade Jimmy had bought with the money Nash had given him for glasses. "Kennedy supposedly took the knife out of Jimmy's hand," said Corley, "and broke the blade, with stern instructions 'not to pull any of that crap in my show!' Jimmy, who was impulsive rather than violent, may have been relieved the matter was taken out of his hands and his 'number' had a quick resolution."

When See the Jaguar opened in New York, Jimmy felt as if it were the first Broadway opening night in history.

"His feet never touched the floor," said Dizzy Sheridan, who went with Jimmy to Sardi's for the opening-night party. "He just flew from table to table, talking, laughing. I watched people's eyes pouring adulation all over him; they loved him.

"But it was a very crushing night for me. We left together, we wanted to be together, but he was staying at the Royalton that night and after we got upstairs they called and told him he couldn't have a woman in his room. So we ordered something to drink and then he walked me downstairs and put me in a cab. I had the feeling that things were starting to move for Jimmy and I would never be able to catch up. I saw him two or three times after that and then I left for Trinidad."

Reviewers found the play obscure and silly, "a contrivance of jejune symbolism." The critic for the Daily Mirror said, "The advance notices spoke of this play as an allegorical western without a horse. Come to think of it, maybe that's what was missing." The reviewers pretty much agreed that the plot was torn between forthright story and lofty parable that it was completely unsuccessful in both.

But James Dean was recognized for his wraithlike portrayal of Wally Wilkins: "overwhelming as the boy from the ice house" ... "played the part with sweetness and naivete that made his tortures singularly poignant" ... "makes childish young fugitive believable" ... "adds an extraordinary performance in an almost impossible role ..."

It's revealing to look at the photographs of him as Wally Wilkins. Although the character so closely matched the conditions of his own life, he has created an inner character who has his own face. It's not just the way his hair is combed down, but his expression, the aperture of his eyes, his loose jaw and open mouth. Jimmy has regressed here some five years, just as he later aged himself over twenty years for the part of Jett Rink in Giant.

Jimmy's growing restlessness, his taking things to the edge and his inherent sense of fatalism are expressed in an interview he did with Jack Shafer for a New York radio station the Sunday night before See the Jaguar opened.

Jimmy showed up at the interview with his glossy Golden Mentor paperback on the Aztecs and startled Shafer by talking about Aztec sacrificial dramas, a people who sang under torture, a culture where suicides were sacred beings and had their own heaven and patroness, Ixtab, goddess of the rope:

"Well," he [Jimmy] somewhat reluctantly explained. "I've always been fascinated by the Aztec Indians. They were a very fatalistic people, and I sometimes share that feeling. They had such a weird sense of doom that when the warlike Spaniards arrived in Mexico, a lot of the Aztecs just gave up, fatalistically, to an event they believed couldn't be avoided.

"Like the Arab philosophy of Kismet?" I [Shafer] asked, "what is written, is written?"

"And for them, the arrival of the Spaniards was written!" Dean went on, his enthusiasm bubbling to the surface. "They had a legend that their god Quetzalcoatl had predicted they would be conquered by strange visitors from another land."

"Well, no wonder they were fatalistic about it then," I [Shafer] said. "But what's this about your being fatalistic, too?"

"In a certain sense I am," Dean admitted. "I don't exactly know how to explain it, but I have a hunch there are some things in life we just can't avoid. They'll happen to us, probably because we're built that way - we simply attract our own fate ... make our own destiny."

"I think I'm like the Aztecs in that respect, too. With their sense of doom, they tried to get the most out of life while life was good; and I go along with them on that philosophy. I don't mean the 'eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die' idea, but something a lot deeper and more valuable. I want to live as intensely as I can. Be as useful and helpful to others as possible, for one thing. But live for myself as well. I want to feel things and experiences right down to their roots ... enjoy the good in life while it is good."

In the Journal American, the reviewer ended his story with the advice that "if you want to 'See the Jaguar' - you had better hurry." The play closed after five performances.

Screengrab

Because I love it.

Perceptions of Portrait

I loved this 1958 essay by John Kelleher about James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It is a book I have read probably 4 times, all the way through, and I feel that I am never done with it. I can never say, "Okay, won't be reading that again, probably." There are only a few books like that, for me.

Portrait continues to morph, and grow - in my perception as a reader. It never seems like the same book twice.

Kelleher writes about this:

I remember that when I first encountered Stephen Dedalus I was twenty and I wondered how Joyce could have known so much about me. That is what I mean by the sort of reading the book will continue to get, whatever literary fashion may decree. Perhaps about the third reading it dawned on me that Stephen was, after all, a bit of a prig; and to that extent I no longer identified myself with him. (How could I?) Quite a while later I perceived that Joyce knew that Stephen was a prig; that, indeed, he looked on Stephen with quite an ironic eye. So then I understood. At least I did until I had to observe that the author's glance was not one of unmixed irony. There was compassion in it too, as well as a sort of tender, humorous pride. By this time I was lecturing on Joyce, and I was having a terrible time with the book. I could not coordinate what I had to say about it; and the students; as their papers showed, were mostly wondering how Joyce could have known so much about them--which was fortunate, for the lectures made very little sense, and it was well that the victims had their own discoveries to distract them.

Beautiful!

I also very much appreciated Kelleher's thoughts on Joyce's technique and themes. Because Joyce is often misunderstood. As Joyce himself said in regards to Ulysses:

The pity is that the public will demand and find a moral in my book [Ulysses], or worse they may take it in some serious way, and on the honour of a gentleman, there is not one single serious word in it.

If you miss the fun, if you miss that part of his work ... you miss most of it.

Kelleher writes:

He was past master of the confessorial technique that confesses nothing because it blabs too much. He could rarely permit himself to write simply from the heart, though when he did--as in the ending of Finnegans Wake or in the poem, "Ecce Puer," on his father's death and his grandson's birth--a most poignant power was released. Such passages give the lie to his usual affectation of wearing his heart up his sleeve. Why, then, the affectation? Partly, perhaps, because his artistic discipline was primarily late nineteenth century, art for art's sake, absolute subordination of subject to form, and because his subject was usually his own, often bitterly unhappy experience. What impelled him, I think, to choose and continue such a discipline was not just his artistic proclivities or the fact that he grew up in a cultural province where that view of art and the artist was still high fashion, but rather that he had a very Irish nature (counter to another Irish nature) that instinctively chose mockery if the alternative was tears. It is useless to observe that tears might often have been better for his health or that there are many places in his work where open emotion could have been admitted without loss of integrity. He was what he was. He hated what he called the "whine" in Irish poetry. When he noticed the impulsive tear and smile mingled in Ireland's eye his instinct was to give it a rough wipe. He did his best to keep his own eye dry in public. If he sometimes succeeded all too well, that was only what he intended.

Marvelous insight, I think. It's a funny thing: the Irish have a reputation for being full of sentimentality and twee-ness ... but the opposite is also true. Joyce despised sentimentality. Kelleher's thoughts there are quite good.

And the ending of the article brought a lump to my throat. That is my response to his letters to his daughter Lucia as well. Upsetting. But full of love.

Joyce fans: Read the whole thing.

(Here is just one of my many posts about Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man.)

The delectable Jean Arthur

A montage. I love that site so much. What awesome photos she finds.

I'll always love Jean Arthur for Talk of the Town and Only Angels Have Wings - and I love her even more knowing that she had terrible stage fright and a lot of insecurities. Wonderful comedienne, I think.

And she and Cary Grant SIZZLE in that late-night bar scene in Only Angels!!

Hot!

I have discovered that, at times,

I live with the Platonic ideal of passive-aggressive behavior.

When she settles into her Cornish hen pose, I know the passive-aggressiveness has taken hold, and I need to watch my step.

Rainy days ...

... make me feel sleepy, too.

Uhm ...

Hope?

How ya' doin'?

Mr. DeMille ...

I'm ready for my closeup.

The Books: "Cooper's Women" (Jane Ellen Wayne)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Cooper's women, by Jane Ellen Wayne

Okay, so this is not an "important" biography. It's not a biography at all, really. It is a list of Gary Cooper's many conquests, written in a chatty movie-magazine style, and I'm not gonna lie: I ATE IT UP. Jane Ellen Wayne has made a career out of writing books such as this one, and they all have titles like: Gable's Women, Crawford's Men, etc. etc. What cracks me up about Cooper's Women is that Wayne blithely reports word for word conversations, as though this is a novel, and even though the conversation happened in 1925, and it probably didn't happen exactly the way she reports it, at least not word for word, she doesn't care. She is going for a chatty as-though-you-are-there feeling. This is the kind of book that the stars themselves probably hate. BUT, at the same time: Wayne is the ultimate fan. She LOVES these people. Yes, she wants the dirt on them, but it is only because she loves them so much. It is vaguely psychotic, as most fangirl ravings are (I should know), but it is essentially kind. Also, frankly, I'm desperate for information about Gary Cooper and as far as I'm concerned, he has not been given his due - in terms of having a giant serious biography written about him. There are a couple of folks out there who haven't had that "treatment" yet, and I live in hope. Joan Crawford, anyone? I know there's a new one out about her, which I haven't read, but from what I've heard it is also not "serious". Come on. Let's slay that Mommie Dearest ghost. She's a great American actress. Her work deserves to be looked at seriously.

Same with Gary Cooper who was the biggest star of his day, and, actually, any day. He was the top box office star for YEARS. Cary Grant, no small shakes himself in the stardom department, had a funny theory about Hollywood and stardom being like a crowded streetcar. Peter Bogdonavich asked Cary Grant to elaborate. Grant said:

Becoming a movie star is something like getting on a streetcar. Actors and actresses are packed in like sardines.

When I arrived in Hollywood, Carole Lombard, Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Warner Baxter, Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, and others were crammed onto the car. A few stood, holding tightly to leather straps to avoid being pushed aside. Others were firmly seated in the center of the car. They were the big stars. At the front, new actors and actresses pushed and shoved to get aboard. Some made it and slowly moved toward the center.

When a new "star" came aboard, an old one had to be edged out the rear exit. The crowd was so big you were pushed right off. There was room for only so many and no more.

One well-known star, Adolphe Menjou, was constantly being pushed off the rear. He would pick himself up, brush himself off, and run to the front to fight his way aboard again. In a short time he was back in the center only to be pushed off once more. This went on for years. He never did get to sit down.

It took me quite a while to reach the center. When I did make it, I remained standing. I held on to that leather strap for dear life. Then Warner Baxter fell out the back, and I got to sit down.

When Gregory Peck got on, it was Ronald Colman who fell off.

The only man who refused to budge was Gary Cooper. Gary was firmly seated in the center of the car. He just leaned back, stuck those long legs of his out in the aisle, and tripped everyone who came along.

When Joan Fontaine got on, she stood right in front of me and held on to one of those leather straps. I naturally got to my feet, giving her my seat. Joan sat down and got an Academy Award!

hahahaha Isn't it funny and interesting the perception of Gary Cooper, as the most settled-in star at all? He really was.

His career spans decades. He got his start in silent films, playing extras in cowboy movies. There was no indication that he had any gift for acting. But he knew how to ride a horse. Then came a "big break" - in a scene that ended up getting cut - in The Winning of Barbara Worth, starring Ronald Colman. Now: I'm interested in the story because it seems to me to be the birth of the actor here. Who knows what was going on in Gary Cooper. Who knows what his dreams were (hello. That's why we need a big biography, thanks.) He had already lived quite an interesting life at this point, and he was still a young man. He had been taken under the wing by some countess, basically, who showed him the fine life, and the taste of good things, she taught him how to dress, and perhaps even how to fuck. Cooper always had women who wanted to help him. And if you see photos of him, even hanging out at his house, he always looks immaculate. Not in a dandyish way, just elegant, masculine, beautiful. He had been taught. But what else did he want out of life? Did he dream of being a star? It's not clear. He had wandered quite a bit before landing in Hollywood. So this story - of everyone on the set of Barbara Worth suddenly realizing that that EXTRA was actually an actor - and a better actor than any of them put together - gives me goosebumps. Oh, and that anecdote came out of Scott Berg's biography of Samuel Goldwyn, so I think it's a leeeeetle bit more reliable than Miss Wayne's book. I'm just sayin'.

Jane Ellen Wayne's book deals indirectly with Cooper's career. She's more interested in his girlfriends. Cooper slept with everyone. He was married, and never got divorced - and she ("Rocky") sounds like an amazing woman in her own right ... She gave Cooper the stability he yearned for, a beautiful home, a safe haven ... but he was not faithful. Somehow, the marriage worked. No judgment. When you read Patricial Neal's autobiography - you ache for Neal, who considered Gary Cooper to be the great lost love of her life. I mean, you ache for Neal in so many ways ... God. It's like God sent down wrath upon her life or something ... Like: ENOUGH. This woman has had ENOUGH. But you can tell how haunted she is by Gary, and the entire book ends with her and Gary Cooper's wife going to lunch ... finally, after so many years, after his death. Kind of extraordinary. Some of the women Cooper messed around with were basically party girls like Clara Bow (they were a notorious couple), and others were more serious - but the serious ones were the ones that got burnt.

This is so not like me to discuss an actor's personal life like this - forgive me. It's because I'm talking about a book called COOPER'S WOMEN, for God's sake. I read it in desperation because Cooper is one of my favorites, and there's not all that much out there.

So here I am babbling about his Little Black Book of fuck buddies. (shaking my head in shame). It is indicative that none of these women - not even Patricia Neal - has anything bad to say about him. Clara Bow, in her nursing home, near the end of her life, said something like, "He was the nicest man I ever met." I mean, people have long long memories ... and Gary Cooper had one of the best reputations in Hollywood, just as a working man - and also as a Lothario. Women didn't "turn" on him. They remained loyal, remembering him as kind and sweet. Also, let's face it. Dude was hot.

One of Gary Cooper's big breaks was in William Wellman's Wings, in 1927, starring Clara Bow. Gary Cooper is not the lead, but he makes an impression.

I chose an excerpt today from Cooper's Freakin' Women that deals with Wings. I very much like Cooper's generosity, in retrospect, towards his two male co-stars. Now that's class.

EXCERPT FROM Cooper's women, by Jane Ellen Wayne

But Cooper's riding and roping were once again interrupted because Clara Bow could not live without him for very long. He was the only man who could satisfy her in bed. Their reconciliation presented only one problem for Clara, and that was Gary's desire to marry her. She tried to discourage him by admitting she couldn't have children, " 'cause I don't have all my parts down there." Clara pouted. It wouldn't be fair to him, after all. He was the kind of fellow who deserved a family. Cooper didn't change his mind about Clara, but they were no longer inseparable.

At this time, 1927, Paramount was going all out with a $2-million budget for Wings, a World War I aviation spectacular with Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen, both beginners with only three movie credits. The cast was all-male until Lasky decided it was crucial that he feature one woman. For box-office insurance he chose Clara Bow. Her contract allowed her the right to refuse any script she didn't like, and Wings was one of them.

"It's a small part," she told Lasky. "Who needs it?"

"Wings is a man's picture, granted, but you'll be outstanding as the only woman, and we'll give you top billing."

Clara snapped her gum and smiled coyly. "You trying to boost Rogers?"

"Frankly, yes."

"Arlen, too?"

"Maybe. We hope so, of course."

"Gary's had more exposure."

Lasky felt a headache coming on. "What are you trying to say, Clara?"

"I might consider doing the picture if Gary's in it."

"He's not finished with The Last Outlaw and I have another Western lined up for him."

"Gary and me or nothin'!"

"Swell ... "

Cooper wasn't unhappy to be out of the saddle. He wanted to travel to San Antonio and see the Alamo, anyway. Besides, he'd have the chance to work with Arlen. Another incentive was having Clara all to himself far away from her Chinese Den. The more he thought about it, the more he looked forward to the idea. As for Miss Bow, she couldn't get enough of Gary and hoped to change his mind about marriage. Her addiction to him was enough without bringing in the white picket fence, two-car garage, and baby carriage.

Twenty-nine-year-old rookie director William Wellman was assigned to the airplane epic. A former pilot, actor, and Foreign Legionairre, Wellman later became famous for his direction of A Star Is Born, Call of the Wild, The Story of G.I. Joe, and Battleground, to name a few. Wings was Wellman's first major accomplishment. Years later he recalled: "Clara was in her glory. She was the center of attention and the only woman on location. She and Cooper took off when they weren't working, but when Clara was filming she divided her time between Arlen and Rogers and Cooper, who was jealous as hell. There were others 'in her tent', too. Her timing was unique. Clara was concerned, however, when she found out her boyfriend, Victor Fleming, was directing a Western nearby. She managed to keep him happy, too, but didn't like seeing Coop and Vic becoming good friends on the set. Fleming was a man's man and I'm sure they were discussing hunting and fishing. Clara seemed more at ease when Vic returned to Hollywood."

In Wings Cooper had only one major scene. "I played the veteran flyer," he explained. "Dick and Buddy were cadets. The camera picked me up munching on a chocolate bar in their tent. I kinda salute, throw the half-eaten candy aside, and take off for some test flying. I'm killed, but all you see is the shadow of my plane. Then the camera focuses on the unfinished chocolate. I always give credit to Arlen and Rogers for their swell reaction to my death. They made me a hero."

Wellman shot the scene and was satisfied. Cooper was stunned when Wellman yelled, "Cut and print!" the first time around. Richard Arlen recalled, "Coop's mouth actually dropped open. I think he ran through it with such ease expecting to do it again." Wellman was surprised when Cooper came to his tent later that day to plead for a retake. "I didn't know the camera was rollin' and want to do it again," he asked.

"It was perfect," Wellman said. "What's the problem?"

"Well, ya see ... I mean ... well, I was pickin' my nose ..."

"You rubbed your nose two or three times with your thumb."

"No, sir. I was ... uh ... pickin' my nose."

Wellman laughed. "You go right on picking your nose and you'll make yourself a fortune."

Years later, Wellman tried to describe the effect Cooper had on the scene. "I think one is born with it," he said. "Gable with his ears had it. Bogart lisped, but he had it. Tracy wasn't handsome, but he had it. They all played themselves, mind you. If Cooper was clumsy or mumbled or picked his nose, it didn't matter. Like the others he had what I call motion-picture personality. I wish someone could describe this chemistry. These guys became top stars and made millions."

Wings won an Oscar for best picture the first year of the Academy Awards, 1927. Warner Brothers received a special one for The Jazz Singer, the first talking picture, which revolutionized the industry.

Charles "Buddy" Rogers became popular for a short time, but was not the leading man Paramount expected. Richard Arlen was established and Gary Cooper received some fan mail. Clara Bow as an ambulance driver was adorable in uniform, but none of the major players were acclaimed. The Literary Digest said it was a fine picture largely by virtue of its success in reproducing scenes of actual combat in airplanes.

A day in Montauk

... or should I say, a day spent getting to Montauk ... Allison has the whole tale.

Within 10 minutes of picking her up, we were laughing all over again about the two of us driving through Ireland together, and how we would "support" one another, no matter the circumstance. The job of the "navigator" (ie: passenger) was to emotionally support the driver. I would state, "I need to drive this slow right now. I'm sorry." She would say, "Do whatever you need to do." She would drive up to one of the endless roundabouts, and sit there for 20 minutes, looking back and forth, reminding herself which way it was necessary to look. She would murmur, "I'm so sorry. I just am afraid to turn right right now." I would say, "Do what you need to do." We very quickly discovered that the job of the Navigator was just as important as the job of the Driver. It is essential to have a non-judgmental atmosphere on road trips where neither of you know where you are going.

But what a beautiful day it was!

I provide visual aids to her tale below.

Once again: here is Allison's amusing version of the tale.

Some thanks:

... to James Wolcott, for linking to my 2 Brando pieces on Friday - he's brought some great new people to my site, who have really added to the conversation here. Also, I have to laugh: Wolcott called me a "classy dame" (thank you again!) and he's linking to a post where the following paragraph occurs: "Who cares if he taped his lines to the ceiling of the cab in On the Waterfront? He's Marlon fucking Brando. If that helps him, who are you to be a little bitch about it?" Sigh. Classy indeed. No, but seriously: Wolcott's reading me is a great compliment, and I'm flattered.

-- to The Self-styled Siren (the other "classy dame" Wolcott references!) for her VERY nice post about me and my book excerpts - and she includes a great anecdote about John Barrymore from Garson Kanin's Hollywood, which dovetails with the Brando-using-cue-cards debacle. I love the story. Thank you, Siren, and have a wonderful trip!

All I can say ...

to this is: Amen.

I have linked to that archive before - and it's also in my blog roll, so that I can always dip into it if I need a good laugh.

I saw her do her one-woman show based on her experiences. It is writing not to be missed.

I float in the water ...

... and I contemplate things like my stock portfolio and existential issues surrounding my own mortality. I am deep in thought. I revel in solitude and the vaguely melancholy source of my own intellectual meanderings. Please do not disturb.

The Books: "Montgomery Clift: A Biography" (Patricia Bosworth)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Montgomery Clift: A Biography, by Patricia Bosworth

I consider this book to be a high watermark in entertainment biography. I find myself comparing all other biographies to this one. In a similar way that Ron Chernow did with Alexander Hamilton, and David McCullough did with John Adams ... Patricia Bosworth does with Montgomery Clift. The book came out in 1978 and there hasn't been a big thorough biography of Clift since, because ... why bother? Bosworth dominates. This is not a smear book. It is not revisionist. It is not only focused on one thing (Clift's homosexuality - you know how so many books have one point to drive home and every story has to somehow dovetail into that point?? Bosworth avoids that) ... It is the story of a life. Told elegantly, with great compassion, but without avoidance. Clift's life was a tormented one. At the end, he was almost a recluse, drinking himself into oblivion, and cruising the docks of New York City for "trade". Rough trade. Alongside of this was Clift's brilliant early career, when his virtuosity stunned pretty much everyone who knew him. Bosworth is a member of the Actors Studio, a place Clift worked. At the time this book was written, many of Clift's contemporaries were still alive, and Bosworth had great access to them. Many of them are her friends, so they obviously trusted her to do the right thing by Clift, and therefore felt free enough with her to not gloss things over. Clift was deeply loved. He had lifelong friends, people who stood by and watched helplessly as he drank himself to a premature death. His acting speaks for itself. One need only to see what he was able to do in The Misfits, when he was already a wreck of a man, to know that this man's talent was transcendent.

The book is not an easy read. I have to admit that as we approached his final years, I began to be glad that it (meaning the book, meaning his life) was near the end. Enough pain for Montgomery Clift. Let him rest now. Let him just rest. Enough pain. It was like animal suffering, a deep chord of agony that ran through him ... and finally became unbearable.

He didn't make a lot of movies. Maybe 17 movies? But his debut was in Red River with John Wayne, and he played the lead of that film - so Clift hit the ground running, in his career. No one who knew him was surprised. He had done plays in New York where people still remembered, years and years later, little moments he had, great gestures ... and were able to recall, to Bosworth, with detail, performances long forgotten, from plays he had done in the 1940s. Amazing.

The details of Montgomery Clift's accident in 1956 are well-known. He left a party at Elizabeth Taylor's house, and, on the curvy drive, crashed his car into a tree. His entire face was basically ripped off, he had lost many teeth, all the bones crushed in his face - he nearly died. The recovery process was agony, and Clift probably never went a day in his life since that accident without some level of pain. His face had to be reconstructed. The before and after look of Montgomery Clift is so jarring as to take your breath away.

He had permanent paralysis in some areas, the side of his mouth, his eye was different ... and, more than all of that, he had lost the ease of his face, the flexibility, not to mention the extraordinary beauty. Even as a young boy, people would stop Montgomery Clift's mother on the street to exclaim over his beauty. This was no small part of his acting career, let's remember. To see him as a young man in Red River or Place in the Sun is to see something exquisite - not just his looks, but his looks add to the whole package. He's a wonderful actor. Brando always considered Montgomery Clift to be his only real rival.

Clift never really "bounced back" from what happened to his face. He couldn't recover. Now there had already been "issues" - there had been issues from the day he was born, just with the type of family he was born into, and the kind of expectations placed on him by his mother. Who knows what was going on inside Montgomery Clift half the time (and one of the best parts about Bosworth's book is that she doesn't speculate) - but it is known that Clift's mother raised her children (3 of them, if I'm recalling correctly) as though they were to the manor born. They were raised preciously, like small tsaritsas and tsarinas ... even though that was not their lifestyle at all. But their mother, boy, that was one strong-willed woman. And from an early age, the earliest, Clift got the message that whoever he really was would not be okay with this woman.

And so he split himself off. It's quite tragic. There was the Mamma's Boy, and then there was the guy cruising for rough trade. His homosexuality was not something he accepted. He was not like, say, Tennessee Williams, who never really hid who he was (and paid a price for it, often, in bashing incidents everywhere he went). Montgomery Clift (according to Williams) didn't really like Tennessee Williams, because Williams was "out" and Clift wasn't, and it made Clift uncomfortable. The two sides of Clift would NEVER be reconciled. He could not integrate. It was far too threatening.

I happen to think that it is that very split within him that makes him so riveting as an actor. It is not our health that always makes us good actors or writers or painters. It is the fucked up-ness that needs to be treasured, or at least not feared and rejected. (More shades of Ellen Burstyn's "shadow side" workshop). In Place In the Sun he plays George, a social climber (more ruthless than most), who is able to insinuate himself into the upper echelons on the strength of his beauty - rich people always want beautiful people around - and also through lying, deception, and cool calculated manipulation. It's weird, because his beauty was of a soft pin-up boy variety. He wasn't like, say, Marlon Brando - who was sexy ... Clift was beautiful to the degree that his face became a mask.

And Clift was a smart enough actor to either use the mask if it was right for the character, or completely ignore it - as though his beauty were just a freak of nature, don't pay any attention to it. Not all beautiful actors can do that. Many of them trade on their beauty - they don't know how to live any other way. They are congratulated for what they look like, and so they continue to perpetuate the situation. And hell, I don't feel bad for them, people can make a lot of money that way! But Clift was a psychologist, he could adjust his persona. In Red River it's not at all about how gorgeous he is. He's rough, cocky, arrogant, and most of the film is action scenes, or fight scenes, his beauty is not dwelled upon. It's just an accident that the guy looks like that, so we get over it and forget about it. But Place in the Sun makes a FETISH of his beauty - because HE does, as a character - and so do all of the other characters, who are duped by this horrible sociopath. He gets a pass - he gets in the door - because of his face, and Clift understood that power, and was able to use it in that role.

Bosworth, unlike Peter Manso, does not have a contempt for the actor's craft. She just gets the anecdotes, and let them speak for themselves. She does not add snarky comments. People were relating stories about, oh, the day Clift played his death scene in From Here to Eternity and how even crew members cried watching it. He was so so good.

The man had demons. He was dogged by tragedy and internal agony. When he was allowed to let it out (like in Judgment at Nuremberg), the results are shattering. But Clift's behavior in his final years was such that it's almost like you can feel him thinking, "You know what? I've had enough of life. I'm outta here."

A Hollywood press agent who knew Clift in the late 40s had this to say:

To survive being a star in Hollywood like Humphrey Bogart or Gary Cooper, you have to be sensitive and ruthless, humble and arrogant. Monty was sensitive. Period.

Bosworth's book looms on the landscape of entertainment biographies. It's the best of its kind.

Place in the Sun is a movie that Mike Nichols says he always watches, ritualistically, before going to work on a new picture. He watches it because he considers it to be that rare thing: a perfect movie. Perfect in construction, themes, execution, acting, set design, mood ... It reminds Nichols, every time he sees it, just how specific he needs to be.

Here's an excerpt about the filming of that movie. Bosworth refers to Clift throughout as "Monty", and somehow it doesn't bother me at all here, in the way it did in Manso's book about Brando, with Manso referring to Brando as "Marlon".

But Bosworth is a far superior writer. She weaves in quotes from people who knew Clift, who were there, with her own narrative - and it feels seamless. It's a great book. Any book that ever comes out about Clift from now on must reference this one.

EXCERPT FROM Montgomery Clift: A Biography, by Patricia Bosworth

Monty worked with such highly charged concentration and intensity as George that he would often finish a take drenched with sweat. "That's the worst part about acting," he told Elizabeth Taylor. "Your body doesn't know you're acting. It sweats and makes adrenalin just as though your emotions were real."

Throughout much of the filming he was tense and preoccupied. Believing Dreiser's tragic killer was essentially sympathetic, he played him with his head cocked to one side and drawn back like a turtle. "He's the kind of a guy who has some charm, but basically he conceals and dissembles about everything," he said. "He's tacky and not that bright," Monty told Robert Ryan, "but he's overwhelmingly ambitious." Motivated by the passion to make money and make it big in society, George, Monty felt, was also a quintessential mama's boy. "He has no style, no sophistication." In the film, Monty demonstrates that when he makes his entrance into the big party where he meets Angela (Elizabeth Taylor), his ideal woman - the rich, spoiled, pampered woman he's dreamed about. Somebody asks him, "Are you having a good time?" and he answers with a perfect blend of shyness of hostility - "How should I know? I just got here."

With Mira Rostova at his side, Monty worked out every beat in every scene in restrained and poignant detail.

In almost all his movies, "Monty, like Garbo and Brando, had the extraordinary faculty for giving you a sense of danger," recalled Richard Burton. "You were never quite sure whether he would blow his lines or explode."

Before completing the interior scenes at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, A Place in the Sun shot for two weeks on location at Cascade Lake, Nevada, as well as Lake Tahoe. It was near the end of October; the Sierras were so cold that snow had to be hosed off the trees and melted from the ground before Monty and Elizabeth Taylor could shoot their scenes lakeside.

Most of Monty's free time was spent conferring with Mira Rostova or arguing over interpretation with George Stevens. Stepherd Strudwick, who played Taylor's father in the film, recalled, "Monty came over to me after a disagreement with Stevens, shaking his head wearily and saying, 'I'm right, I know I'm right, but it doesn't make any difference to them. I'm right and I'll keep saying I'm right."

He was referring to Shelley Winters' approach to her role. "She played it all wrong," he told Judy Balaban later. "She played her tragedy from the minute you see her on screen. She is downbeat, blubbery, irritating." (Earlier, Monty had fought to get Betsy Blair the part, believing her wistful, sweet quality was better than Winters's pathos.)

He pleaded with Stevens to at least redirect Winters in the remaining scenes so that she would appear more sympathetic. If she was made more appealing it might also make the romance between himself and Taylor more bittersweet. Now, he said, the picture was very much off kilter.

Stevens told Monty he was being too sentimental. Alice Tripp, Winters' character, was supposed to be drab and pitiful, and Shelley Winters was being just that, and giving a marvelous performance (some say the best in her career).

Later, Stevens told the American Film Institute, "The thing that interested me most about Place was the relationship of opposing images ... Shelley Winters busting at the seams with sloppy melted ice cream ... as against Elizabeth Taylor in a white gown with blue ribbons floating down from the sky ... Automatically there's an imbalance of image which creates drama."

Because he wanted such imbalance visually as well as emotionally, Stevens was hardest of all on Elizabeth Taylor, who'd never really acted before. He demanded constant retakes of her scenes with Monty, and when he couldn't get the results he wanted he would argue or bait her until Taylor, unused to criticism, flared up angrily.

She had just completed The Big Hangover with Van Johnson and was being costumed for Father of the Bride on weekends, so she felt under particular strain. Also, her mother, Sara Taylor, was chaperoning her so relentlessly she could rarely be alone with Monty for whom she felt a growing attraction. Occasionally she would sneak into his dressing room, presumably to run lines with him while Mira Rostova held the script. But often she would lounge in a chair chewing gum loudly and complaining about her mother whom she called "a large pain in the ass".

Monty sympathized but he invariably changed the subject to A Place in the Sun. What did she think of George Stevens as a director? Why had she decided to play Angela Vickers and, more important, how did she see her as a character? Was she sweet, quiet, voluptuous, innocent?

"It was my first real chance to probe myself," Elizabeth Taylor wrote later, "and Monty helped me ... It was tricky because the girl is so rich and so spoiled it would have been easy to play her as absolutely vacuous, but I think she is a girl who cares a great deal."

Together they went over their roles, with Monty guiding her into the nuances, the objectives of the part. Angela wants George Eastman more than anything, he would say, but she is perfectly confident she will possess him - she is always confident. Just let the character unfold within you - keep thinking of this girl, and then she will suddenly grow and bloom in front of the camera.

Sometimes Monty would demonstrate by acting the part of Angela Vickers himself. He always had authority when he performed, and when he mimed a woman, he could almost conjure up a smoldering female essence. (Michael Billings, in his book The Modern Actor, says, "There is an androgynous bisexuality that underpins great acting." During most of his career Monty made the most positive and creative use possible of his femininity.)

His commitment to his work "affected Elizabeth almost physically - like electric shocks," wrote her biographer Richard Shepherd. "[Monty] gave of himself in a scene to such a degree that soon she began to respond in kind and the chemistry they produced eventually illuminated the screen like heat lightning."

Their memorable first love scene (shot entirely in close-up with a six-inch lens) is a record of how they responded to each other on film. Taylor is achingly tender and maternal; Monty presents a tantalizing paradox of a cool facade hiding great inner passions.

Stevens rewrote the dialogue for that particular scene at two in the morning. "I wanted the words to be rushed - staccato," he said. "Monty had to let loose - he was so enormously moved by her. Elizabeth must be compelled to tell him how wonderful and exciting and interesting he is all in the space of a few seconds ... Anyway, it had to be like nothing they had ever said to anyone before."

When Stevens handed her the new dialogue, Elizabeth looked at it and said, "Forgive me but what the hell is this?" Stevens told both of them to memorize it, then they'd rehearse and shoot, but when filming he wanted them to hurl the words at each other as fast and compulsively as possible.

"Elizabeth dissolved when she had to say 'tell Mama,' " Stevens recalled. "She thought it was outrageous she had to say that - she was jumping into a sophistication beyond her time." But Stevens insisted on that phrase. He wanted to create a mood that was at once primitive and basic, "a kind of preordained meeting."

When he edited the scene he did not use a movieola. Instead he set up two projectors and viewed the reels of Monty's close-ups and Taylor's close-ups simultaneously on a projector screen which covered an entire wall, then spliced the film in such a way that the camera seemed to roll from Monty's face to Taylor's face "thus creating a tempo - with the thing in which as fast as it could be said it was said. Monty had that kind of emotion - he got all steamed up," Stevens said. Taylor dissolved when she looked at him and spoke. "I wanted to get the feeling of them both being totally lost in each other."

What one finally sees on film is the almost jittery sensuality of the young lovers as they circle each other verbally, then swoon into a passionate embrace.

Andrei Rublev; dir. Andrei Tarkovsky

Not much is known about Andrei Rublev, the 15th century Russian monk - who was also a painter. Only one of his works has been actually authenticated (the Trinity, seen above) - but he has taken on mythical status in Russia, certainly, and in art circles.

I first became aware of his work because of Hopeful Monsters - one of my favorite novels (excerpt here). The works of Andrei Rublev take on gigantic significance in the book - especially during the early 1930s section of the book - when Stalin's terror is escalating, the famine in Ukraine is raging (but not being admitted) - and Max, one of the main characters, goes to study in Russia for a semester. He wanted to see for himself what was happening in Russia. Many things happen to Max, but one of his missions ends up being - trying to track down the Andrei Rublev Museum in Moscow, which is easier said than done. The state in Russia at that time did not want to deal with Andrei Rublev: Rublev brought up a memory of the Russians as an intensely faith-filled people - and the Russian Revolution, started in 1917, but really picking up steam in the 30s, was interested in bashing God out of existence. Max has many coincidental moments, in Moscow, trying to find this museum, and much of it begins to add up into his head ... He begins to feel that the key to Russia is held by Andrei Rublev.

Tarkovsky's film, usually called a "masterpiece", was filmed in the 1960s. It is over 3 hours long, but when it was first released in the United States, an hour or more had been cut, so many of the original reviews seem baffled as to what they should actually be reveiwing. They felt that they needed to see the whole thing in order to judge. The Russians weren't too pleased with Andrei Rublev, either ... If you look at it through the eyes of the Politburo (and why on earth would you want to do that?? But just for perspective's sake ...) you can see the issues therein. Churches had been closed and turned into pool halls and "museums of atheism". There was a concerted effort to get rid of religion. Andrei Rublev was a monk, living in a time of great strife and internal warfare in the great land of Russia. Tatars were invading. Rival princes were struggling for power. Many of them cooperated with the Tatars. The monks, in their monasteries, painting manuscripts and icons, lived separate from the mayhem, in some ways isolated ... yet the proof of the surrounding war is in the fact that so little artwork from that time remains. And what does is often burnt - because churches were torched, and very little survived.

Rublev himself is a great unknown. The facts are sparse. Tarkovsky fills in the blanks.

The film is a massive accomplishment, with, frankly, some of the most beautiful startling footage I have ever seen in a film. Yes: ever. It is hard to even describe some of it, because it is so bizarre, so once-in-a-lifetime, at times unsettling. A man floating above the landscape, tangled up in the ropes of some makeshift airborne apparatus ...

The man flies over the landscape, and we never see him from the ground - we only see the entire thing from his perspective, which makes it dizzying and rather sickening - going faster and faster over herds of reindeer, lakes, trees, guys in boats, until he crashes into the grass. (All one shot - from the guy's perspective - how they did it I'll never know).

There are unexplained shots of beauty that approach lyric poetry: a black horse lying on the grass, rolling on its back, this way, that, its thin legs up in the air.

The film slowed down slightly right then ... to accentuate the mysterious nature of the moment.

We are not meant to know what a moment like that "means". It is what it is.

Indelible images overflow the film, at times threatening to derail any sense of forward motion: a bell being hoisted up the belltower of a cathedral - with ropes and workers stretching off to the horizon - yes, to the horizon ... a riderless horse galloping through an empty ruined cathedral ... a group of naked pagan women standing in a river, holding torches ...

At times the film feels and looks like a documentary (a Russian film-making tradition and style, Soviet realism):

Some of those look like they could be by Walker Evans. The closeups, the grit of the faces, the almost blatant lack of artifice (which becomes a comment in and of itself) and the treatment of the individuals has much in common with that 1930s-style realism.

...and then there are flights of lyrical sentimentality (too many, in my opinion) - with the camera lingering over flowers and raindrops and snowflakes. It's over 3 hours long. You have time to settle in. It's not just one movie, or one style. It is many.

I am not sure if I consider it to be a "masterpiece". I think the thing that is lacking for me is the sense of Andrei Rublev as a real man. He is "Artist (TM)". He is a symbol, an idea, rather than an actual person. Now this is also a Soviet trait of storytelling (not Russian, but Soviet - which I think adds to a lot of the beautiful tension in the film - the two styles battling with each other): archetypes and symbols taking precedent over actual humanity. This may be WHY others call it a masterpiece, but for me ... it lacked in that area. It is too long. The "sentimentality" of some of the images were quite lovely, but they were too repetitive. (Sentimentality is different than sentiment. Sentimentality lingers, wanting us to notice it, comment on it, be struck dumb by it. It demands that we be moved in order to validate its existence. Sentiment exists whether we want it to or not. Example: The pulling-back of the camera to show the dead man's arm is a moment of reality, a vision of horror - and the camera pulls back, and we see a dropped satchel of paint slowly bleeding into the river - the light color dyeing the darker water of the river - and it is a lovely image, a piece of poetry, but when a film has several such sequences, 20 maybe, it begins to lose its power. It becomes apparent that this is the director's style, moving with his camera from the specific to the abstract - and again, maybe that works for some people. For me, I can recognize its beauty, but it leaves me cold. It remains intellectual.)

My response to the epic, in some ways, reminded me of my response to Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry (my thoughts here). The world went gaga over Taste of Cherry, and it left me cold. There are many beautiful sequences, and I loved the color palette used, and the visuals. But the character seemed like a cipher, and I couldn't invest in his journey. I didn't see what others saw.

Andrei Rublev (in the movie, anyway) is a monk, living a rustic simple life on a monastery when he is called by the Grand Prince to come to Moscow and help Theosophanes the Greek help finish painting the cathedral. Rublev's reputation already exists at that time - he is known for his icons, his religious paintings. So off he goes on his journey. The world he travels through, to get to his destination, is almost like the Judgment Day paintings on the walls of the great medieval cathedrals. A world of brutality and faith, with vicious cruelty, peasants huddled in the dark, fearful, and grand men with big boots stomping all over them. Rublev watches pagans being tortured, there are episodes with the Tatars - grinning ferocious men on magnificent horses - who come to villages, only to torch the entire place. We see women lying on the ground, surrounded by Tatar men, being raped repeatedly. Men are thrown off roofs. Innocent boys are pierced by arrows. A horse falls down a flight of stairs, stuck by a sword. Rublev, with visions of angels in his head, is horrified. He is a deeply interior kind of man (played beautifully by Anatoli Solonitsyn - he bears an incredible resemblance to Viggo Mortenson), not a fire-breathing religious fanatic, nor a hypocrite, like Theosophanes is portrayed to be (a man of NO faith, who is in charge of painting the cathedral).

Rublev is tormented by what he sees ... and at the same time, when it comes time for him to paint the Judgment Day on the cathedral wall, he cannot do it. He cannot force himself to paint the horrors of hell, and his creativity dries up. What is he to do?

Whatever it is that is inside Andrei Rublev - in terms of his feelings about sin, and forgiveness, and Christ, and God - are left opaque in the film. We see him kill a man. He kills him because that man is dragging off an idiot girl to rape her (idiot in the Dostoevsky sense - not a "she is a stupid person" sense) - and, by the way, it is a spectacular performance, with no dialogue, played by Irma Raush. Rublev has already seen something in her, something divine, the holy idiot, and he chases the man up the stairs of the cathedral - and we then see the man come tumbling down the stairs covered in blood. Is this a justified killing? Some of Rublev's colleagues seem to think it is. The guy had it coming. But Rublev descends into the silence of guilt, unable to deal with the implications of what he has done.

The film ends with one of the most extraordinary sequences I have ever seen put to film. A young boy, whose father was a bell-maker, and who died passing on his secrets to his son on his death bed - is charged with building a huge bell for a cathedral.

The land has been ravaged by Tatars, who barge into their churches, torch them, kill everyone hiding there. So the bell has deep religious and cultural significance. But that is not the focus of the last sequence. That is what I read into it, as a viewer. What the focus is is the making of the bell, and how it was done. Building a pit. Searching, endlessly, for "the clay" ... the mother-lode of clay that is just right for what they need ... work stops ... then starts ... what if he can't find the clay? He is about 14, 15 years old and is the foreman of the project - the workers are all much older than he is, and he has a lot to prove. The firing up of the kilns - another scene that takes on a hellish aspect, men with huge fire-red (well, it's a black and white film, but you know they are red) pokers, and ovens filled with glowing molten material, like the hellfires of Judgment Day Rublev had so much trouble painting:

hundreds of people at work, building the chutes where the molten material will flow, when ready ... the cast having been made of the giant bell ...

The bell-making sequence has to be seen to be believed.

Rublev is an old man at this point. He has descended into almost complete silence, and seems to haunt the young bell-maker. He glances up out of the pit, and sees Rublev standing there. Rublev is not working on the project, but it seems that what Tarkovsky is saying is that Rublev has become a patron saint of artists and artisans in Russia. His presence is there, on the outskirts of any big artistic undertaking. This is not told in an overt way. To be honest, the first time I saw it I was not aware what Rublev had to do with the bell at all. Was this the cathedral that we saw burnt earlier? Rublev is much older now. Have the villagers decided to build it up again? So this is seen as a triumph of religious faith? The Tatars and the rival princes could burn up their churches again and again ... but the people would continue to rebuild?

Rublev and the boy end up having a crucial (wordless) scene in a puddly deserted field, which speaks much to what is actually going on, in terms of catharsis, artistic commitment, and inspiration. Rublev, a quiet troubled man, is present for this young boy, in a way that has been building in him in the entire film. He is flawed. We are all flawed. Rublev strives for perfection and in that moment (it's just a moment!) - he achieves it. It is a truly holy moment between the two. Perhaps Rublev is actually dead, and he is appearing to the bell-maker as a guardian angel. There are other examples of this in the film which is not, to put it mildly, literal. Death is not an end. The dead haunt us still. Sometimes they help us. That might be the message being conveyed, but I'm not sure. It's okay that I'm not sure. I actually prefer not being sure, in a film of this kind. Leave the easy answers to other people. I think a film of this kind works in its vagueness, rather than in its specificity. But this is why Rublev had been created with more mood than detail. At the end of the film, there's a moment where he grabs a girl's mouth - she has been shoving it full of wild mushrooms - and makes her spit out the food. She is crying. He is violent. His behavior here, 3 hours into the film, remains incomprehensible to me. I still didn't feel that I knew him at all. This is not necessariy a bad thing. I was left with many questions after seeing it, and I pondered that mushroom moment (for example), turning it over in my mind, coming up with guesses as to what was going on. "People are starving in the countryside ... who are you to hog all the mushrooms to yourself ..." "We have taken vows ... to show such gluttony is not what we are about ..." Or: "I love you. I am a monk and I have feelings for you I cannot control. To see you at all in this human moment is too much for me, so I must punish you." It could be any one of those things.

But in the last sequence the project itself of making the bell takes centerstage over any symbolic or religious or, dare I say, existential considerations. We are now in the territory of a gritty "How To" manual, and I could not look away. I did not know anything about bell-making and bell-raising. I hadn't even thought about it. But you can bet I went online and Googled the SHIT out of "medieval bell-making" after seeing the film. It's fascinating, and exquisitely done. Tarkovsky makes me understand. I am involved in the process, and although I am ignorant about it ... he films it in such a clear open way that I totally "get" what is going on. When the camera pulls up, up, up, and back, back, back, showing the long thick ropes sweeping up over the landscape, up hillsides, down - with people all along them, people tiny as specks in our perspective - ready to "pull" when the command comes - It just takes your breath away. It's a sequence I will never forget.

David Thomson's article about Tarkovsky in his Biographical Dictionary of Film is well worth checking out. An excerpt:

The Sacrifice is a parable about nuclear holocaust being averted by some great personal sacrifice. It has some of the most glorious extended shots in film history. The mise-en-scene is relentless. The perfection has something monstrous about it, as if trouble had made Tarkovsky into a magnificent island gradually receding from the rest of the world. For this viewer, there is something tyrannical about it that spurs irreverent thoughts of resistance.

Much food for thought there, and I still have much to think on in terms of Andrei Rublev.

It works on a grand level - with spectacular swooping crane shots, starting at almost ground level and then climbing into the air until you can see the horizon - and it works on a small level, too - with the intimate moments between characters, and people who do come alive (not Rublev, but others). For example, there's a character of a jester, a 'fool', who wanders the villages, telling jokes, playing guitar, and occasionally dropping trou - to uproarious laughter from the crowd.

Something happens to him early on, a moment of violence out of nowhere, that was so upsetting to me I caught my breath. In 5 minutes of screen time I had already fell in love with the guy. I hadn't even realized it had happened until I gasped at the sight of him being hurt.

Filmed in CinemaScope - Andrei Rublev is MADE to be seen on a huge screen. All of the shots are long, thin, and chock-full of action and figures - like a mural in a cathedral. There are some shots where we have someone in the foreground, almost in closeup, and way in the background, we see tiny figures struggling up a snowy hill, or riding their horses by in single file - and it is structurally disorienting. We can't tell if the person in closeup is standing on a cliff, or how it is that those people in the background are also in the shot.

In a funny way, it looks as though those sequences were filmed during Andrei Rublev's time, before the "invention" of the vanishing point in art, and before three-dimensional reality was recreated on a canvas. Objects all seem to be placed on the same plane in Andrei Rublev, in the same way they appear on medieval tapestries and triptychs, the closeup face and the tiny specks in the distance seeming to live in a flat and two-dimensional space, identical ... It's a spriritual atmosphere, one of disorientation ... where humanity can start to look the way God must see it: tiny specks struggling up a snowy hill. Both kinds of vision: closeup and telescopic - happen at the same time constantly in Andrei Rublev, and in the same moment.

In Hopeful Monsters, by Nicholas Mosley, Max the narrator writes:

One of the sights I wanted to see in Moscow were pictures by the painter Andrei Rublev. Andrei Rublev had lived around AD 1400 at a time of much savagery and destruction in Russia. The legend about him was that he had been trained by a painter but then had become so numbed by the horrors he saw that he had been unable to paint; then sometime later he became a monk and painted pictures of serene, adoring angels ... I began to have an obsession about getting to see these paintings by Andrei Rublev: I felt I had to see them to confirm something I was on the edge of understanding about Russia.

Max, through much subterfuge (nobody seems to want to point him the way to the museum), arrives at the monastery where the paintings are supposedly held. It is deserted. It is not a time in Russia (1933) when you wanted to be seen mooning over paintings of serene angels. Max wanders through the halls, feeling like he is going to be arrested at any moment. In the strangest moment of all, he walks into one gallery and sees two men talking. Stunned, he realizes he recognizes one of the men as his classmate from Cambridge - who is not supposed to be in Russia at all. Max then realizes, thunderstruck, that it had been Mullen (the friend) who had told him to seek out the paintings of Andrei Rublev. Max doesn't know whether to be frightened or pleased. He does know that "coincidence" is rarely such ... and that all of this has something to do with Andrei Rublev. He approaches Mullen. Mullen wraps up his conversation with the other fellow and turns to Max.

Mullen said, 'You've found me.'

I thought - Well, yes, I see what you mean, I've found you.

Mullen put his hand on my arm. He said 'How are you?' He looked round. He said, 'How did you get here?' Then 'We can talk here.'

I said ' I was trying to get to see paintings by Andrei Rublev.'

He said 'You were trying to get to see paintings by Andrei Rublev?'

I said 'Yes.'

He said 'Here there's a painting by Andrei Rublev.'

I said 'I thought I recognised you at the top of the stairs.'

He said 'I see.'

Mullen was a tall, gaunt figure who might have been some sort of monk. He might have gone wandering across Russia seeing horrors; might he from these have imagined pictures of serene, adoring angels?

I said 'I thought the paintings were in a monastery, but the taxi brought me here.'

Mullen said, 'No one told you I was here?'

I said 'No.'

Mullen said 'But it was I who told you about Andrei Rublev!'

I said 'Yes.'

Mullen smiled. He said 'What a coincidence!'

I thought - He may know the code! But what is the message?

Mullen turned away towards a painting that was on the wall behind him. He murmured, 'I thought you were somewhere in the Ukraine.'

I said 'I was.' Then - 'I wondered about Kapitsa.'

Mullen said 'You wondered about Kapitsa.'

I said 'Yes.' Then I became aware of the painting on the wall behind Mullen.

Do you know this painting by Andrei Rublev? It is called The Old Testament Trinity. It was one of the paintings of which I had seen a reproduction before I left England. It is of the three angels that came to tell Abraham and Sarah that, even though they were about a hundred years old, they would have a child. The three angels are said to be God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. They are all three much the same; they are neither male nor female; they are all young and beautiful. They sit round table, on which there is a bowl; and behind them is a tree, and what seems to be the entrance to a courtyard. The three angels, though separate, seem to be held together by a common inner absorption - by the fact that this seems to give them control over the spaces between. I thought - They are serene, but they are not exactly adoring: they know too much to be adoring: what they are in contact with is themselves.

Tarkovsky's use of long long shots, with deep closeups in the foreground, makes the film feel like The Old Testament Trinity. Perhaps it was a deliberate filmmaking decision: to set up Rublev as a character who was like one of those angels he would later paint - consumed by "inner absorption" - and it is that absorption that gives him " control over the spaces between". Tarkovsky shows us "the spaces between". They are vast, endless, and overpowering at times. How could anyone come along and unite those spaces together?

A flawed work, but a great piece of 20th century filmmaking nonetheless.

I would love to hear the thoughts of others who have seen this extraordinary, difficult and (to me) frustrating film. I have read many of the reviews hailing it as a masterpiece, and I can honestly see all of their points. In the same way that I read the reviews of Taste of Cherry, and yes, I felt we all had seen the same film, but it just did not resonate for me the way it did for others. I don't feel, in the case of Andrei Rublev, that this is a matter of "the emperor's wearing no clothes" - the way I feel about, say, Forrest Gump - a film I find to be truly vile. My tepid response to Rublev very well could be my own failing. I'm still working it out. (It is also highly possible, given the look and structure of the film, that seeing it on a big screen would be a totally different experience. Like night and day different. I have only seen it on a small screen, and perhaps the images - although beautiful and arresting - would add up to seem to be something more on the big screen. So I will certainly keep my eye out at the Film Forum, and other venues, for a Tarkovsky tribute week.)

Screenshots below.

White nights

So my reading of War and Peace continues ... and, in a fortuitous moment, I came across this extraordinary post with photos of the "white nights" in St. Petersburg. Wow!!

Dear Hope,

I have a request.

Would it be possible for you to show me just how long and flat and elongated you can become?

Thank you, Hope. I was just curious. You've answered all my questions, and I am very grateful.

The Books: "Lessons In Becoming Myself" (Ellen Burstyn)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Lessons in Becoming Myself, by Ellen Burstyn

In less than a decade, Ellen Burstyn was nominated 5 times for an Oscar (for The Last Picture Show, The Exorcist (speaking of The Exorcist ...), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Same Time Next Year and Resurrection) and won one Oscar (for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore). That's a helluva good run. One of the best in the business. Then, of course, in 2001, she was nominated for an Oscar again for Requiem For a Dream. Her work in the 70s and 80s helped define the new cinema, the independent spirit, the breaking down of the boundaries of the old studio system. She WAS 1970s film, in many ways.

She's nominated almost any time she acts - including the controversial nomination for her 14 seconds of screen time in HBO's Mrs. Harris in 2006. Remember that? People were upset - like: how on earth could only 14 seconds be worthy of a nomination?? It was the talk of the town for a good 2 weeks. Burstyn made no statements about it for a while. After all, it wasn't her fight. If they wanted to nominate her, how is that HER fault? Finally, she did make a statement, and it's glorious:

I thought it was fabulous. My next ambition is to get nominated for seven seconds, and ultimately I want to be nominated for a picture in which I don't even appear.

hahahahahahaha

She's also co-President of the Actors Studio, an organization which she has always been highly involved in - Lee Strasberg adored her, and pretty much clocked what he saw to be her issues as an actress immediately. But I'll talk about that in a minute.

I took a 4-day acting workshop with Ellen Burstyn about 10 years ago. There were about 30 people in the class - a huge class - but the way she set it up and organized it (it was impeccable) we all had a chance to work, and get feedback from her. Nobody was stiffed. We all got our shot. She had obviously thought long and hard about what she wanted to do in such an intensely condensed time period, and it WASN'T scene-work. It was an extremely unconventional acting class, like no other I have ever taken before or since. She was magnificent as a teacher. It was not "Oooh, here I am The Guru" ... she had things to impart to us, and then - when it came time for each one of us to get up and work - she honed in on each student specifically, with eyes like laser beams ... seeing right into who we were. It was not generalized (as a lot of acting classes can become, with the same comments given to different people - one-size-fits-all). She did not say to me what she said to the guy across the room. Because she saw in us different things. Basically, she's a person of deep and also relaxed focus (that's one of the things that really struck me about her - her level of relaxation - without EVER seeming "mellow" or indifferent) - and when one person was up in front of the group working, her entire consciousness was focused on that person. It was amazing - to be in that spotlight for 2 minutes, or however long it was I was up in front of the group. It was almost embarrassing. You would finish working, and there would be a long long silence, as she would look up at you, thinking, thinking, thinking ... It wasn't a dead silence, it was FILLED with anticipation and thought ... The whole room was riveted. Because this was an intensive and there were so many people in the class, she couldn't spend 25 minutes on every person, analyzing them - it had to be about 10 minutes per person ... That's hard to do. Hard to be specific enough in that small amount of time, and also difficult to make the comments something the students will take with them, things that will elevate the students' understanding not only of their own process, but of who they are, for God's sake. THAT'S a good class. And person after person, Burstyn was able to do that. It was extraordinary. We were all on the edge of our seats. We would watch another classmate work (and these weren't monologues or scenes - it was a different kind of thing she was having us explore) - and then we'd all sit there, quiet, aware of her, sitting in her chair, always wearing bright deep colors - reds and purples and deep greens - thinking, pondering, staring up at our classmate ... choosing her words very carefully. She said a couple of things to me, after I worked, that I have never forgotten.

She was an incredible teacher. And why she is incredible is because she has such good eyes for it. She also loves other actors and has very little envy. Her energy during our class was that of shining JOY at seeing actors do well, grow, be brave, face fears. It's a strange thing - to feel safe and yet courageous at the same time - but that's what she created as a teacher. The class was not, as I mentioned, an acting class, where people got up and did monologues. It was an exploration of each actor's "shadow side" - the part of us we do not want to admit, or we avoid, or we say to ourselves, "OTHER people are like that - NOT ME!" Burstyn said, "When you catch yourself saying things like that, pay close attention. You're coming close to your own shadow side." In order to be fully expressed as an actor, then the "shadow side" must not be avoided. Nothing can be avoided. You can't judge certain attributes as unworthy of you. You have to be willing to experience the full spectrum. I had never quite thought of it in that way before, but Burstyn's class represented a slight shift in how I thought, not just about acting, but also about my own ambivalence and sometimes hatred of a certain individual - who, during the course of the class, I realized represented my "shadow side". I mean, she was also a full individual in her own right - but she was symbolic to me. Exploring that side of me that was her was excruciating, at times. But such worthwhile work.

Ellen Burstyn has four rules of acting. 4 things that you MUST do:

1. Show up.
2. Pay attention.
3. Tell the truth.
4. Don't be attached to the outcome.

I fluctuate on which one is the most difficult - but often I think that it's flat out #1 that is the hardest. But "showing up" is what you MUST do - and that doesn't just mean getting to rehearsal on time, but showing up, with all your talent, openness, creativity, fearlessness, self, fears, whatever - at your disposal. There are those who WANT to "show up" but honestly can't. That's what separates the talented from the not-talented.

But certainly #4 is one of the most challenging things of all - not just in acting, but in life in general. I have not mastered #4 at all, and it is a lifelong journey, I suppose. I am terribly bad at it. Most of my broken hearts have come from not having a grasp on #4. And I can feel it in me: it will happen again.

But not being attached to the outcome - in acting - is especially essential. It is that which creates fearlessness, it is that which sets an actor free. Having an idea about how to play something is great. But do not ever be attached to the outcome. Life is more mysterious than that. You can't expect anything. The DOING must be enough. (My college acting teacher used to talk about "the reality of the doing" - which helped actors ground themselves. What are you actually DOING? It helped you get specific).

Anyway, those 4 days of workshop left me with a lifetime of lessons, which is why I'm talking about it so much.

Her autobiography, which came out last year, is a real actor's book. She obviously has had much success at the highest echelons of Hollywood. I mean, 5 nominations in less than 10 years. You know. She's one of the anointed. BUT alongside of that, has been her rigorous training - she STILL is in training, she still does workshops of plays, and teaches, and moderates at the Studio (another once-in-a-lifetime experience - watching her handle that room ... You just hold your breath, waiting to hear what she will say).

Her relationship with Lee Strasberg, famous acting teacher and creator of/head of the Actors Studio is well-known. Burstyn had been a model in her early 20s, with some success in television, commercials and variety hours and the like. She was beautiful. Burstyn is quite honest about how vain she was (and still can be) - which is one of the reasons why I think her performance in Requiem For a Dream was so shattering to watch. Talk about shadow sides.

The vanity of that character became so acute that it was indistinguishable from self-loathing (something that I think is quite common). And her vanity about her looks - and dropping some weight for her big television moment - is something that Burstyn, as a model, and a beautiful young woman, understood intimately. It may seem easy to play something so close to yourself, but it is not. That's why Burstyn has her students work on "shadow sides", because we all have blind spots - and it is usually in our blind spot about ourselves that we find the gold mine. You don't act from anywhere else but there. It is the most truthful part of us, because it is the part we are ashamed of, that we hide, deny. Bring it out into the light. Let's let that sucker breathe. Easier said than done. Anyway, Lee Strasberg, within one or two sessions of working with Burstyn, could sense her shallowness as a human being, and could sense her vanity. Burstyn said to us, during the workshop, "Let's not forget. I was a pretty silly girl. I got by on my looks, and that's the truth." Strasberg recognized that in her - that defense mechanism - and went after it. Many actors resent such intrusions. Who the hell does he think he is?? But careful: when you hear a voice like that, make sure it's a REAL voice, that is on the side of growth and health ... as opposed to the shadow side protecting itself, not wanting to be revealed. Burstyn took to Strasberg's teachings like blood to a vampire. He saved her from what could have been a rather conventional career. Burstyn was a pretty girl, a flirt, who was used to having things come to her. (That is not to say she was a happy person. Her childhood was a sad one, it's just that once she hit puberty, her looks blossomed - and things started to just come easily to her, because of her beauty). Strasberg threw a wrench in that particular journey and Burstyn is forever grateful - because he gave to her a sense of her own power, first of all - but ALSO: a sense that she was more than her face, AND that certain emotions which did not really fit with being a pretty girl (rage, grief, need, envy) - needed to be explored and released. Just because she was pretty didn't mean she wasn't deep. Believe it or not, this was a revelation to Burstyn at the time. She flourished under his teaching.

So that's the excerpt I wanted to choose today from her lovely autobiography. A real actor's kind of excerpt. Nothing to do with fame, or her famous co-stars, or her most popular roles, or shooting The Last Picture Show ... but beginning her work with Lee Strasberg, and discovering, basically, who she was.

Also, as an aside: she told the story about the actress playing Joan of Arc in our workshop, and it's one of my favorite anecdotes ever. Having sat through years of classes in sense memory (and not really "getting it", let's be honest) ... I read that anecdote and think: Yup. If you're GOING to use that technique, then you had BETTER use it in that particular way. Otherwise, it's just an exercise and who the hell cares about that.

This is not the time or the place to go into sense memory. Or who knows, maybe it is, but I'm going to the beach today and I don't have time to go into it.

Any actor who has taken beginning sense-memory classes will recognize those early exercises described by Burstyn. Creating the cup, the glass of juice ... using only your sensoral apparatus. Training your concentration.

More to say about Burstyn. All I can say is: I was nervous to read this book, because I have such high regard for her ... and I also wasn't wacky about the title, which seemed rather generic - BUT: it's a lovely and honest book, and it really is about her lifelong journey in becoming herself. It's not been a neat life, and her trajectory has been full of fits and starts ... and her honesty about herself is not only refreshing, but totally inspiring.

(I also have Ellen Burstyn to thank for bringing the word "entelechy" into my consciousness - a concept she brought up continuously in the workshop).

Here's the excerpt. Ellen and her husband Neil Burstyn signed up for a class with Lee Strasberg.

No pressure, Ted (haha), but I would love to hear your thoughts. I know you have them!!

EXCERPT FROM Lessons in Becoming Myself, by Ellen Burstyn

At that time, 1964, Lee was holding his classes in a studio behind Carnegie Hall. You signed up for two classes a week - one exercise and scene class with lee and one scene study class with his wife, Paula. Lee asked for a commitment of at least six weeks because he felt it took that long to understand what the classes were about so that one could make an informed decision on whether or not to continue. He was right. The first weeks I didn't understand the classes at all. Several actors would work at the same time. There was one guy who was obviously being a chicken picking at food (turned out it was a pigeon). Another girl was looking close up into a mirror, singing to herself in a sultry way and crying. Another older woman seemed to be taking an imaginary shower and rubbing soap between her legs. One guy was on his hands and knees doing something I couldn't understand, but it was obviously very moving to him because he was crying like a baby. The whole lot of them looked crazy to me. I wanted to laugh out loud. I looked around the room to see if anyone else was suppressing a giggle as I was. Everyone was dead serious. I couldn't imagine what any of this had to do with acting. Then Lee brought the exercise to an end and criticized each one as though what they were doing made any sense at all. I was baffled. I would have left the class right then, but I had made that promise to stay for six weeks. I attended the scene study class taught by Paula. She was a short, heavy, fair-skinned, red-headed woman in a black muumuu. The scenes didn't seem all that good to me and I didn't quite understand her comments afterward. She praised things I didn't see and seemed to criticize the very things that I thought looked pretty good. I just didn't get it. But I thought before I left I ought to give it a go, so I signed up to do an exercise for Lee and a scene for Paula. The fist exercise everyone was asked to do was to create whatever you had for breakfast, a cup of coffee, a glass of juice, whatever you normally drank every morning. I was a coffee drinker at the time, so I went to work at home creating my imaginary mug. When I felt I had it, I got to be one of the five crazy people up there. I sat in my chair and held out my left hand and imagined a cup sitting on it. With my right hand I traced the rim of the cup. I let my finger move down the handle until I could define its shape. Then slowly I wrapped my fingers around the handle and tried to lift the cup off my left hand into my right hand. But when I did, I lost the whole thing. The cup had no weight. Damn! I had to start all over, holding the cup with my left, bouncing it gently up and down. yes, there's the weight, I can feel it. Now I can feel the rim again. During all of this, the other four people were going through various intensities of sobbing, sighing, laughing, and grunting. I never took my eyes off the cup. After about twenty minutes, in my peripheral vision I saw Lee sitting in the front row, lifting up the five-by-seven white cards with an actor's name on each and going through them until he came to the name he was looking for. Then he said, "Ellen, keep on doing what you are doing, but just answer my questions."

There was a pause and I felt the focus of the room shift to me. I tried to continue concentrating on my cup, but I began to get a little nervous. What was he going to ask me?

"Do you ride horses?"

Oh man, this was from left field. Where was he going with this one?

"I used to," I answered, still trying to feel my cup, which no longer had coffee in it. I tried to get it back.

"When you rode, did you ride well?" he asked, seemingly innocently.

"Pretty well," I said. "I used to own my own horse."

"Well," said Lee with the precision of a surgeon. "You don't have to ride that cup."

I paused. My hands remained poised, but they trembled. What had he just said? I looked at him. My exercise was over, but I found I couldn't drop my hands. The cup had become too real. I had to set it down on an imaginary table. My heart was pounding. I looked at him. He said to me gently, "What would happen if you made a mistake?"

Tears rose. What was happening to me? I was losing it. The room got deathly quiet. He said in the kindest way, "Go on, make a mistake!"

I shattered, broke, chunks of my mask, my persona fell to the floor. My bare skin, or what was under it, was exposed to the air for the first time like the pink skin under a peeled scab. He pierced me with his gaze. He saw me. He knew me. He gave me permission to make a mistake. And I would not be punished or beaten. I could risk something. Anything. I might even risk not pleasing him. He said it was okay. I could be whatever I am. I could ... I could ... He said that I could even ... be ... myself. I cried for two weeks.

I didn't know what to do. I had learned survival techniques - how to please, how to be charming and cute, to split from what was painful, to dissociate from what I didn't want to feel, to hide behind a persona that worked for me. Now Lee was telling me I didn't have to do any of that anymore. Lee's genius, and he was a genius, was that he could say what his X-ray vision perceived, in words that had deep meaning only to the person he was addressing. I don't know if what he said to me had meaning to anyone else in the world, but those words were like a sword of truth that pierced my heart and opened me to a new world. I just didn't know what do instead. I tried explaining this to Neil.

"Well," Neil said softly, "maybe you can just consider that personality you built to be a temporary thing, like a crutch, and now you can put it down because you don't need it anymore."

I stopped crying. That's it, I thought. I don't need it anymore. Now I'll find out who I am without all of that.

And that began my new life. Lee told me that the first step was the willingness to make a mistake, to suffer the humiliation of daring to risk, to grow. I just had no idea how terrified I was not to be perfect. "Addiction to perfection," Marion Woodman, the famous Jungian analyst and writer, would teach us later. I had it. And it wasn't that I thought I was ever perfect or anywhere near it; it was that I thought I should be perfect, but was so far from it that I needed to hide the fact. I felt that I was just plain wrong. Essentially wrong, bad, unacceptable, shameful. That was really it. I was ashamed of myself. And that's what had to be hidden. That's what was behind the mask. And somehow by telling me that I did not have to ride that cup, he freed me. By telling me that I could make a mistake, he communicated to me that there was not some mark that I was required to hit and it was unacceptable to miss. He was telling me that I didn't have to pretend anymore. People say, "But isn't the point of acting to pretend to be someone else - to submerge yourself and just become the character?" The answer is a paradox. You cannot move your persona from yourself to the character's without first locating yourself, and from that site you make the move. If you are hiding not only your self, but from your self, you don't have a chance for a true creative impulse.

Lee discerned something in me. Something that I formed many years before. A way of coping with my situation at home, a way of dealing with my sexuality and my talent. It was a way that was not truthful. When my mother said, "Pick up the rug, Edna, and do your tap dance," dutifully I did. I did my tap dance for my mother's friends. And I was still doing it. This was what the voice meant when it said, "I don't want it." It didn't want me to go on tap dancing anymore. In Jeff Corey's class, I had begun to ascertain another way. This is what I came to Lee to learn. I thought it was another way to act. He quickly let me know it was another way to be.

This was when I finally had the answer to the question I asked in my art class when Don Brackett tacked up my drawing on the bulletin board. It had come from a true creative impulse, not from a desire to please or to get a good grade.

For our first scene in Lee's class, we were to choose one that was "close to us," "not a stretch," "a simple scene". So without a trace of irony, I chose Joan of Arc. I don't remember the scene at all, just that I felt I understood Joan hearing voices. She heard two. I had heard one. I'd heard it twice. So that was why I felt the role was "not a stretch". After the scene, Lee chastised me for my selection and at some point asked, "Can you hear something we can't hear?" I was leaning forward, my elbow on my knee, chin cupped in my hand. I nodded my head, thinking of the voice that had spoken to me. Lee said in a surprised tone, his voice rising a bit, "You can?" Suddenly, his question put me in doubt. I mean, I could hear something when it spoke to me, but he meant now, right now. I listened. The class was still.I could hear only the sound of the air conditioner. I listened further. I detected a sound just behind the air conditioner, another sound, almost like white sound or the sound behind sound. I had just got there, just heard it for the space of a second, when I was interrupted by Lee saying, "Ahhh, but that's different." That's all I remember of this incident, but it etched itself into my actor/artist's knowing. I did hear something different. I hadn't moved. My chin was still cupped in my hand. Nothing had changed but the quality of my listening and he saw it! He could see me hear! Now, that not only taught me something about him and how precise were his powers of observation, it taught me something about the level of reality that an actor must create onstage. "The voice" that had spoken to me was a memory that helped me to understand Joan, but that was in the past. I had to hear something now, in the present, onstage. It didn't have to be St. Michael or St. Catherine or even my "voice". It just had to be something real, active in the moment, and then that would be seen, communicated, and experienced by the audience. There is an engagement - I would later feel it as a communion between the actor and the audience - that requires an active doing in the present moment of time. Yesterday's memories are not active. They must be brought into the senses and enlivened in the present. That way, the witness can "see me hear". It was a great lesson.

Another lesson comes to mind concerning Joan of Arc. In the early seventies at the Actors Studio in California, a visiting actress from England who was not a member had somehow gotten working privileges and was playing Joan in a scene from The Lark. She was not an accomplished actress and she played Joan like a cheeky bird. It was painful to watch. After the scene was over, she and the other actor pulled up chairs and waited expectantly for the praise of the master. There was a moment of quiet, then Lee addressed the girl. "Have you had any training in sense memory?"

"Yes." She nodded her head, her pretty blond curls bobbing up and down.

"Could you create a candle for me?"

"Right now?" she asked innocently, even happily.

"Yes, right now," said Lee, also seemingly innocently.

She used her hands to define the shape of the imaginary candle. When she thought she had it, she looked at Lee sweetly and smiled.

"Is it lit?" he asked.

"No." She pouted.

"Light it," Lee instructed.

She went through the motions of lighting a candle, put down the matches and looked at Lee, pleased.

"Hold one finger over it," he said.

She did.

"Can you feel the heat?" he asked.

She nodded vigorously.

"Now lower your finger into the flame and hold it there."

Her smile dropped.

"That's right," Lee snapped. "She put her whole body into the flame. Now you think about that before you ever play Joan again."

We never saw her again.

Neil did a scene for Lee and it was brutal. At one point he dropped his keys accidentally on purpose. He made a point of looking surprised before he picked them up. I don't remember now what that was supposed to signify, but it was something Neil liked and he must have thought it was something Brando would do. After the scene, Lee lit into Neil. At one point he said in a very stern voice, "What are you doing? You drop your keys on a particular line. You bend to pick them up on another line. That kind of acting went out forty years ago." Afterward Neil said, "I was thinking, Gee, is this as bad as I think it is? I'd almost talked myself out of it being that bad until after, when people started coming up to me and saying things to make me feel better. Then I knew it really was that bad."

I never thought of Lee as being cruel, as others did. He was very truthful. When your ego prevented you from hearing the truth, Lee was willing to cut through your ego. Years later when I was teaching, I said to Lee one day, "Sometimes when I'm teaching, something will occur to me to say, but I know it will hurt the person's feelings and I hesitate to say it."

Lee answered, "You must be like a surgeon. When a surgeon has to cut, he doesn't say, 'Oh, this is going to hurt.' No, he just cuts." And he made a chop with his hand. That's what I saw him do. Cut through the defenses of a person. Did he succeed? Not always. Many times he did. But only if the person, the actor, was willing to move beyond his ego-defended ignorance and really learn. I have discovered that the only position from which one can learn is the position of not knowing. From there you say, "Teach me." Then the teacher can teach. I was blessed to be able to stand in that place. Whatever are the ingredients of that blessing, I don't know.

"Parting is such sweet sorrow."

I have found myself witness to a feline Romeo & Juliet situation in the last couple of days - between a black stray cat (who hangs out in my backyard) and Hope, perched on my windowsill.

It's hysterical.

In keeping with the Brando theme of the day:

Clip below of the famous taxicab scene in On the Waterfront.

A couple things to keep in mind:

1. In the closeups of Steiger, he wasn't even talking to Brando - Brando had left to go to his shrink. Steiger had done his closeups looking at Kazan. You would never know.

2. Please notice Brando's stress in the famous line; "I coulda been a contender ... I coulda been somebody". It is usually imitated incorrectly, people thinking they remember the line right - but they do not. They're actually imitating DeNiro DOING Brando, in the terrible (wonderfully terrible) scene at the end of Raging Bull. But Jake LaMotta gets the stress wrong - and people imitate THAT instead of the original. It is similar to "Play it again, Sam" - a line that never occurred in Casablanca, yet people somehow feel that it did. The On the Waterfront line is imitated with the stress put on the wrong syllable. The way Brando's line in On the Waterfront is imitated is: "I coulda been a contender ... I coulda BEEN somebody ..." but that's not how it is said by Brando in the film. Not at all. Watch where he puts the stress. And tell me, I dare you, how it could have been improved upon. It is so much more poignant, and unexpected and, ultimately, tragic - where he chooses (and yes yes yes Brando CHOSE - he was no dummy) to put the stress. (And what do you want to bet that DeNiro CHOSE to put the stress on the wrong syllable, to underline the point that Jake LaMotta just doesn't "get it".)

3. When his brother pulls the gun on him - the way it was written was to have Brando react - in a fearful manner. To be shocked and frightened, and say the following lines from that urgent and panicked emotional state. Brando just knew it was wrong. He couldn't say why. He tried to express himself to Kazan. "If my brother pulled a gun on me ... I wouldn't be all ... " He just knew it wasn't real. Kazan said, 'Okay - so show me how you would do it?" They played the scene. Steiger pulled the gun. And Brando's response - now an indelible moment in American cinema - came flowing out naturally. The sorrowful look, the almost "shame on you" glance he gives his brother - the regret, the loss, shaking his head, gently putting his hand on the gun, gentle, gentle, like, "No, no, you're my brother ... no ..." Brando always chose relationship over abstraction and that stunning moment is the best example I can think of. Kazan said later, about that most celebrated scene, "What other actor, when his brother draws a pistol to force him to do something shameful, would put his hand on the gun and push it away with the gentleness of a caress? Who else could read, 'Oh, Charley,' in a tone of reproach that is so loving and so melancholy, and suggests that terrific depth of pain? I didn't direct that; Marlon showed me, as he often did, how the scene should be performed. I never could have told him how to do that scene as well as he did it."

And lastly, please notice:

4. Brando, as we discussed earlier, taped his lines to the top of the cab roof, so he could glance up at them, for reference if he ever got lost during the scene. You can even catch him doing it. But it couldn't matter less. All of it flows, everything is part of the same objective, the same emotional action.

To this day, he has no peers.

Manso would have us look at the clip below and snicker - as though the mystique is somehow lost because we know Brando was reading the lines off the walls and ceiling.

What a shame.

Actors in any language ...

Seeing sites like this linking to me makes me more happy than I can even express.

Thanks! Hope you all like the book excerpts! Makes the world seem like a smaller place, and I love that.

The Books: "Brando: The Biography" (Peter Manso)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Brando: The Biography, by Peter Manso

Peter Manso has an opinion about Marlon Brando, and it colors this entire book - which is 10,000 pages long - so that's a long time to stick with a writer who has a low-level (sometimes high-level) strain of contempt for his subject. I do not share Manso's contempt - even for Brando's quirks of personality, his selfish side, his womanizing, his bad parenting, his naive politics, the list goes on and on ... Brando led a long life, checkered with questionable behavior, and some outright tragedy (that business with his daughter) ... but I seriously don't care about any of that. Or - I care, because it's interesting, and he's an interesting topic - but knowing about his flawed personality does not take away from his work as an actor, or his giant reputation. And I don't like a book that takes that tone. The problem here is a matter of tone. You may not feel that Brando is that good as an actor. But you had better make a damn good case for it - and it had better not be "Well, he was a womanizing asshole". If that is your reasoning, then you certainly won't mind if I don't take you seriously.

It is difficult to talk about genius, and it is difficult to analyze from whence it sprung. But Manso doesn't seem to be interested in that. He does get all the good anecdotes - things I have read before in other people's biographies and memoirs ... but they are sidelines to the freak show that was Marlon Brando's actual life (in Manso's opinion). There's a fine line to walk here, and many biographies are unable to do it. But then you look at the great ones - Richard Ellmann's book on James Joyce, Scott Berg's book on Lindbergh, David McCullough's book on John Adams ... and you can see the difference between those books and Manso's. I prefer a more even hand. I prefer a book that doesn't have an axe to grind. I am also not interested in fanboy rantings, which is bigotry of its own kind with its own blinders - but I certainly think that Brando deserves better treatment. Don't misunderstand me: I am not talking about judging him, or weighing in with ponderous opinions about his behavior, his politics, his trainwreck of a personal life. I don't care what some biographer JUDGES. There is quite a lot to "judge" (if you go for that sort of thing, and I don't) in the life of James Joyce, Charles Lindbergh, John Adams. They have personality foibles, flaws, they were men of great ego and sometimes vanity ... but nevertheless, it is the WORK that made them who they are ... and the biographies I mentioned above always seem to keep that in mind. They are not "neat" subjects - a human life never is ... but the biographers put them in their context, and do their best to surround them with the world they were living in ... so that their behavior is more easily understood. And then there are things that are just bad ideas, we all have had bad ideas in our own lives ... and those need to be treated with the same even hand. I'm not saying we can't judge John Adams for the Alien & Sedition Act but, as always, there is a deeper level of conversation surrounding that event - and if you don't "go there" as a biographer, if you sit on your lofty soapbox and condemn ... well, I, as a reader, lose interest. Because you know what? You're just some stupid guy writing a biography. Your SUBJECT will outlast you, no matter WHAT you write about him ... your impulse may be to tear him down, and sometimes a book succeeds in that goal (look at Mommie Dearest) - but I still believe that the subject, no matter her awful behavior or bad ideas, will outlast the smear-books. And THAT is something that some biographers cannot abide. I do not like those kinds of biographies. I like it when a subject is given its due. Peter Manso's book, which is enormous, came out with much fanfare - although Marlon Brando published his own autobiography in anticipation of what he felt Manso's book would do to his reputation ... and it did sort of steal the thunder of Manso's giant epic. The books were always mentioned together, they were always referenced in tandem ... Brando beat Manso to the punch by a couple of months, which is smart ... and while his thrown-together book is not all that good, it did manage to adjust the conversation that Manso was trying to start. It provided context. From the real guy. Good for Brando.

I read every word of Manso's book but there was a pettiness to it that is truly odd - I think of petty as being something small, so it's weird to read a book this long that ends up just feeling petty. For example, there's an anecdote about a scene in The Godfather where Brando had cue cards placed all over the set, out of camera range, so if he forgot his lines he could glance up and see it. He had done the same thing in the famous taxicab scene in On the Waterfront, which is one of the greatest pieces of acting ever done by an American actor. It was his process. Did having cue cards mean he was lazy? Or that he was somehow a faker? That he had "put one over" on the American public by not memorizing his lines in the taxicab scene? But look at the result! If NOT memorizing your lines looks like THAT, then please. Let's not memorize lines anymore. Manso does not understand that, and is interested in tearing down the myth of Brando. "You liked that taxicab scene? Did you know he was reading his lines off of cue cards on the ceiling??" My response is: "Yeah. So?" Everyone works differently. Creativity is not NEAT. Brando didn't sit down and memorize lines. Especially not in films - where it was so easy to just have lines taped out of camera view. He explained to Coppola that he had been doing this cue-card thing for a long time and that it helped him feel more spontaneous. Manso then makes a bitchy comment - something like, "How cue cards would make him feel more spontaneous, Marlon never explained ..." Like; Manso: are you an actor? Are you Marlon Brando? The man just explained his process. You may puff-puff on the sidelines how silly and unprofessional it is - but excuse me for saying: what the fuck do you know? I think your subject deserves more respect than that. Marlon Brando felt that having the lines taped around him, out of camera view, helped him relax - he wouldn't have to worry about memorizing, and he could glance up and see the words, which would put him right back where he needed to be. His process was always a flowing kind of thing. It was not rigorous (although it could be) ... it was intuitive. Lines were the LEAST of Brando's magic. Anyway, it's not that it's not an interesting conversation: Brando using cue cards ... it was Manso's bitchy little rejoinder afterwards that pissed me off (and the book is full of stuff like that).

The end result is that I start to feel defensive towards Brando. I start to talk to Peter Manso, as I read, like: "Dude, he was just working on his PART .. that's how he worked ... " But no. Everything was a weapon to Peter Manso to be used against Brando. I don't like that. Who cares if he taped his lines to the ceiling of the cab in On the Waterfront? He's Marlon fucking Brando. If that helps him, who are you to be a little bitch about it? If you don't understand that everyone has a different process, then I certainly can't explain it to you ... but that element of the book was VERY annoying.

Oh, and another annoying thing which I think tips Manso's hand: He always refers to Marlon as "Marlon". Most biographers maintain a sense of professionalism towards their subjects and refer to them throughout the book by their last name. McCullough refers to John Adams as "Adams". Ellmann speaks of "Joyce". Manso doesn't seem to believe that Marlon Brando deserves that respect. It gives the book a too-intimate feel, even spread out over 5,000 pages. Just call him "Brando", Manso. Come on. It won't kill you.

I sort of suffered through the long passages about his personal life - which Manso was very interested in, because Marlon was, you know, a terrible boyfriend, a womanizer, a compulsive sex freak, kind of amoral in his dealings with others, and a general MESS. Manso, again, was looking at all of that with a jaundiced eye, and while I can certainly understand that (I remember when Michael was reading the book when we were first dating, and he said something to me, like, "God, Marlon is such an awful person - it's making me feel really bad!") - I am more interested in what it was in all of that that contributed to who he was as an artist, OR - I am more interested in all of that just as the facts of the case. These are the facts. Just present them, please. Your prudey moralizing does not at all add to the book. It took away, in my opinion. So Marlon was an asshole as a boyfriend. Yeah, but have you seen On the Waterfront?? Who the hell cares? Marlon Brando was a giant actor who changed the way we judge acting. He was ALSO a terrible boyfriend and a mess, personally. BOTH are true. One does not cancel out the other. (This is a fight I've had on my site countless times. For example, in my Lana Turner tribute, someone said he didn't care for Lana Turner because she was "slutty". Yes. She was slutty. Have you seen The Bad and the Beautiful? Have you seen how good she could be, given the right material? Slutty/Good actress. Can't both be true? There is an interesting conversation to be had about Turner's reputation as an actress - what she is remembered for, and what she is NOT remembered for - and there is also such a thing as personal taste, and maybe Lana Turner is not everyone's cup of tea - there's an interesting conversation to be had about THAT as well, but to lead off with the comment that she was "slutty" ... I don't know. It's just a very boring conversation to me.)

Marlon Brando is a GIANT figure, and of course - giant figures just BEG to be torn down.

I began to realize, maybe 200, 300 pages in, that this was a smear book, and to not read it as anything else. Don't look for balance. There is none.

As always, I am in it for the ANECDOTES - and in a book of this length, no stone is left unturned. Manso appears to have interviewed everybody. Despite the fact that the focus of the book was on Brando's asshole personality (who cares??) - there are some great stories told. One involved Brando, pre-fame, in an acting class run by Stella Adler. She gave the students an improvisation: you are all animals in a barnyard, and suddenly you look up - and see a nuclear bomb is coming down to hit you. Adler's point was to free the actors up, physically ... to make them embody animals (always a great exercise for any actor - and many great performances have been based on animals - DeNiro said he thought of "crabs" when he was creating Travis Bickle, the sideways way they move, how they never ever appraoch anything head on ... Interesting - but that's just one example. Animals are great fodder for actors!) - and Adler wanted them to not just sit around Oinking like a pig but to be the animal ... and then, once that was established, to be the animal in a panicked situation. Total change of situation. Well, the improvisation began, and the students began to race around the room - clucking and mooing and baahing - and basically freaking out because they were about to be incinerated by a nuclear blast. And Adler looked over and Marlon, who was playing a "hen", sat on his egg, legs haunched up beside him, clucking, and preening his feathers, completely oblivious to the chaos around him. He would check on his egg, settle himself down again, cluck a couple of times, stretch his "wings", cluck some more ... Adler asked him later what was going on, and why he didn't react to the impending apocalypse. Brando said something like, "A hen doesn't understand nuclear warfare. A hen doesn't know what a bomb is. She has no consciousness of what all of that would mean." Brando would never be a jester. He would never do anything on command. His sense of truth was rock-solid, and he wasn't being willful or difficult with Adler ... it's just that he could not be forced to play a game when he had a deep problem with the truth therein. Adler LOVED that about him.

She said, in regards to Marlon Brando, "Sending Marlon Brando to acting class was like sending a tiger to jungle school."

She watched him cluck like a hen, oblivious to the nuclear bomb coming at him, and saw his genius. He was only 19 years old at the time, maybe 18. But she saw it then.

I am not calling for a fanatical DEFENSE of Brando, either. I am asking for an evenhanded examination - in the same way that Berg took on his controversial topic with Lindbergh. For many people, Lindbergh's pro-German anti-war attitudes are enough to cancel out the good will he had generated during his flight in 1927 and his baby's kidnapping. I happen to not agree with that. The guy is an interesting man, sometimes infuriating, but always interesting - and every single bit of it deserves to go into a biography, to get the fullest portrait possible of this 20th century figure. But without the moralizing shaking-of-the-finger of the biographer, sitting at his comfortable 21st century laptop, separate from the events that try men's souls.

Manso had an axe to grind with Brando.

I think Brando deserves better.

Here's an excerpt about Brando playing Mark Antony in Julius Caesar. I love the stories surrounding this film because it just messes with anyone's pre-conceived IDEAS about Brando. He worked on that part. He had John Gielgud read out the part of Mark Antony into a tape recorder so that he could imitate Gielgud's immaculate scansion. He spoke in iambic pentameter, learning how natural that rhythm is - and how IT shows YOU where to put the stress. And he obeyed. He obeyed the larger commands - of "how" to do Shakespeare, and how to breathe, and speak, and pause - the thought is IN the line Brando, a master at subtext, was able to submit to the demands of this kind of work - and I happen to think he's great as Antony. So did Gielgud.

Here's the excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Brando: The Biography, by Peter Manso

While his personal life seemed chaotic, in front of the camera he continued to give the impression of being "very relaxed," even though he was coming up on his real test as a classical actor: the forum scene. His weekend preparation had been so extensive that he even took the unusual step of reading the scene with Houseman, explaining his discoveries in a state of excitement. Recalled the producer, "Suddenly he had discovered that with a dramatist of Shakespeare's genius and in a speech as brilliantly and elaborately written as Antony's oration, it was not necessary nor even possible to play between the lines, and that having in his own mind created the character and personality of Antony, he must let Shakespeare's words carry the full flood of his own emotion from the beginning to the end of the scene."

It was a denial of Method "subtext", which might well be equated with Mankiewicz's joyous insistence that he was simply doing the job at hand. "I realize now that you've got to play the text," Brando had said. "You can't play under it, or above it, or around it, as we do in contemporary theater. The text is everything.

As the scene began, the crowd listened to Mason's Brutus, showing every evidence of being swayed. When Marlon entered from the wings carrying Louis Calhern, six feet five and heavy, he placed the boy of Caesar at Brutus's feet. "Friends, Romans, countrymen ..." he began. The crowd, made up of 250 extras, spontaneously interrupted, not allowing him to go on. He started again, only to be interrupted, and Mankiewicz, who had primed the extras to interfere, now shouted at him, "Get mad!" In his saffron-colored toga, Brando began again.

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears," he leaned into it, as the extras fell silent. The speech went on unbroken for its thirty-four lines, Brando's voice rising like a torrent until reaching its climax. With the director's "Cut!" nobody moved. Then from every corner of MGM's stage 24, the crew burst into applause.

"I felt a fucking chill go up my spine," Mankiewicz recalls. "It was the greatest moment I have ever felt as a director ... It's what made [my] whole career worthwhile."

By shooting "tight", with alternating close-ups of Marc Antony and individual faces in the mob, Mankiewicz gradually accelerated the rhythm of the suspense. For Gielgud, the strategy seemed senseless, especially when Marlon's voice started to go.

"They would photograph [Marlon] for a couple of days in the taxing speeches of the forum scene," said Gielgud," and then he would lose his voice and be unable to work. They would fill in time by filming the extras, taking a lot of shots of faces in the crowd responding, then Brando would recover and come down to the studio to do another speech. I imagine that the director hoped he could put it all together in the cutting room, but Shakespeare is too big for that."

Mankiewicz was already off his tight shooting schedule, but even Houseman, who as producer was ultimately responsible for production delays, continued to marvel at Brando's forbearance. "During that long week of shooting," he explained, "he went through his speech over and over, without once losing his energy or his concentration. When he faltered or flubbed a line, he would stop, apologize, compose himself, and start afresh."

Probably the best thing about hanging out with a cat on a daily basis is:

-- that she is NEVER not being wholly herself. Every moment is 100% true. Her annoyance is obvious, when it comes. Her impatience. Her adrenaline. Her laziness. Whoever she is in any given moment, she IS that with every fiber of her soul. There is no pretense. She just IS. She stretches, she rips my Netflix envelopes to shreds, she purrs like a locomotive when I walk in the door, she flips out when I bust out the cans from the cupboard (she now knows what that means), she lies on the windowsill staring out at the world, she has fits of insanity where her own tail occurs to her as a demonic force with a mind of its own, she growls in a low alarming way when she sees a stray cat stroll through our backyard, she glances up at me, as if to say, "is it okay? Is everything okay?"

Yes, Hope dear, everything is okay.

Hope was abandoned in a box on the doorstep of the Petco in Union Square. Someone didn't want to deal with the responsibility of ownership and so they plopped her down on the sidewalk, knowing that Kitty Kind, the adoption agency that runs out of Petco, would deal with her. But the thought of it makes me see red. She sat in that box the entire night, until a Petco employee showed up the next morning to unlock the door. She must have been terrified.

She appears to be adjusting nicely to a regular life, and she trusts me enough to lie on her back in the middle of my floor, exposing her white belly to me and to all the world, and in that moment - she is wholly being herself as well.

It's awesome.

Welcome home, little furrball.

Tolstoy Zingers

One of the things I love best about War and Peace is how action-packed it is ... and yet how, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, we get these psychological ZINGERS thrown at us - which have such the ring of truth that I am amazed at the insight. These are things I have also perceived - in myself, and in my fellow man - foibles, vanities, whatever ... but the way Tolstoy just boils it down is one of the most thrilling parts, for me, of his writing style.

Zingers:

Page 10

Ellen was so lovely that she was not merely free from the slightest shade of coquetry, she seemed on the contrary ashamed of the too evident, too violent and all-conquering influence of her beauty. She seemed to wish but to be unable to soften the effect of her beauty.

Page 19

He looked at them all and smiled. His smile was utterly unlike the half-smile of all the others. When he smiled, suddenly, instantaneously, his serious, even rather sullen, face vanished completely, and a quite different face appeared, childish, good-humoured, even rather stupid, that seemed to beg indulgence.

Page 61

Berg talked very precisely, serenely, and politely. All he said was always concerning himself. He always maintained a serene silence when any subject was discussed that had no direct bearing on himself. And he could be silent in that way for several hours at a time, neither experiencing nor causing in others the slightest embarrassment. But as soon as the conversation concerned him personally, he began to talk at length and with visible satisfaction.

Page 167

He was one of those diplomats who like work and understand it, and in spite of his natural indolence, he often spent nights at his writing-table. He worked equally well whatever the object of his work might be. He was interested not in the question "Why?" but in the question "How?"

Page 263

He was about to embrace his friend, but Nikolay drew back from him. With that peculiarly youthful feeling of fearing beaten tracks, of wanting to avoid imitation, to express one's feelings in some new way of one's own, so as to escape the forms often conventionally used by others, Nikolay wanted to do something striking on meeting his friend. He wanted someone to give him a pinch, to give Berg a shove, anything rather than to kiss, as people always did on such occasions.

Page 326

So trivial seemed to him at that moment all the interests that were engrossing Napoleon, so petty seemed to him his hero, with his paltry vanity and glee of victory, in comparison with that lofty, righteous, and kindly sky which he had seen and comprehended, that he could not answer him. And all indeed seemed to him so trifling and unprofitable beside the stern and solemn train of thought aroused in him by weakness from loss of blood, by suffering and the nearness of death. Gazing into Napoleon's eyes, Prince Andrey mused on the nothingness of greatness, on the nothingness of life, of which no one could comprehend the significance, and on the nothingness - still more - of death, the meaning of which could be understood and explained by none of the living.

Page 362

The feeling that Princess Marya was experiencing as she sat in her room had overpowered the whole house and taken possession of every one. Owing to the belief that the fewer people know of the sufferings of a woman in labour, the less she suffers, every one tried to affect to know nothing of it; no one talked about it, but over and above the habitual staidness and respectfulness of good manners that always reigned in the prince's household, there was apparent in all a sort of anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a consciousness of some great, unfathomable mystery being accomplished at that moment.

Page 388

But now in the solitude of his journey they seized upon him with special force. Of whatever he began thinking he came back to the same questions, which he could not answer, and from which he could not escape. It was as though the chief screw in his brain upon which his whole life rested were loose. The screw moved no forwarder, no backwarder, but still it turned, catching on nothing, always in the same groove, and there was no making it cease turning.

Page 460

Rostov had been out of humour from the moment when he detected the dissatisfaction on the face of Boris, and as is always the case with persons who are ill-humoured, it seemed to him that every one looked at him with hostile eyes, and that he was in every one's way.

Page 523

He was a passionate adherent of the new ideas and of Speransky, and the busiest purveyor of news in Petersburg, one of those men who choose their opinions like their clothes - according to the fashion - but for that very reason seem the most vehement partisans.

Page 533

"Yes, that is true, prince. In these days," pursued Vera (talking of "these days", as persons of limited intellect as a rule love to do, supposing they have discovered and estimated the peculiarities of the times and that human characteristics do change with the times, "in these days a girl has so much liberty that the pleasure of being paid attention often stifles these feelings in her."

Oh, oh, oh, how I love that last one. Yes, it validates me in one of my biggest pet peeves, but that's part of Tolstoy's beauty. He throws in zingers - some where we recognize ourselves and wince, some where we recognize others and cheer ... some where perhaps we are not ready to recognize ourselves, and say, "hahaha Yes, isn't it annoying when OTHER people do that??" - not aware (yet) that we may exhibit those characteristics ourselves.

It is a book that requires engagement on that level, and I adore it.

Today in history: August 7, 1934

The US Court of Appeals judged Ulysses by James Joyce to be NOT obscene and declared that the book could be admitted into the United States. Here's what the first American edition of that book looked like:

Morris L. Ernst, counsel for Random House - who successfully defended the book against obscenity charges in 1933-34 - wrote in his foreward to the 1934 edition:

It would be difficult to underestimate the importance of Judge Woolsey's decision. For decades the censors have fought to emasculate literature. They have tried to set up the sensibilities of the prudery-ridden as a criterion for society, have sought to reduce the reading matter of adults to the level of adolescents and subnormal persons, and have nurtured evasions and sanctimonies.

Here is Judge Woolsey's decision in its entirety - it's a masterpiece of its kind. Not only is it an important legal decision, but it ends up being an acutely sensitive analysis of the book itself:

United States Discrict Court, Southern District of New York, Opinion A. 110-59

December 6, 1933

On cross motions for a decree in a libel of confiscation, supplemented by a stipulation -- hereinafter described -- brought by the United States against the book "Ulysses" by James Joyce, under Section 305 of the Tariff Act of 1930, Title 19 United States Code, Section 1305, on the ground that the book is obscene within the meaning of that Section, and, hence, is not importable into the United States, but is subject to seizure, forfeiture and confiscation and destruction.

United States Attorney -- by Samuel C. Coleman, Esq., and Nicholas Atlas, Esq., of counsel -- for the United States, in support of motion for a decree of forfeiture, and in opposition to motion for a decree dismissing the libel.

Messrs. Greenbaum, Wolff and Ernst, -- by Morris L. Ernst, Esq., and Alexander Lindey, Esq., of counsel -- attorneys for claimant Random House, Inc., in support of motion for a decree dismissing the libel, and in opposition to a motion for a decree of forfeiture.

WOOLSEY, J:
The motion for a decree dismissing the libel herein is granted, and, consequently, of course, the Government's motion for a decree of forfeiture and destruction is denied.

Accordingly a decree dismissing the libel without costs may be entered herein.

1. The practice followed in this case is in accordance with the suggestion made by me in the case of United States v. One Book Entitled "Contraception", 51 F. (2d) 525, and is as follows:

After issue was joined by the filing of the claimant's answer to the libel for forfeiture against "Ulysses", a stipulation was made between the United States Attorney's office and the attorneys for the claimant providing:

1. That the book "Ulysses" should be deemed to have been annexed to and to have become part of the libel just as if it had been incorporated in its entirety therein.
2. That the parties waived their right to a trial by jury.
3. That each party agreed to move for decree in its favor.
4. That on such cross motions the Court might decide all the questions of law and fact involved and render a general finding thereon.
5. That on the decision of such motions the decree of the Court might be entered as if it were a decree after trial.

It seems to me that a procedure of this kind is highly appropriate in libels for the confiscation of books such as this. It is an especially advantageous procedure in the instant case because on account of the length of "Ulysses" and the difficulty of reading it, a jury trial would have been an extremely unsatisfactory, if not an almost impossible, method of dealing with it.

2. I have read "Ulysses" once in its entirety and I have read those passages of which the Government particularly complains several times. In fact, for many weeks, my spare time has been devoted to the consideration of the decision which my duty would require me to make in this matter.

"Ulysses" is not an easy book to read or to understand. But there has been much written about it, and in order properly to approach the consideration of it it is advisable to read a number of other books which have now become its satellites. The study of "Ulysses" is, therefore, a heavy task.

3. The reputation of "Ulysses" in the literary world, however, warranted my taking such time as was necessary to enable me to satisfy myself as to the intent with which the book was written, for, of course, in any case where a book is claimed to be obscene it must first be determined, whether the intent with which it was written was what is called, according to the usual phrase, pornographic, -- that is, written for the purpose of exploiting obscenity.

If the conclusion is that the book is pornographic that is the end of the inquiry and forfeiture must follow.

But in "Ulysses", in spite of its unusual frankness, I do not detect anywhere the leer of the sensualist. I hold, therefore, that it is not pornographic.

4. In writing "Ulysses", Joyce sought to make a serious experiment in a new, if not wholly novel, literary genre. He takes persons of the lower middle class living in Dublin in 1904 and seeks not only to describe what they did on a certain day early in June of that year as they went about the City bent on their usual occupations, but also to tell what many of them thought about the while.

Joyce has attempted -- it seems to me, with astonishing success -- to show how the screen of consciousness with its ever-shifting kaleidoscopic impressions carries, as it were on a plastic palimpsest, not only what is in the focus of each man's observation of the actual things about him, but also in a penumbral zone residua of past impressions, some recent and some drawn up by association from the domain of the subconscious. He shows how each of these impressions affects the life and behavior of the character which he is describing.

What he seeks to get is not unlike the result of a double or, if that is possible, a multiple exposure on a cinema film which would give a clear foreground with a background visible but somewhat blurred and out of focus in varying degrees.

To convey by words an effect which obviously lends itself more appropriately to a graphic technique, accounts, it seems to me, for much of the obscurity which meets a reader of "Ulysses". And it also explains another aspect of the book, which I have further to consider, namely, Joyce's sincerity and his honest effort to show exactly how the minds of his characters operate.

If Joyce did not attempt to be honest in developing the technique which he has adopted in "Ulysses" the result would be psychologically misleading and thus unfaithful to his chosen technique. Such an attitude would be artistically inexcusable.

It is because Joyce has been loyal to his technique and has not funked its necessary implications, but has honestly attempted to tell fully what his characters think about, that he has been the subject of so many attacks and that his purpose has been so often misunderstood and misrepresented. For his attempt sincerely and honestly to realize his objective has required him incidentally to use certain words which are generally considered dirty words and has led at times to what many think is a too poignant preoccupation with sex in the thoughts of his characters.

The words which are criticized as dirty are old Saxon words known to almost all men and, I venture, to many women, and are such words as would be naturally and habitually used, I believe by the types of folk whose life, physical and mental, Joyce is seeking to describe. In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.

Whether or not one enjoys such a technique as Joyce uses is a matter of taste on which disagreement or argument is futile, but to subject that technique to the standards of some other technique seems to me to be little short of absurd.

Accordingly, I hold that "Ulysses" is a sincere and honest book and I think that the criticisms of it are entirely disposed of by its rationale.

5. Furthermore, "Ulysses" is an amazing tour de force when one considers the success which has been in the main achieved with such a difficult objective as Joyce set for himself. As I have stated, "Ulysses" is not an easy book to read. It is brilliant and dull, intelligible and obscure by turns. In many places it seems to me to be disgusting, but although it contains, as I have mentioned above, many words usually considered dirty, I have not found anything that I consider to be dirt for dirt's sake. Each word of the book contributes like a bit of mosaic to the detail of the picture which Joyce is seeking to construct for his readers.

If one does not wish to associate with such folk as Joyce describes, that is one's own choice. In order to avoid indirect contact with them one may not wish to read "Ulysses"; that is quite understandable. But when such a real artist in words, as Joyce undoubtedly is, seeks to draw a true picture of the lower middle class in a European city, ought it to be impossible for the American public legally to see that picture?

To answer this question it is not sufficient merely to find, as I have found above, that Joyce did not write "Ulysses" with what is commonly called pornographic intent, I must endeavor to apply a more objective standard to his book in order to determine its effect in the result, irrespective of the intent with which it was written.

6. The statute under which the libel is filed only denounces, in so far as we are here concerned, the importation into the United States from any foreign country of "any obscene book". Section 305 of the Tariff Act of 1930, Title 19 United States Code, Section 1305. It does not marshal against books the spectrum of condemnatory adjectives found, commonly, in laws dealing with matters of this kind. I am, therefore, only required to determine whether "Ulysses" is obscene within the legal definition of that word.

The meaning of the word "obscene" as legally defined by the Courts is: tending to stir the sex impulses or to lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts. Dunlop v. United States, 165 U.S. 486, 501; United States v. One Book Entitled "Contraception", 51 F. (2d) 525, 528; and compare Dysart v. United States, 272 U.S. 655, 657; Swearingen v. United States 151 U.S. 446, 450; United States v. Dennett, 39 F. (2d) 564, 568 (C.C.A. 2); People v. Wendling, 258 N.Y. 451, 453.

Whether a particular book would tend to excite such impulses and thoughts must be tested by the Court's opinion as to its effect on a person with average sex instincts -- what the French would call l'homme moyen sensuel -- who plays, in this branch of legal inquiry, the same role of hypothetical reagent as does the "reasonable man" in the law of torts and "the man learned in the art" on questions of invention in patent law.

The risk involved in the use of such a reagent arises from the inherent tendency of the trier of facts, however fair he may intend to be, to make his reagent too much subservient to his own idiosyncrasies. Here, I have attempted to avoid this, if possible, and to make my reagent herein more objective than he might otherwise be, by adopting the following course:

After I had made my decision in regard to the aspect of "Ulysses", now under consideration, I checked my impressions with two friends of mine who in my opinion answered to the above stated requirement for my reagent.

These literary assessors -- as I might properly describe them -- were called on separately, and neither knew that I was consulting the other. They are men whose opinion on literature and on life I value most highly. They had both read "Ulysses", and, of course, were wholly unconnected with this cause.

Without letting either of my assessors know what my decision was, I gave to each of them the legal definition of obscene and asked each whether in his opinion "Ulysses" was obscene within that definition.

I was interested to find that they both agreed with my opinion: that reading "Ulysses" in its entirety, as a book must be read on such a test as this, did not tend to excite sexual impulses or lustful thoughts but that its net effect on them was only that of a somewhat tragic and very powerful commentary on the inner lives of men and women.

It is only with the normal person that the law is concerned. Such a test as I have described, therefore, is the only proper test of obscenity in the case of a book like "Ulysses" which is a sincere and serious attempt to devise a new literary method for the observation and description of mankind.

I am quite aware that owing to some of its scenes "Ulysses" is a rather strong draught to ask some sensitive, though normal, persons to take. But my considered opinion, after long reflection, is that whilst in many places the effect of "Ulysses" on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac.

"Ulysses" may, therefore, be admitted into the United States.

JOHN M. WOOLSEY
United States District Judge

My favorite line of the whole thing:

In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season Spring.

To quote Joyce - whose words have been at the top of my blog since I started this damn thing:

This race and this country and this life produced me, he said. I shall express myself as I am.

All my Ulysses book excerpts can be found as links on this page.

The Books: "Marlon Brando" (Patricia Bosworth)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Marlon Brando, by Patricia Bosworth

This tiny book is part of the absolutely wonderful Penguin Lives series (article about it here) - short condensed little biographies - which certainly will not take the place of more extensive works, but are great additions to any library. Patricia Bosworth is a writer, playwright, member of the Actors Studio, and wrote what I consider to be one of the best biographies out there - her work on Montgomery Clift. It is absolutely magnificent. She knows her way around that era, certainly, and knows intimately how to speak about what genius is as an actor, and why some people have it and some people don't. I've read the Peter Manso Brando biography - (more on that later) - and Bosworth's book does not break new ground - at least not for Brando fanatics - all of the anecdotes in the book are well-known, you've heard them before, they are now in the pantheon of Hollywood legends. But her writing is so good, so spare and yet also so emotional, that it doesn't feel like a re-tread. It feels like a re-examination of the nature of Brando's talent, and also his torment. What drove him? Where does talent lie? Where did his contempt come from? How was he able to use it? Or ... not use it, as the case increasingly was in his life? Who was he?? Did he love acting? Or was it something he just happened to be good at? Marlon Brando is, of course, a complex person, not always easy to like, but always interesting. There are times when you want to shake him. There are times when you want him to change his attitude. But then: the stories about his acting, when he was at his peak, and how he worked - how intuitive it was - you really never caught him TALKING about it a lot ... he just knew how to do it, not a lot of chatter or intellectualization ... These stories are so so dear to me. I encountered many of them in my earliest years, during my James Dean research period ... and I had seen Streetcar Named Desire by the time I was 14, 15 years old. It was some of the best acting I had ever seen in my life.

And two stories from the shooting of Waterfront illustrate, to me, now and forever, just what it was about Brando that was so special and unique as an actor. The "glove" scene and how he re-did the "taxicab" scene. It is not just that he knew how to act - that's a given. It's that there was so much thought behind it ... and that is something he certainly does not get enough credit for. And he was lucky that in Kazan he got a director who so trusted Brando's instincts that if Brando said, "This doesn't feel right," he listened. Because Brando knew. He may have been an asshole in his personal life, a wreck, a self-destructive womanizer, whatever ... who cares. He knew what was real and what wasn't.

The story of shooting On the Waterfront is well-known. They shot it in Hoboken, on the docks, in the frigid winter Kazan preferred to shoot on location. That fact gives On the Waterfront such a sense of documentary-film reality that it just wouldn't have had if a set had been built on a soundstage somewhere.

The excerpt below has to do with On the Waterfront.

Like I said, for someone like myself who has been hearing these stories - from this person's biography, from that person's biography - since I was a teenager, this is all well-trod ground, but Bosworth's writing is so nice and clear and powerful when it needs to be - that this book was a pleasure to read.

EXCERPT FROM Marlon Brando, by Patricia Bosworth

The first read-through of On the Waterfront was held at the Actors Studio on November 15, 1953. The entire cast was present: Lee J. Cobb as the corrupt union boss, Karl Malden as the chain-smoking waterfront priest, Rod Steiger as Terry's two-faced older brother, other actors from the studio - Martin Balsam, Leif Erickson, Rudy Bond, Ward Costello - and Brando, of course, chewing gum and looking very serious. Then there was a fragile twenty-one-year-old blond actress named Eva Marie Saint, who'd been cast only two days before as Terry's girl, Edie Doyle, after Kazan decided against using Joanne Woodward. Malden had suggested Eva Saint. He'd worked with her in a scene at the studio and thought she'd be perfect. She'd auditioned for Kazan with Brando. Together they'd done a little improvisation. "Marlon just asked me to dance and then he took me in his arms and we twirled around the floor, and there was so much at stake for me and it was so emotionally powerful, I burst into tears," Saint recalled.

The day-by-day shoot of Waterfront was brutal. Temperatures hovered below zero on the frigid Hoboken piers, where most of the movie was shot. There were constant problems with waterfront thugs. The word was out that the script was actually very critical of the Mafia. After a while Kazan hired a bodyguard. Brando, dressed in a greasy plaid jacket and old work pants, took the subway every morning with Saint; he thought if he traveled the tube with a lot of other regular joes, he'd soak up more atmosphere. As soon as they arrived on the docks, they huddled by big bonfires flaring in steel drums, or they escaped into the local hotel, inappropriately named the Grand, for hot coffee.

In the beginning of Waterfront, Brando, as Terry Malloy, appears semiconscious, unaware of the struggle that appears to be going on inside him. He doesn't even seem to be listening at first; this is about a man who starts to hear after being psychologically deaf.

"The real action for Terry is an inner one. The drama is internal," Kazan kept saying. "He tries to swagger and appear jaunty, but what betrays him are his eyes." The way Brando uses his eyes in Waterfront is the key to his characterization. When Terry realizes he's being used by union bosses to set up the murder of a dockworker, you see him struggling to think for the first time. His sidelong glances and faraway looks signal character confusion as the tug-of-war inside himself between conscience and complacency develops into a full-scae battle. There is a double drama going on between what Terry says and what Terry feels and thinks, and Brando always shows us how the character thinks, without saying a word. You can see the thoughts passing across his face and eyes, and you can hear how "his insides jam up his voice ... His furtive looks complement the fractured speech patterns he develops," wrote Foster Hirsch in his detailed study Acting Hollywood Style.

***

Eva Marie Saint remembers how kind Brando was to her. It was her first picture; she was nervous and scared. "Marlon and I would have lunch every day," and when she got cold, he would wrap her up in blankets and give her back rubs, but always in character as Terry. "He was Terry," she said. Their relationship on-screen is fragile and physical and truly beautiful to watch. There is intimacy between them because they don't touch until the middle of the movie, when they have that explosive embrace in her bedroom after he has broken down the door to force her to admit she loves him.

The two of them have many memorable scenes together, especially the celebrated glove scene, which started off as an improvisation. Saint says, "In that scene there was no reason for me to talk to him because he was implicated in my brother's murder. And then Marlon suggested, 'Drop your glove,' and I did, and he picked it up and put it on his own hand. If he hadn't done that, I would have walked off, but it was freezing cold, and I wanted my glove back, so we started to talk."

Throughout the movie Brando seemed to work off Saint, and she in turn worked off him. The intensity between them is magnetic. "Marlon was involved, which is different from being committed," Kazan said. "Most of it was underneath. His immersion in Terry was complete."

This was most vividly expressed in the justly famous taxicab scene between Rod Steiger and Brando. Peter Manso describes this scene, which was shot on an especially chaotic day. They'd originally planned to film it in traffic, but it proved too time-consuming. Then they discovered that Spiegel had been too cheap to get them a real cab, and they had to improvise in the shell of an old one, on a sound stage, with no rear projection to provide a background. So cinematographer Boris Kaufman hung up some venetian blinds in the back of the cab and shot through them, while two crew members rocked the shell of the cab back and forth to simulate a moving vehicle, and electricians spun sticks and brushes in front of the lights to simulate the headlights of oncoming traffic.

Brando did not like the scene as written and told Schulberg. The screenwriter was already annoyed because Brando had been ad-libbing a lot of his dialogue during the shoot. Kazan called a hasty meeting. "So what don't you like, Marlon?"

"Well, I don't th ink I could be saying, 'Awww, Charley, I coulda been a contender,' when a gun is being pressed against my ribs and the guy sticking me with the gun is my brother."

There was a long pause, and then Kazan suggested, "Why don't you improvise?"

What followed became one of the most unforgettable expressions of self-awareness on the part of a male hero in the history of American film, "the contrast of the tough-guy front and the extreme delicacy and gentle cast of his behavior," Kazan wrote in A Life. "What other actor, when his brother draws a pistol to force him to do something shameful, would put his hand on the gun and push it away with the gentleness of a caress? Who else could read, 'Oh, Charley,' in a tone of reproach that is so loving and so melancholy, and suggests that terrific depth of pain? I didn't direct that; Marlon showed me, as he often did, how the scene should be performed. I never could have told him how to do that scene as well as he did it."

As soon as Brando's close-up was done, "Marlon left to keep his daily appointment with the shrink," Kazan says. Steiger didn't know why Brando walked off, so he took it as a personal affront. Kazan then stepped forward and read Brando's lines for Steiger's close-up, "which Rod did brilliantly." But Steiger was furious and never forgave either man.

Playing Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront was the peak of Brando's career, but after filming he'd sometimes wander the streets till dawn, or he'd go back to his apartment and hang on the telephone with someone till he dozed off. Occasionally he'd appear at a Mailer party and just sit there "like a buddha". Sometimes he'd play his congas for hours, hoping he'd find relief, beating out the rhythms he'd learned at Dunham's.

It kept getting harder and harder to act, to pull the emotional internal stuff out of him, although Kazan marveled at his surprising delicacy. When Brando filmed one of the most powerful scenes in the movie, in which he discovers his brother's dead body, left by union thugs to hang from a hook, at first he barely touches him. Then he puts his hands on the wall on either side of him but doesn't look at him. When he lifts him off the hook, he drapes his brother's hands around his neck; it's almost like an embrace. "It's a kind of symmetry that gives a mythic feeling to the entire picture," Jeff Young writes. But afterward Brando, exhausted by what the scene had taken out of him, visited the actress Barbara Baxley and kept repeating, "I don't think I'm good enough. I don't think I'm good enough."

Snapshots

-- Still making my way thru War and Peace, a couple chapters a day. Still only on page 540 ... but it's riveting. It's not a boring read and even the long sections about the freemasons end up adding to the general picture of a society in some sort of spiritual crisis. I am loving it. Patience, Sheila, patience.

-- What's up with Hope, you ask? Well, you know what they say. If it ain't broke ...

-- I was in the elevator with Philip Seymour Hoffman yesterday. He looked terrific, in a suit and tie, and was bitching to his friend about Internet Explorer. I am not even kidding. Hoffman is my new best friend.

-- Great business dinner the other night, with plans and priorities set. Words of wisdom that I have been thinking a lot about: "Don't prioritize your schedule. Schedule your priorities." I have really been chewing on that ... it means more to me the more I think about it. I am trying to make that shift in my thinking. What are my priorities - which are separate from my To Do List? My long-term priorities? I need to schedule them.

-- Watched Some Came Running the other night for the 500th time and was struck yet again (SPOILERS FOLLOWING) by the grace, humor and decadence (and inherent decency as well) of Dean Martin's performance, of how much I related to the schoolteacher - she is me - and also how Shirley Maclaine's performance may be a bit too BUSY for my taste - but in the end, it doesn't matter. Her death packs an enormous punch, and her death scene too is one that should be studied by actors as "how to do it". I think a lot of that comes from her life as a dancer, and her control of her body, but the way she flings herself into space, catapulting onto the prone Frank Sinatra ... heart-breaking. Beautifully done. Vincente Minnelli said he wanted the movie to look like "the inside of a jukebox" and, as always with his films, the production design is exquisite.

-- My computer literally made me cry today. I burst into tears at the bugginess, the frozen screens, the slowness (DAMN YOU MOBILE ME), the mishaps, the sludgy response time ... I was amazed at how quickly I was undone. I went outside and stood on the sidewalk weeping. Retarded. Of course I wasn't crying about the computer - it was about everything else ... and actually, in retrospect, it was a nice release. Much needed.

-- I miss my family.

-- I can't get enough of the Mamma Mia soundtrack, especially Meryl Streep's nearly psychotic version of "Money Money Money". Sheer liquid JOY. She is an Id run amok.

-- Thinking about the last line from About a Boy a lot these days. "You need backup." That's where a lot of my tears came from today. Feeling like a lost little lamb. Like I need backup.

-- I want to crawl in the sink with Hope, is basically what I'm saying.

-- Watching Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev tonight. Perhaps a sweeping controversial saga about a 15th century Russian monk will be just the ticket.

-- Is it fall yet? I hate summer.

-- Thrilling news - the production of The Seagull with Kristin Scott Thomas that I moaned about not being able to see last year is coming to New York this fall for a limited run. Count me in!!

Happy birthday, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Well, Tennyson came up last night, as we sat talking over wine and cheese, in a conversation we were having about poets we loved. We also discussed politics, morons, reading, acting, the new production of Hair in Central Park, resumes, weddings, our pets, and Angelina Jolie. But Tennyson came up, too. So this morning, when I saw it was his birthday, I just thought it was too much of a coincidence (how often do I have an in-depth conversation about Tennyson? Not enough, I'm thinking) NOT to post a birthday message to the man. There is some of Tennyson I can take, some I can leave - but then, there are lines which reverberate through my whole life - and not just the most famous "red in tooth and claw" lines, but other ones ... taking on deeply personal meanings, phrases I cannot imagine doing without. Guiding posts. Or - not just "guiding posts", but glimpses of a world so beautiful, so vaulted and important, that it is almost blinding to the eye. For example (and this is my favorite of all of Tennyson's words he ever wrote):

THE splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

That is just NEVER not satisfying to me to read. And I mean "satisfying" in almost a spiritual sense, a sense of rightness and perfection, vibrating through that verse.

So if a poet has one or two of those lines in his long lifetime, well - then I should say he is a success. (Like the last verse of "Ulysses" below.)

Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle -
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me -
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

And so, in honor of the man's birthday, and in honor of how weird it was that he was just discussed at length last night in a little wine bar in Manhattan ... here is a compilation of quotes about the man, and from the man.

The bower we shrined to Tennyson
Gentlemen,
Is roof-wrecked; damps there drip upon
Sagged seats, the creeper-nails are rust,
The spider is sole denizen;
Even she who voiced those rhymes is dust,
Gentlemen!
-- Thomas Hardy, "An Ancient to Ancients"

"I cannot think he is a supremely great poet. There is something lacking in him. He is very beautiful -- very graceful. In short, the Perfect Artist. But he seldom lets us forget the artist -- we are never swept away -- Not he -- he flows on serenely. And that is good. But an occasional bit of wild nature would make it better still." -- LM Montgomery in her journal

"On the bald street breaks the blank day." -- Tennyson

"Do you know, a horrible thing has happened to me. I have begun to doubt Tennyson." -- Gerard Manley Hopkins

"Even excluding the plays, it is a vast body of work: poems of feeling and of sentiment, poems of thought and of received opinion. When Browning acquired an audience, he turned garrulous. Tennyson turned sententious. But the Representative Voice does not merely entertain doubts, he actually feels them; his politics, like his religion, are rooted in memory of the past and fear of the future. A liberal, he distrusts progressivism even as he acknowledges the injustices and evils that make it necessary. Tennyson is an intellectual enigma, which is why many take him to be a philosopher speaking for their own indecision and doubt." -- Michael Schmidt

"I wrote as much as seventy lines at one time, and used to go shouting them about the fields after dark." -- Tennyson

"The real truth is that Tennyson, with all his temperament and artistic skill, is deficient in intellectual power; and no modern poet can make very much of his business unless he is pre-eminently strong in this." -- Matthew Arnold in a letter to his mother, 1860

"I detest Tennyson's 'Arthur'! If I'd been Guinevere, I'd have been unfaithful to him too. But not for Lancelot -- he is just as unbearable in another way. As for Geraint, if I'd been Enid, I'd have bitten him. These 'patient Griseldes' of women deserve all they get! I like Tennyson because he gives me nothing but pleasure. I cannot love him because he gives me nothing but pleasure ... I love best the poets who hurt me. But I think I shall have some love for Tennyson after this -- for today I read a verse in 'In Memoriam' which I do not think I can ever have read carefully before -- which scorched me with a sudden flame of self-revelation and brought to me one of those awful moments when we look into the abysses of our own natures and recoil in horror. The verse was:

Do we indeed desire the dead
Should still be near us at our side?
Is there no baseness we would hide,
No inner vileness that we dread?"

-- LM Montgomery, in her journal

"It is not religious because of the quality of its faith, but because of the quality of its doubt." -- TS Eliot on Tennyson's religion

"The churches have killed their Christ." -- Tennyson, "Maud", 1855

"In 1850 Tennyson received public laurels and fulfilled a private desire. He was married after a courtship whose length reflected not reluctance but lack of money. He published In Memoriam. And he became poet laureate, succeeding Wordsworth. The "Ode on Wellington" and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" are masterpieces of laureate art. Few laureates are so transparently sincere, prompt and prosodically competent in the execution of their duties. 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' entered the common memory." -- Michael Schmidt, "Lives of the Poets"

The Charge Of The Light Brigade
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Memorializing Events in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854
Written 1854

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter'd & sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

"Tennyson spoke to and for his age in In Memoriam. Its success as a long poem depends on its fragmentariness. The sections are elegiac idylls, assembled into a sequence. Like Maud, the sequence hangs together thanks to what Eliot called 'the greatest lyrical resourcefulness that a poet has ever shown.' Elegies and poems of aftermath were Tennyson's forte. He was a gray beard from the beginning." - Michael Schmidt

The Books: "Bogart" (A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Bogart, by A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax

Now this is what I call a biography! I am not sure why it took so long for Bogart to get his due, but I suppose that's the way. After all, I'm still waiting for a good biography of Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, just to name a few. Sometimes it takes a generation or so to re-discover someone, the narrative about that person changes. Perhaps during their lifetime they were well regarded but their star faded ... and there's then a re-discovery process. Or perhaps during their lifetime they were NOT all that well regarded and it is only with time that we, the public, can see just what a giant impact they had. Bogart was a huge star during his lifetime, but in the 60s his star faded a bit - with the advent of the "new Hollywood" ... he was seen as part of the old guard, perhaps ... not "cool". To cinephiles and movie buffs, of course, he was always important and beloved. In the late 50s, the famous Brattle Theatre, a movie house in Cambridge Massachusetts, started a tradition of showing Bogart films during final exams - a tradition that, I believe, continues today. Students, eager to escape the stress of finals, would show up for double-features, dressed as Bogart, they would chant the lines of Casablanca or Maltese Falcon in unison, keeping the flame alive, even after he had passed away. There was always a certain cult-ish feeling about loving Bogart. He did not have the movie star glitter of, say, Cary Grant - whose status could never be denied, not when he was alive, not when he was dead. It's not that Bogart was an acquired taste. It's just that his films, even years after they came out, somehow avoided quaintness, or kitschiness. And Bogart embodied a type of man who was growing unpopular at that time, in the full height of the Beat movement, the bohemians, the start of the folk music coffee house culture, and Flower Power. Bogart, in his tie, trench coat and fedora, would have sneered at such silliness, perhaps, but would never have shown "the kids today" any contempt (unlike some of his contemporaries). There was a staunch individuality at work in Bogart that tapped into something at the time ... it was a throwback, sure ... a look at simpler days (not better, just simpler) ... and it was refreshing. Every young man hopes that, in the moment when it counts, he will be able to behave as selflessly as Rick did in Casablanca. In that moment on the runway in Casablanca, he embodies what we most hope for ourselves, he shows us how we would so like to behave, if given the chance. Things like honor and self-sacrifice are never out of fashion.

Roger Ebert writes, in his review of Casablanca:

From a modern perspective, the film reveals interesting assumptions. Ilsa Lund's role is basically that of a lover and helpmate to a great man; the movie's real question is, which great man should she be sleeping with? There is actually no reason why Laszlo cannot get on the plane alone, leaving Ilsa in Casablanca with Rick, and indeed that is one of the endings that was briefly considered. But that would be all wrong; the ``happy'' ending would be tarnished by self-interest, while the ending we have allows Rick to be larger, to approach nobility (``it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world''). And it allows us, vicariously experiencing all of these things in the theater, to warm in the glow of his heroism.

It totally makes sense that if you want to let off some steam during finals week, you would be hard pressed to find a better activity than going to watch Maltese Falcon with your stressed-out classmates. Because Bogart can show you how to be strong, how to suck it up, how to do the right thing, even if it hurts like hell.

I'm talking about him as an actor now - the parts he played - not the man himself. The line is often blurred. Bogart the man was hardly a self-sacrificial uninvolved wry-grin type of guy. Those were PARTS that he played, and brilliantly - but they were PARTS. The fact that we all are so convinced that that is who he was (a man we do not know) is just a testament to his talent. In reality, there were deep wounds in Bogart, deep insecurities - about his relationships with women, about his looks, about his standing at the studio (his contract was never up to par with his peers - he was very much taken for granted and taken advantage of on that score) ... and the fact that he could so step into these cool guys, the guys who don't lose it - but the guys who, you know, deep down, feel deeply and feel things forever (he plays characters with long LONG memories ... "The Germans wore grey, you wore blue ...") just shows how good he was, as an actor. He shows that you can feel things that deeply without sacrificing manliness - that is one of Bogart's greatest assets. That you can be sexy and smouldering - even when you have a lisp and you are a good FOOT shorter than your leading lady ... gives us all hope. If you want to see a completely rare side of Bogart - and one that I feel is closest to his actual character - I cannot recommend Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place enough. I reviewed it here. It is Bogart's best performance, in my opinion, and he revealed things in that movie that he had never revealed before and was never asked to reveal again. It is ugly. An excruciating performance. Full of insecurity, rage, envy ... and quiet smouldering bitterness. I believe that that performance is not as well-known because it messes with our idea of the "Bogart persona (tm)" - and it mucks up his mythical status as the tough guy willing to do good in a world that will not congratulate him. In In a Lonely Place, he also plays an outsider - like all of his great parts - but as we watch the film, we slowly realize that there is a REASON this guy is an outsider, and it's not just because the world doesn't appreciate him, and he's awesome and everyone else sucks ... It's because the guy is a douchebag, a coil so tightly sprung that he is the kind of guy you slowly back away from at a party, because you don't want to be trapped by him. He's the kind of guy that you, as a woman, hope you don't date ... because he will never ever let you go, and he will become creepy at the first sign of trouble. It's a brilliant performance, completely under-praised, I think - nearly forgotten. What a shame. See it!

He was a complex bag, Bogart. An actor I truly love.

Sperber and Lax have pulled out all the stops in this massive book. It is an exhaustively researched TOME ... and in it is everything about Bogart you would want to know. There will be more books written, of course, but they will have to reference this one. No stone is left unturned. It's not all that elegantly written, and it relies heavily on cliches in the language - but I'm in it for the information. It is a giant important biography, and a book I recommend for any film-lover's library.

The excerpt below has to do with the filming of Casablanca. And so, to prepare us ... here is the first shot (besides his hand signing the bill "OK - Rick", I mean) we get of Bogart in the film.

Iconic.

EXCERPT FROM Bogart, by A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax

The lines of dialogue now so familiar trickled in during the weeks of rewrites: "I told you not to play that song!" ... "Here's looking at you, kid" ... "If you do, you'll regret it, maybe not tomorrow" ... "Of all the gin joints in all the towns all over the world, she walks into mine." To the members of the company, it became a daily ritual of learning, discarding and relearning pages, and tempers - Bogart's included - frayed to the breaking point.

His part was the longest, his load of constantly changing dialogue the heaviest, and the cool demeanor of the early weeks gave way to testiness. Bergman recalled him returning from lunch hour breaks spent arguing with Wallis. There were also arguments with Curtiz, although disagreements with the talented but temperamental Hungarian were unavoidable on even the smoothest-running films. Curtiz stomped about in riding boots and ran his set like an autocrat, his demeanor seesawing between marzipan charm and outbursts of temper in obscenity-laced broken English. This was their fourth picture together - the last had been Virginia City in 1940 - but the first in which Bogart played the lead. He was more assertive now than when his name had been below the title. "Bogie was certainly short of patience with Mike," Lee Katz said. There were, however, "no pyrotechnics". Bogart just quietly bristled, at times turning and walking off to make his point. Before Leonid Kinsky's first scene as Sascha the bartender, played one-on-one with Bogart, Curtize was overwhelming the Russian actor with minute instructions when "Bogie just looked at him and said, 'Please, shut up. You can't tell Leonid what to do.' And that was that."

Katz was a Curtiz assistant going back to 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn. "Mike drove most of his actors crazy. He was from the European school - full of dolly shots and twisting cameras and what have you, very complex on camera moves. So he had a habit, usually, of watching the camera more than the actor. And the actor would realize it." Five years earlier, during Kid Galahad, Bette Davis had stopped in mid-scene and snapped at Curtiz: "Mike! Watch me! Stop watching the camera!"

But Curtiz was a master craftsman whose broad range can be seen in two of the films he made in 1942: the brilliant musical biography Yankee Doodle Dandy and the melodramatic Casablanca. He was particularly strong as an action director, and his simple lesson to a younger colleague of how to stage a mob scene with only twenty extras is a classic. Put ten on each side, he said, and then have them run across - "They'll make such a mess!" From his days as a silent-film director he also knew when words were superfluous and how to convey character with a look, a lift of an eyebrow, a nod.

A nod made, according to the screenplay directions, "almost imperceptibly" by Rick is a turning point in Casablanca. It signals the orchestra to play "La Marseillaise" and the start of an ensemble scene in which Rick's singing refugee patrons, their backs straight in reclaimed dignity, drown out the German soldiers singing "The Watch On the Rhine." Although it is Henreid, as Victor Lazslo, who commands the cafe orchestra to play the anthem, it is Rick's silent assent they wait for.

The stirring sequence is unmarked by a single line of dialogue, and it marks the hero's return to the battle. "Do it with a full scoring orchestra," Wallis told music director Leo Forbstein, "and get some body to it." The scene was an emotional moment for the company, many of whom had relatives in the concentration camps or dead in the gas chambers. Madeleine LeBeau, who played the layabout Yvonne, had fled France with Marcel Dalio, whose mother was still in Paris, hiding in a basement as Jews were rounded up. Dan Seymour stood at the back, watching the crowd. "I could see their faces. They were crying" A close-up fixed on LeBeau, her voice heard above the rest of the singing. The displaced citizens of 1942 were singing the hymn of the citizens of 1792 and another German invasion. The original script directed the German officers in Rick's to sing "The Horst Wessel Song", the anthem of the Nazi party, but "Horst Wessel" was under copyright, and copyright infringement - wars and Nazis notwithstanding - was still a violation of international agreement. Such an infringement, Warner lawyers said, might possibly endanger export of the film in such neutral countries as Argentina, where pro-German sympathies ran high.

In mid-July, seven weeks into the shooting and with only two scheduled weeks remaining, the basic problems in the script were still unresolved. At one point the latest scenario sent out the night before was recalled the next morning by J.L. himself, amid sharp differences about the story's outcome. Every writer favored keeping the ending of play, in which case Rick would lose Ilsa; but the studio wanted the conclusion dictated by Hollywood convention. "Conferences were taking place all over," Howard Kock said, "arguing about it, with the studio pretty heavily on the side of, We've got Bergman, we've got Bogart, why aren't they going to be together?" The only principal who didn't much care one way or the other, Julius Epstein said, was Bogart, who was only "worried that he wouldn't get to the boat on weekends."

There were only problems: Even if Ilsa did leave with Laszlo, how did they get her to go? Have her turn and run? Not convincing. Lois Meredith had been virtually dragged away. Casey Robinson's brainchild was a quick clip to the jaw, immobilizing the heroine, and then moving her out. But what happened to Rick? Was he arrested?

"Toward the end," Epstein said, "there was chaos - no ending, no knowing what was happening." Bergman appealed to Koch, "How can I play the love scene when I don't know which one I'm going off with?" Curtiz, Koch added, wore a hangdog look and was openly worried. "He kept wanting to talk about it. You could see it in his expression." He took his frustrations out on the actors. After one outbreak too many, the gentle Kinsky started to walk off the set, swearing never to come back. Curtiz, for once, was immediately apologetic. "We have no ending for the picture," he said, by way of explanation. "Everyone is nervous."

On July 17, with production almost a week behind schedule, the cast assembled for the airport scene. Stage 1 was enveloped in a fog created by what Warner Publicity would describe as "more than half a million cubic feet of vaporized oil." (Because wartime security precluded outdoor location shots at night, it took innumerable requests, meetings, and red tape to be able to film the one inserted shot of plane motors revving up.) In the background on the soundstage, a painted cardboard cutout, creatively lit, served as the plane to Lisbon. "The outline of the Transport plane is barely visible. Near its open door stands a small group of people." Actually, it was a group of small people; midgets from Central Casting gathered on the runway to provide the proper scale.

Everyone's nerves were in tatters. "Rick is not just solving a love triangle," Robinson argued to Wallis in a memo. "He is forcing the girl to live up to the idealism of her nature, forcing her to carry on with the work that in these days is far more important than the love of two [but the problems of three] little people." Rick became the deus ex machina, setting all things right: "You're getting on that plane with Victor."

The whole scene depended on Bogart's delivery. It was a four-page monologue with brief interruptions, rewritten for the third time in three weeks and shoved at him the night before to memorize. For Bogart, who learned his lines mornings on the set because he couldn't concentrate at home, it was a double burden, and the last traces of his patience gave way.

The disagreements surfaced over lunch, the specifics vague after half a century. Bogart had one idea of how to play the scene, Curtiz another. Warner publicist Bob William watched as "they wound up shouting at each other - but Curtiz was the kind of guy you would shout at anyway." Unit manager Al Alleborn reported "arguments with Curtiz the director and Bogart the actor." After two hours Alleborn, in desperation, roused Hal Wallis from his bungalow and brought him back to be the peacemaker. An hour later, the disputes broke out again. Only then, Alleborn recorded, did the parties "finally decid[e] on how to do the scene." The lost time was entered on the production report as "Story conference between Mr. Curtiz and Mr. Bogart."

When the cameras did roll, the magic was back:

"You're saying this only to make me go." "I'm saying it because it's true ... You belong with Victor ... If that plane leaves the ground and you're not on it, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life ... I'm not good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world ... Here's looking at you, kid."

It was time for the suspension of reality, no questions asked, including the one of how Bogart had managed to put on a belted trench coat while presumably keeping his gun on Rains. Wallis and Koch had solved the problem of getting Bergman away by having Henreid step into the picture - "Are you ready, Ilsa?" But it was the lovers' scene, and it remains the benchmark for renunciation.

Bogart, Huston once said of him, wasn't especially impressive face-to-face; but when the camera rolled, something happened, an almost noble quality took over. The takes of Rick and Ilsa's farewell required several days. Bogart concentrated on Bergman's shining face, his dark eyes made darker still by the black-and-white photography. Arthur Edeson's lighting emphasized the still-boyish profile, and what emerged on the screen was intensity, energy, and magnetism - the requisites of a great movie actor.

_______

Bogart finished August 1, the others two days later. There had been a few remaining scenes to shoot and some retakes. Wallis asked Bogart for "a little more guts ... more of the curt hard way of speaking we have associated with Rick. Now that the girl is gone, I would like to see [him] revert." Rick's fate following Strasser's death was resolved with Renault's laconic, "Round up the usual suspects." According to the Epsteins, the line had just come to them in a car one night as they rolled along Sunset Boulevard.

Still, it was hard to let go, and it took outside forces to wrap the film. On August 3, two days past the new projected closing date, Bergman, called to the telephone, let out a shriek. For Whom the Bell Tolls was definitely hers and Paramount wanted her on location immediately - that night if possible. Warners was already well over the limit of her commitment. Wallis pleaded for another two days, but Al Alleborn had a better idea. Stop the picture. Tonight. Look at the assembled footage and find out if retakes were really necessary. Wallis agreed, and Casablanca was closed out.

The final fade-out, however, remained in question. Rick's closing rejoinder to Renault would be recorded in a sound studio as a wild line and later inserted into the soundtrack as the two men walk off into the fog. Long after the close of production, Wallis, dissatisfied with every suggestion, dithered over various versions, one of them being, "Louis, I might have known you'd mix your patriotism with a little larceny." He was intent on just the right punch line and on August 21, he finally had it: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

With all the talented writers working on the script, it was the producer who came up with the line. "That's Hal Wallis," Casey Robinson said years later. "He wrote that line, and it was marvelous. It was inspired."

It was Wallis, too, who decided on the documentary-style opening - the spinning globe and the black track of the refugee trail dissolving into a montage of masses on the move; the narration was modeled on the popular news series The March of Time and spoken by a radio announcer from the Warner Station KFWB. The overall effect of tying the film romance to the larger sweep of world events had a payoff that no one could foresee.

And I realize, yet again,

that sometimes cats are scary.

In praise of Anne Bancroft:

Dan Callahan has a spectacular 5 for the day.

The Books: "Humphrey Bogart" (Nathaniel Benchley)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Humphrey Bogart, by Nathaniel Benchley

Benchley and Bogart were friends, so this 1975 biography is not a critical study, not an objective look at Humphrey Bogart, but a loving portrait, at times too loving to hold my interest. I bought this book for the pictures it includes. It's out-of-print now, but I found a copy of it on a table outside a second-hand bookshop for 2 dollars, and bought it immediately. The photos are not your basic family snapshots, and stills from famous movies. The photos are woven throughout the book, some of them taking up entire pages, and many of them you probably have never seen before. They are marvelous photos, so this book could almost be considered a coffee-table book. Christmas cards sent by Humphrey Bogart and Mayo Methot - his notorious third wife (their relationship was so volatile they were known as "the battling Bogarts"), drunken blurry shots of the two of them making out and wrestling on the couch, early photos of Bogart in tennis whites - these are personal photographs, not "public domain" pictures compiled by a biographer. Benchley knew Bogart. He probably put his own photos throughout the book. Benchley is already a well-known writer, so the book is not bad - and it has that gift of knowing the right anecdote to choose to prove your point. It's chock-full of anecdotes. Many of them have now passed into myth/legend, whatever you want to call the Bogart mystique (his lisp and how he got it, the whole Gerber Baby rumor, and more) ... and it is not clear how much is true, how much is embellishment, or how much is just memory playing its tricks. It doesn't really matter, in the end, I suppose. There's something vaguely unsavory in a book like this - a friend trading on his relationship with a famous person - but since it's not a smear book (I'm looking at you, Christina Crawford), it doesn't quite fit into that category. It's a loving "here's what I remember" portrait, as well as a pretty damn thorough examination of Bogart's journey to the top: the roles he got, the reviews, the setbacks, the battles with the studio, and - most startlingly - how Bogart's persona changed. That's one of the most interesting things about him as an actor.

He became famous playing Duke Mantee, the villain in Petrified Forest - first on Broadway and then in the film. Leslie Howard, who had played his part on Broadway and was already a big star, said he would not do the film if Humphrey Bogart didn't reprise his role as well. Pretty damn generous, I would say (although his behavior as producer of the play was not quite as generous).

Humphrey Bogart as Duke Mantee

It is hard to overstate the sensation Bogart made on Broadway with this role - but that's the excerpt from Benchley's book I chose - so I'll let it speak for itself. It was not Bogart's debut. He had played small parts on Broadway before - but his reputation was as the youth sashaying into the parlor saying things like, "Tennis, anyone?" He played pampered prep-school boys. Fascinating. So he was not unknown to Broadway audiences, but nothing could prepare New York for what he did in Petrified Forest. Seems like a theme in Bogart's life - the shifting personality, the experimentation with what he was good at, what would "hit" an audience, the public's perception changing as he took on deeper and better parts ... Bogart saying, "Tennis, anyone?" ? Hard to imagine now.

But that's what I want to talk about: the development of Bogart's persona and how it changed. Petrified Forest launched him into the realm of serious Hollywood players. Duke Mantee was truly bad, a scowling hovering psychopath. He's riveting in the film. He seems like an emissary from the future - if you look at the way other "villains" were played at that time. Bogart is unredeemable, in the film, but you can't take your eyes off of him. He has a five o'clock shadow, another oddity - in a day when people appeared more cleancut in films, even poor people, bums ... Bogart worked hard on that part, creating him from the ground up - how he walked, how he talked, how he DIDN'T talk, body language, gesture, the costume ... Bogart owned that role. After Petrified Forest, he began to play villains. Let's count the times he was killed by Edward G. Robinson, shall we? He played sidekicks - like in The Roaring Twenties, with Cagney as the lead (I adore that film - the whole phrase "Don't bogart the joint" - while obviously referring to Bogart's ubiquitous hanging cigarette - also always seemed to me to have as its reference the scene in Roaring Twenties in the foxhole, when Bogart hogs the shared cigarette ... But let's move on) ... Bogart did not move on to play leads after Petrified Forest. He was second lead. He was a bad guy. He always died in the end. He was in movies with names like San Quentin, King of the Underworld, You Can't Get Away With Murder, Racket Busters, Crime School - typical Warner Brothers "ripped straight from the headlines" fare. He was shot in glorious 1920s style rooms, and would stagger to the couch, or fall down the stairs. He was a bootlegger, a conman, a thief. He was expendable. We might cry when Cagney died (as I always do, when I see his spectacular death scene in The Roaring Twenties - perhaps my favorite death scene of all time), but we didn't really care when Bogart died, because he seemed so immoral, so ... well, like he was asking for it. It's interesting to see all of those "in between" movies in the decade of the 30s, like Bullets or Ballots and others, when Bogart is playing second-banana. It makes me realize that his stardom, his giant mythic stardom, was NOT a done deal. It was not in the cards from the beginning. I mean, look at the guy. He was short, balding, with bad teeth, and a LISP, for God's sake. Is that a leading man?? Well, no, it wasn't. Not at first. He was not being groomed for that, and it was not what the public accepted him as. His Duke Mantee made such a huge impression that Bogart could have had a whole career, playing villains, and hypnotic bad guys ... but look at what happened. Look at how the career shifted! Amazing! It was subtle, but a couple of parts paved the way for Casablanca, which launched him as a leading man. In High Sierra, he plays Roy Earle, another villain - yet this time with the soft underbelly that is (and can be) so compelling to audiences. You rooted for him (in a way that you did NOT root for Duke Mantee). John Huston wrote the screenplay for that film - and - the same year was given a directing opportunity, his first, with The Maltese Falcon. Bogart, having already gotten to know Huston on High Sierra, decided to take a chance with the untried director (something Huston always appreciated) - and the result is historic. I think it's one of Bogart's best roles, and in it - we can see the other persona really start to be developed: the wry-faced cynical guy, with a deep mother-lode of strong moral character within (but it's never anything he'd want to be congratulated for - as a matter of fact, he'd rather you not notice it at all) - who ends up doing the right thing, even though it means he'll lose the girl. What a departure from Duke Mantee!! So exciting: I love to look at a career and see the fortuitous turns it takes - turns it didn't HAVE to take. It just as easily might NOT have happened. There are no guarantees. Bogart was not guaranteed to be a star and his journey is full of accidents, coincidences, and giant leaps of faith. I love it.

His Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon solidified his position as a valid leading man - despite the lisp and the balding nature of his head - and the roles he got after that in the next year - in Across the Pacific and Casablanca just dug him in deeper as one of the most interesting and compelling movie stars working at that time.

Later in his career, he could "experiment" again - in films like The Caine Mutiny and Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and create characters on the verge of going mad, men so full of conviction, greed, paranoia, that they become unhinged from reality. He's terrific in those kinds of parts as well.

Nathaniel Benchley's book is just the tip of the iceberg, and as the years have passed, Bogart's reputation has just grown, so there are more books, more biographies, more critical studies.

But they sure don't have the awesome photos that THIS book has!

The excerpt below is about Bogart's playing of Duke Mantee on Broadway, and how - for one season - it became THE play to see. Kind of like Christine Ebersole in Grey Gardens last year. That performance was an EVENT. It wasn't the play that was being hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread - it was her work in particular. That's what happened in 1935, when Bogart first stepped onto the stage as Duke Mantee in Petrified Forest.

Here's the excerpt.

EXCERPT FROM Humphrey Bogart, by Nathaniel Benchley

When Humphrey Bogart walked onstage as Duke Mantee there was a stir in the audience, an audible intake of breath. He was a criminal; he walked with a convict's shuffling gait, and his hands dangled in front of him as though held there by the memory of manacles. His voice was flat and his eyes were as cold as a snake's; he bore an eerie resemblance to John Dillinger, to whom killing a person meant no more than breaking a matchstick. Sherwood's summary of Mantee in the stage directions described Bogart perfectly: "He is well-built but stoop-sholudered, with a vaguely thoughtful, saturnine face. He is about thirty-five, and, if he hadn't elected to take up banditry, he might have been a fine leftfielder. There is, about him, one quality of resemblance to Alan Squier [the hero]: he too is unmistakably doomed."

The play opened at the Broadhurts Theatre on January 7, 1935, with Leslie Howard starring as Alan Squier and Peggy Conklin as Gabrielle Maple, the heroine. (For those interested in trivia, the part of Boze Hertzlinger, which had almost been Humphrey's, was played by a youth named Frank Milan.) The story, briefly, tells how Squier, a wandering intellectual, meets and befriends Gabrielle in an Arizona roadhouse, and sees in her some of the dreams he had once had as a youth. Mantee, fleeing the police, comes on the scene as the incarnation of ruthless violence, and makes hostages of everyone in the roadhouse. Squier signs over his life insurance to Gabrielle and then gets Mantee to shoot him, so that Gabrielle can have the money to go back to her mother's homeland in France. That is overcompression of the most radical sort, but any explanation short of printing the entire script would be of little help.

The critics threw their hats in the air. Brooks Atkinson wrote that "Robert Sherwood's new play is a peach ... a roaring Western melodrama ... Humphrey Bogart does the best work of his career as the motorized guerrilla," and Robert Garland said that "Humphrey Bogart is gangster Mantee to the tip of his sawed-off shotgun." The play, clearly, was in for a long run.

Humphrey had had one bad period in September, before rehearsals started, when his father died. Things had been getting progressively worse; Dr. and Mrs. Bogart had moved to Tudor City, and with the almost complete disappearance of his practice, he had taken up the periodic job of ship's doctor on cruise ships or small passenger liners. He died in the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled in New York, leaving approximately ten thousand dollars in debts, which Humphrey paid off out of his eventual earnings from The Petrified Forest. Humphrey had a deep affection for his father, and his death at this time, and in these circumstances, was a particularly jarring blow.

But once rehearsals were under way, he put everything else behind him and concentrated on becoming as convincing a gangster as possible. He walked, talked, and lived Duke Mantee; he wore a felt hat with the brim turned down, he talked out of the side of his mouth, and he built a set of mannerisms to go with the character. There are very few shows that don't have some sort of trouble or conflict prior to (and sometimes after) opening night, but Hopkins had chosen his cast well. A short, round, brown, slightly bowlegged little man, he quietly mesmerized the actors into doing what he wanted, and since in many instances he had intuitively cast them against type (as in Bogart's case) the results were often electric. He told them that he collected casts the way other people collect books, and that this was the perfect cast; there was not one person in it he'd think of changing.

Another case of the intuitive casting was that of Ester Leeming, who played a small part as Paula, the Mexican maid. When Hopkins picked her (a simple nod was his usual method of selection) Sherwood said to her, "It's lucky you can speak Spanish. The only Spanish I know is 'patio', and I learned that in Hollywood." As it turned out she couldn't speak Spanish, so she went to Berlitz and took a cram course untnil she could swear convincingly in the language - which she still can do to this day.

Their first night in front of an audience was in mid-December at the Parsons Theatre in Hartford, and there were two things that astonished the company. One was the amount of humor in the script - lines took on a new meaning, which they'd missed in rehearsal - and the other was the literal gasp that went up when Humphrey made his entrance. Dillinger was very much in the news at the time, having recently escaped from prison, and to some people it seemed that he had just walked onstage. The prison pallor, the two-day's beard, the gait, the mannerisms - everything about him was menacing, evil, and real. The company was to hear that gasp every night throughout the run, but the first one was the one they still remember. They went on to Boston, where they opened Christmas Eve, and then to New York in January. They played until June 29 of that year.

For two reasons, Humphrey disdained the use of makeup. The first was that the desired effect of prison pallor made makeup unnecessary, and the second was that to fake a two-days' beard would be obvious. His was his real beard, and he kept it trimmed during the week with electric clippers, thereby becoming one of the earlier electric shavers. After the Saturday night performance he would shave, singing and lathering himself and having a grand old time, and he would come into Miss Leeming's dressing room, which adjoined his, and spread his good cheer around with a lavish hand. She remembers him as being generally quiet and gentle, and scrupulous in his behavior to the female members of the cast - a trait that was by no means shared by the star.

The play could have run for a much longer time, but Howard grew weary of playing it. He had enough muscle with the producers (he was a coproducer with Gilbert Miller, in association with Hopkins) so that he could forbid anyone else to take his part, and also to prevent its going on the road. Warners had by this time bought it, and Howard announced that a road tour might hurt the box office for the picture. So they closed the end of June, while still doing booming business; Howard went home to England, and the others went looking for jobs. One of those who felt the disappointment most keenly was Howard's understudy, Kenneth MacKenna.

One of the good things Howard did, however, was to say that he would do the picture only if Bogart played Mantee, and he was as good as his word. Warners had Edward G. Robinson under contract, and saw no sense in using someone they'd already had a few unspectacular dealings with, so they blithely announced they were making the picture with Howard and Robinson, and with Bette Davis playing Gabrielle. Humphrey, understandably upset, cabled the news to Howard, and Howard cabled Warners that without Bogart he wouldn't play. They gave in, and Humphrey was signed to another Warner Brothers contract. His farewell to the stage was a summer of stock in Skowhegan, Maine, where he did such plays as Rain and Ceiling Zero while waiting for the shooting to begin on The Petrified Forest. He was a quick study and a perfectionist and he had each part letter-perfect, playing one while rehearing another.

The film version of Sherwood's play was remarkably similar to the original, with only a few obligatory outdoor shots and some tinkering with the dialogue to make the difference. (In the play, Gabrielle tells Squier: "My name is Gabrielle, but these ignorant bastards call me Gabby," a line which until recently would never be allowed on screen.) The screenplay was by Charles Kenyon and Delmer Davis and the director was Archie Mayo; of the original company, only Bogart and Howard and one minor player remained.

In Hollywood it is a truism that a person is as good as his last screen credit, and having scored as a gangster Humphrey was immediatley cast as another. The picture was Bullets or Ballots and Humphrey played a character named Nick "Bugs" Fenner, who in the last reel kills and is killed by a hard-boiled sleuth, played by Edward G. Robinson. In his first two years at Warners he made twelve pictures, in eight of which he was either a gangster or a criminal of some sort, and in four of which he was killed. In one he was sent to prison for life, and in one other he and Robinson repeated their double-killing routine. Exactly two, Marked Woman (with Bette Davis) and Dead End, were what might be called superior pictures, and one, Isle of Fury, was so bad that he pretended not to remember ever having made it.

RIP Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts.

-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago

I don't even know what to say. He's one of my heroes. A true giant has walked the earth. A giant.

NY Times obit here. Here's the obit in The Irish Times. Here is the text of the famous speech he gave at Harvard in 1978 (a choice quote: "But should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through intense suffering our country has now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which I have just mentioned are extremely saddening."

Let's not simplify the man, or make him less complex. He was a posterboy for no one. Infuriating, independent, beat of his own drummer, fearless. God.

Here's a lengthy article in Time.

And I've been waiting for the inevitable: Christopher Hitchens' piece, which opens with:

Every now and then it happens. The state or the system encounters an individual who, bafflingly, maddeningly, absurdly, cannot be broken. Should they manage to survive, such heroes have a good chance of outliving the state or the system that so grossly underestimated them. Examples are rather precious and relatively few, and they include Nelson Mandela refusing an offer to be released from jail (unless and until all other political detainees were also freed) and Alexander Solzhenitsyn having to be deported from his country of birth against his will, even though he had become—and had been before—a prisoner there.

More:

But it seems that Solzhenitsyn did have a worry or a dread, not that he himself would be harmed but that none of his work would ever see print. Nonetheless—and this is the point to which I call your attention—he kept on writing. The Communist Party's goons could have torn it up or confiscated or burned it—as they did sometimes—but he continued putting it down on paper and keeping a bottom drawer filled for posterity. This is a kind of fortitude for which we do not have any facile name. The simplest way of phrasing it is to say that Solzhenitsyn lived "as if." Barely deigning to notice the sniggering, pick-nose bullies who followed him and harassed him, he carried on "as if" he were a free citizen, "as if" he had the right to study his own country's history, "as if" there were such a thing as human dignity.

The Vaclav Havel rule of living in a totalitarian society. Just live "as if" you were free.

I just happened to be up now - late for me - when the news came in. I have no words. A truly great man. (I've been adding links to this post since I heard the news at around 1 am this morning).

Here's an excerpt from his Gulag Archipelago, one of the most important books of the 20th century.

Shaking my head. Strange. How it feels like a personal loss.

The world was a better place, a more honorable place, a place where bravery was possible, and where truth was always louder than lies ... because he was in it.

He won the Nobel Prize in 1970, and did not attend the ceremony for fear that the Russians would retaliate by depriving him of his Russian citizenship. As much as he despised the totalitarian regime in Russia, he didn't want to be cut off to that degree. He had family in Russia, a wife, a child on the way. So he did not attend the ceremony. Instead he sent a speech that was read at the banquet. Here is the full text. He closes with:

And I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the members of the Swedish Academy for the enormous support their choice in 1970 has given my works as a writer. I venture to thank them on behalf of that vast unofficial Russia which is prohibited from expressing itself aloud, which is persecuted both for writing books and even for reading them. The Academy have heard for this decision of theirs many reproaches implying that such a prize has served political interests. But these are the shouts of raucous loudmouths who know of no other interests. We all know that an artist's work cannot be contained within the wretched dimension of politics. For this dimension cannot hold the whole of our life and we must not restrain our social consciousness within its bounds.

Photo of Solzhenitsyn in 1946 in the gulag.

Rest in peace. No more words.

The Books: "Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi" (Bob Woodward)

Welcome House Next Door readers! This is my archive of entertainment biography (I've just started, as we can see from where we are in the alphabet). I plan on doing a post a day from each book on my shelf, which should keep me busy to, oh, about 2011. If you keep scrolling down this page, you'll see the other excerpts - one from Carroll Baker's autobiography, and three (one, two, three) from Lauren Bacall's three autobiographies.

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi, by Bob Woodward

Probably one of the best drug-ridden entertainment biographies ever written. At least it's one of my favorites. Bob Woodward is out of his element here, but it suits him, I think. What I like about it is that he takes his investigative journalism chops and uses them on the entertainment world (and its hangers-on). It's quite a compelling portrait. It's thorough, it's tough - and he was given carte blanche from Judy Belushi, John's wife, to tell the whole story, as he found it. He encountered no roadblocks from her, or those Belushi loved. A couple people refused to talk to Woodward (DeNiro being one of them), but for the most part, the floodgates opened. Woodward was able to delve deep, and his investigative methods led him to some pretty unsavory places. At the end, Belushi had alienated many of his friends, and was hanging out with bottom-feeders, some truly frightening people. After reading Woodward's description of Belushi's chaotic last night, you just want to take a shower and detox YOURSELF. How did this topic come to Bob Woodward, a writer who focuses on Washington and politics? He opens the book with:

In the summer of 1982 I received a call at The Washington Post, where I work, from Pamela Jacklin, a sister-in-law of John Belushi, who had died of a drug overdose three months earlier. She said there were still many unanswered questions surrounding John's death, and she suggested I look into it. John Belushi was not a natural subject for my reporting; I had concentrated on Washington stories and knew very little about his show business world - television, rock and roll, and Hollywood. But I was curious.

Curiousity (and his reputation, of course, as a writer) was all he needed. People were willing to talk to him because he was so, well, "legit". Whatever he would write, it wouldn't be a smear, and it also wouldn't be a smarmy tell-all. It would be an examination of someone who, in a very short time, had become positively beloved by the American public - someone who was, at times, infuriating to his friends and loved ones, but always beloved. That's one of the main things you get when you hear the stories, and when people still talk about him now. How much he was loved. He was also admired, he had a genius for improvisational comedy which still sets the bar for others. People still talk about his old skits at Second City, and how unbelievable it was to see him at that raw time in his life, when he was fearless, disgusting, and hilarious. Like many comics (and I speak from experience, having dated a few - in fact, a good 10 years of my life was taken up with dating ONLY improvisational comedians from Chicago, Second City and Improv Olympic boys. That was my romantic genre. Insane. But anyways) - like many comics, he also had the desire to be taken seriously. Belushi's idol was Brando. He felt that if he were given the proper material he could do something like that, too. I think that's one of the reasons why he was such a crazily effective mimic (uhm, Joe Cocker?) He LOVED those people. His imitations came from love on a fanatical level. He didn't just want to imitate them, he wanted to BE them. There's the great story about when Belushi sang WITH Joe Cocker AS Joe Cocker, and how freaked out Belushi was by it. He was scared. Would Joe Cocker be insulted? Didn't he know how much he LOVED him? Belushi had no fear as a performer. He had plenty of resentments and opinions, however (he hated the "fucking bees", for example) ... thought they were stupid.

And his pairing with Dan Ackroyd unleashed something in him that had not been seen yet. Belushi, in sketch comedy - at Second City, and in groups in New York - had a way of strolling into a scene going on, saying one line, bringing down the house entirely, and walking away with the show. 10 people could have been onstage, but the audience went home babbling about Belushi. He was a star. Many of his fellow performers resented it - but at the same time, what're you gonna do - say to someone, "Stop being so good, please"? But with Ackroyd, he found a soulmate, a "straight man", a perfect foil. They became a duo, very quickly, understanding and anticipating each other, each as quick-minded as the other. In a way, his skits with Ackroyd REALLY set Belushi free.

Del Close (an important mentor to John Belushi and, well, pretty much anyone who came through Chicago improv at that time) taught at Improv Olympic when I was living in Chicago - but he had started out at Second City. He was famous.

Just the track marks on his arms were famous. He'd show them to you and growl about the glory of shoving a needle in your arm. He was an old-school off-the-charts reprobate, and an improv genius. He took my flame at the time under his wing (see what I mean? They were all improv boys) - recognizing his genius, wanting to pass on the torch. To Close, improv was a religion, a way of life, a way of looking at the world. I remember sitting in the audience at Improv Olympic show - watching said flame perform with his group (they were called "The Family" and were famous to us Chicagoans ... I still remember lines from those shows ... It was 6 guys, most of whom are now famous on a pretty giant level ... And these guys were so quick, so smart, so in tune with each other's rhythms, that you would forget at times that this thing was improvised. You didn't have that situation, with other improv groups, where maybe one person is the stand-out, one person is the funniest, and the others take on supporting roles, or try to be AS funny as the funniest and it falls flat. The Family did, to this day, some of the best improv shows I have ever seen in my life -shows that were not just hilarious (although they were that) - but thought-provoking, moving, mind-bogglingly brilliant ... Here's an interview with Miles Stroth, one of the members of "The Family" - about his years at Improv Olympic, and Del Close.

I'm mentioning Del Close so much because the excerpt below involves his relationship to Belushi.

Belushi was tough. He could be unmanageable. He had a giant ego, but it also seemed to cover up his flaws, his fragility and vulnerability. The early years of SNL are now the stuff of legend - with Belushi basically LIVING on the office floor at 30 Rock ... doing drugs nd sleeping off benders on couches ... and then going out to do the show. It was the wild west of television, very difficult to remember now - because it has become so "establishment". Old-fashioned word, but come on, those folks were anti-establishment ... the drug jokes, sex jokes, the crap they got away with ... They were renegades. The first season is what is most interesting to me, because it was before people were REALLY paying attention. I remember that season, I was a kid, and it was past my bedtime, but I was allowed to stay up once and watch it. Steve Martin was hosting. It was insane. I remember it feeling dangerous. Just the fact that it was LIVE. There was an edge to what was going on there.

Belushi catapulted to stardom, and had his ups and downs ... movies that missed the mark, and movies that hit a zeitgeist moment and still stand as anthems of the age. On July 28th of this year, Animal House turned 30 (which means I am a withered crone, basically) - Dennis over at Sergio Leone has a huge post about it (not to be missed) - actually, he had been doing a whole series of posts - that's just the tip of the iceberg - if you're an Animal House fan (and if you're not, I have to say, what the hell is wrong with you) - go over to Dennis' and start to click around. So fun!! Anyway - movies like Animal House and Blues Brothers are ones for the ages. Generations who never saw Belushi and Ackroyd do their bit live on Saturday Night love that movie. It works. It "hit".

Belushi was frustrated with not being offered Brando-like roles, he was best friends with Robert DeNiro and truly thought he should be in projects like that. But it was not meant to be. He was the funny guy, the samurai, the blues brother, the fearless improviser. In a way, it's probably a blessing that he wasn't on the show NOW - because his "bits" might have been "franchised" out of existence. Stuff was given a chance to breathe then (at least that's how it seems - I know the experience of WORKING there was absolute mayhem) ... but if you think about the Lisa Lubner character (played by Gilda Radner) and her boyfriend Todd (played by Bill Murray) ... those sketches were not at all ba-dum-ching experiences. There was no catchphrase (although Bill Murray screaming "NOOGIE" comes pretty close). It was character driven. Scenes were allowed to have many elements, sentiment, sadness, anger ... and yet they were also hilarious. The Lisa Lubner/Todd skits are my favorite in the entire SNL canon.

As the excerpt below shows, Bob Woodward, despite the fact that Hollywood is not his scene, and the business of actors is not his gig, was able to ask the right questions in order to get the answers he needed to tell his story. What was it about Belushi that was so striking? What exactly? WHY was he so funny? WHY did he stand above his peers? Woodward, in interviewing Del Close, obviously had an ear for the good anecdotes, the revealing "secret" (the moment Belushi tells the truth to Del, and the look he gives Del in the aftermath) ... that makes Belushi, as a person, come alive.

He emerges as more than his addictions, more than just the cliched too-much too-fast story - he emerges as a true talent. Someone who was conscious of what he was doing, although it might have LOOKED off-the-cuff, had perfect pitch when it came to audiences and what would make them laugh, and also had that underlying sadness and loneliness which is so much a part of 99.9999999 of every comedian I have ever met. It's a hypnotic mix. (And one I, personally, find almost impossible to resist.)

The book could have been completely overshadowed by the ending, because we all know how John Belushi died. But Woodward also manages to capture the wild freedom and joy of those early days, in Chicago and New York, and just what it was Belushi was really like, in those tiny theatres of 40 or so seats, with thunderclaps of laughter greeting his every move.

One of my favorite anecdotes in the entire book, one that has stayed with me, is the story of Betty Buckley, then a young singer performing in the Broadway show Pippin, coming to see an improv sketch show called Lemmings, which John Belushi was in. She was absolutely stunned by his brilliance on stage. She had never seen anything like it. She didn't know John, she didn't go up and speak to him afterwards, nothing ... she just walked off, amazed by what she had experienced watching him. A week later, she got a group of friends together, and brought them all to see Lemmings. She hadn't been able to stop talking about "this guy John Belushi" and what a revelation he was. And that night that her friends were there, Belushi was coked out of his mind, phoning in his performance, basically blowing it off. He was already, then, a self-destructive person who didn't have that "No" valve in him. People around him were doing drugs, he did drugs, whatever, it wasn't a huge deal. But to Buckley it was. Especially if it affected your work. Her friends were saying to her, "How can you think this was funny?" or "That guy? You brought us here to see that guy?" Disbelieving. Here is what happened next, according to Woodward:

Buckley got up and went backstage. She had never met Belushi.

As John walked by, Buckley grabbed him by the shirt with both her hands and threw him against the wall. She introduced herself and said she was in the musical Pippin, which had been a sensation on Broadway for more than a year.

"I'm in a long run, too, and I know it's difficult to give night after night. People come to see you and you blew the show off ... There are those of us who appreciate it. Do it for us."

John's face lit up. He said he understood. They talked for a bit. Buckley was amazed that he didn't tell her to get lost, that he was big enough to take the criticism.

"I'll be back and bring my friends again," she said.

Several months later Buckley met John at a party. He threw his hands in the air as if he were afraid she might grab him again.

"You remember?" she said.

"How could I forget?"

Yes, Belushi was a drug addict, irresponsible, self-destructive. But to me, that lovely anecdote, and not just his willingness to take the criticism - but his eagerness for it, because it sounded like truth to him - and then his joking reference to her grabbing him later ... to me, that is all I need to really know about John Belushi's character.

The excerpt below is from Belushi's early years as an improviser in Chicago.

EXCERPT FROM Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi, by Bob Woodward

Del Close, a thirty-six-year-old former Second City actor who had directed some of the revues in recent years, came back in 1972 to put together the forty-third revue, the 43rd Parallel. Close didn't care too much for Sahlins's highbrow instincts, and he was attracted to John immediately. John was in italics and the other cast members were in regular print. They were comedians, John was the one human being; they were playing parts and characters, Belushi played real people. Belushi's presence revived Close's feeling of the old days - the Beat Generation, drugs and the vital Lenny Bruce era - nastiness, fuck-you, sick-comic daring.

"How is it that you look so totally relaxed on stage and so in command?" Close asked him.

"Because that's the only place I know what I'm doing," John replied. The communication was so truthful. John worked his eyebrows and gave Close a lecherous look, not sinister, but boyish and honest, as if he'd confessed. Close, a thin, fierce, former stand-up comic, had a small mattress-on-the-floor apartment across the street from Second City. He had been a heroin addict and had had dependencies on speed and Valium at various times. His current problem was alcohol, but he relished his narcotic past, and he wore his track marks from the needles like a badge of honor. The marks confirmed his status as an outsider, the precise quality that he wanted to impress on the show. Actors comprised an alien subculture; they were supposed to spokesmen for outrage. Second City was supposed to be picking at society's scabs.

Close saw an instrument in Belushi - a trainable, ticking, bad-boy time bomb.

Close had known Lenny Bruce, who had died of a heroin overdose in 1966. Close had once gone with Second City's founding director, Paul Sills, to see Bruce perform, and afterward Sills had told him, "If you can ever find out what Lenny is taking, by all means do it." Drugs were central to the outlandish performances Close wanted. Belushi didn't need to be convinced.

"Lenny Bruce," Close told John one night, "took his work seriously. You have no idea how seriously he took it, pinned his entire life on it. And he had courage, not just through the drugs, but in his art." How long do you think Lenny could go without a laugh? Once he went nearly twenty minutes and then pulled nine trains of thought together. The audience laughed at the same moment like a snap of a sheet, not only a laugh for the jokes but for the brilliance and for the release of tension.

Close found John a most unusual student; he didn't need to be taught to relax or to be spontaneous. His timing was exact. John approached his skills as if they were simply a personality quirk, so Close undertook to teach John structure. That meant more complex material.

Close believed that the most complex subject for a comedian to handle on stage was death. First he guided John in parts calling for him to deal with the death of someone else. In one skit. John plays a taxidermist who brings his fiancee home to meet his parents. The parents are stuffed. John is meant to appear quite natural, to wear an expression of "What did you expect?" The fiancee is, of course, horrified. When she realizes she is next, she calls the police. John leaves the stage and returns with a stuffed policeman.

Close instructed him that the object was to end the sketch with a scream rather than a laugh. And he wanted the scream to be so loud it was a laugh. John carried it off.

For the 43rd Parallel, subtitled "Macabre and Mrs. Miller," John developed an angry, hip comic character of the early sixties modeled on Close. On stage, he predicts his death. ("And by then the needle will be in my arm and I'll be six feet underground, and there'll be nothing you can do to stop it.") Often he died on stage. Close taught John that the dying had to come unexpectedly; it had to be a surprise.

Marlon Brando, whom John had mimicked when he was still a schoolboy, became increasingly a role model. He'd seen On the Waterfront (1954) a dozen times, and he loved everything Brando played. Flaherty could see that John was thinking of himself heading in that direction, the next Marlon Brando. Judith Flaherty felt that John was right to see in Brando a style that fit him - encompassing both courage and range, the young, unjaded Terry Malloy to the burnt-out, wise Don Corleone of The Godfather.

John explained to a reporter for Tempo at Chicago State college how one imitation led to another: "Well, what I did, I happened to see Brando in a picture called Reflections in a Golden Eye in which he played a homosexual. Not long afterwards, I saw Capote being interviewed on TV and I suddenly realized, 'Hey, Brando was doing Capote!' Now if Brando can do Capote and I can do Brando - well then, I can do Capote."

* *

In the spring of 1972, after John had been at Second City for fourteen months, Chicago Daily News writer Marshall Rosenthal interviewed him. "Obsessed with Marlon Brando, John Belushi polishes off a slice of pizza, stuffs the greasy napkin into his cheeks and becomes The Godfather," Rosenthal wrote.

"The Brando character, in fact, runs through much of Belushi's hilarious impersonations at Second City, but it never overtakes him because beneath the macho-Mafioso pose always beats the vulnerable heart of a hippy-dippy chump ... Belush has only to step on stage to get laughs."

Rosenthal quoted John: "But a funny thing happens at Second City. A year after you're there, you start to get this fear that you'll die there, and you start wondering when you'll leave."

Rosenthal concluded:

"The pizza had turned into specks of sausage and cheese scattered in the deep-dish baking pan. We step across Wells Street at 3 a.m. to have the last beer at the Earl of Old Town. Folksinger Ed Holstein is on stage, and he calls to John, 'Hey, Valachi, c'mon up and do your Brando!' Not too reluctantly, Belushi ambles on stage, takes a long swig of draft beer, and says, 'I could'a been a contendah ....' "

Hope spends her afternoons

... contemplating the death of Irish Republicanism.

Doesn't every cat?

It's a big topic, and it is of great concern to her.

Carrie - I have no idea why your husband's book was on the FLOOR in that photo - it is now on the shelf where it belongs!

Rest assured Hope was very interested in its contents. She then went to curl up on the windowsill, pondering all of the issues raised in his book.

My only "hope" is that she isn't dreaming about launching her own dirty protest in my apartment, to imitate those in Long Kesh. Fingers crossed.

In praise of Robert Walker ...

... a nearly forgotten actor: Jonathan's tribute is a must-read.

The polyphemous moth, and ruminations about writing:

Sometimes you come across a blog-post that says just what you need to hear, at exactly the right moment.

This is one of those blog-posts.

It brought me to tears, actually. Gorgeous. Very resonant for me at this moment in time.

The Books: "Baby Doll" (Carroll Baker)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Baby Doll, by Carroll Baker

When I was about 12 years old, I first saw East of Eden, around the same time that I saw Dog Day Afternoon, a movie I didn't really understand (why was he robbing the bank again? Who was that guy he would talk to on the phone? What operation was he going to have?? I don't understand!! Isn't he married too? WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?) but which rocked me to my core. I had never thought much about acting as a craft. I knew what I liked, I loved movies, I loved playing make-believe, but it was the one-two punch of East of Eden and Dog Day Afternoon that made me think to myself: I want to know more about acting. How did James Dean DO what he did in that movie? How did Al Pacino DO that?? There had to be a secret, a trick, a magic elixir. Those two performances raised the bar for me, in terms of performances, but they also said to me: There's a big world out there, outside of ABC afterschool specials and Disney ... Go out there and learn about it. I worked as a page in a local library, and so I went to their entertainment biography section, in the back, up against the outer wall. When it was slow in the library, I browsed in that section. (I also peeked at the pictures of Joy of Sex, but that's another post entirely.) Al Pacino was more difficult to research (in lo, those long-ago pre-Internet days), but James Dean was everywhere. I had a method to my madness. I took out each book on the shelf, and checked the index for references to James Dean. (I'm a librarian's daughter, I know my way around).

I was not the Movie Trivia Goddess persona that I am now ... so I was probably looking for references to James Dean in the back of Mary Astor's autobiography or a biography about Theda Bara. NO MATTER. It was methodical, and I actually did come up with a lot of great information that way. I would flip open said book to the page, and read whatever anecdote was there about James Dean. That's how I learned about him, piece by piece. I learned about his motorcycle, his bongos, his probable bisexuality, I learned about Pier Angeli, and his insecurity around Marlon Brando, I learned that he wore glasses, I learned that he was roommates with someone named Martin Landau who took some phenomenal pictures of him, I learned about Elia Kazan for the first time (and I called him "Gadge" in my head, because everybody else seemed to), I learned about the Actors Studio ... and then somehow (the details are lost) I learned that Al Pacino was part of this Actors Studio as well ... so I needed to know more about THAT. What was this "studio"? Where was it? I always think of those feverish research moments in the library when I consider that later, many many years later, I would go to sessions at the Actors Studio, in a church on 44th Street, same place it's always been, and sit in the balcony, and watch people work, watch Harvey Keitel moderate, or Lee Grant, or Estelle Parsons ... I auditioned three times to get in, and kept telling myself, "Harvey Keitel auditioned ELEVEN TIMES ... don't give up hope!" The place oozes with atmosphere and ghosts. Marilyn Monroe worked on that "stage", doing a scene from O'Neill's Anna Christie, as onlookers (only members of the Studio are allowed in to watch) hung off the balconies. Ellen Burstyn has worked there. Everyone I admire has worked there. And I would have moments, walking up the stairs to the balcony of the "church", to find a seat, and think of my 12 year old self, huddled in the back of the library, learning about this place in my desire to know everything there was to know about James Dean and Al Pacino. Amazing.

I met Kazan once - at an Actors Studio function no less ... and he was very much far-gone by that point, almost completely deaf, but I stared at his face as I shook his hand, and I found myself trembling with what that man has meant to me, what he provided me (and continues to provide me) and how I set myself the task as a kid to learn about this man. What was it? It's rather an adult concern, isn't it ... I wasn't doing my best to learn about my Fisher Price toys, or about Lance Kerwin ... although I loved those things, too. But Kazan was someone I knew I needed to study. Why? I was speechless when I met him, and I could sense that anything I would say would probably be lost. He was too old, too deaf. But God. What a fucking honor.

My frenzied 12-year-old "James Dean Index Search" led me to Carroll Baker's Baby Doll. James Dean was in the Index quite a bit, so I took the book home with me and read it in a night. I was 12 years old. It's rather a salacious book, at times ... lots of sex, and infidelity, and smooching with someone named Ben Gazzarra ... and then there's a section of sexual frigidity, and unhappiness, a nervous breakdown, I guess ... I can't have understood much of it. Or, I might have understood it, but I know that I also understood that this was a book for grownups. No matter: I was in it for the acting anecdotes and the stories about James Dean. Carroll Baker did not disappoint. I didn't even know who she was then, and I had not yet seen Giant, although now I knew I HAD to, but her autobiography is a big juicy tell-all, not just of her sexual escapades (and actually, to be fair, she didn't have that many - it just FELT that way to a 12 year old reading it) - but of her colleagues. I ate that shit UP. She was in Giant, of course, but I had never heard of her most notorious role - in Baby Doll, a strictly Actors Studio production if ever there was one. Karl Malden, Eli Wallach, Carroll Baker, and Elia Kazan directing. It would be a long time before I actually got to SEE Baby Doll. I was very familiar with 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (excerpt here), the short Tennessee Williams play that the film is based on. The tour de force scene between Flora (turned to "Baby Doll" in the film) and the vengeful Vicarro is well-trod ground in scene classes across the nation. It's a perfectly constructed scene: two strong eccentric characters with battling objectives, a power struggle, and an eventual rape. Great stuff. I've played "Flora" in pretty much every acting class I've ever taken. It's just one of THOSE scenes.

I think I finally saw Baby Doll in college. But by that point, I had memorized most of the scenes, having heard so much about them - not just from her book but from Elia Kazan's masterpiece of an autobiography, which I read as soon as I could get my hands on it ("Oh, this is the scene on the swing ..." "Oh, this is the scene in the crib ...") that I felt like it was already a known movie to me. And there she was: Carroll Baker, the woman who had written the autobiography that gave me such good information back when I was an OCD kid!

In a funny and sometimes peripheral way, Carroll Baker's book was really my "way in" to that world I wanted so much to be a part of. She described the Studio to me, the rehearsals for Hat Full of Rain (a big hit which started as an Actors Studio project), the way the movie studio worked, what it was like in the commissary, what it meant to try to play a part ... what did you need to draw on? If you had a personal arsenal, how would you know which weapon to pick? People like Kazan helped actors with that. Kazan would want you to draw on yourself, he was that kind of director, but he also was unafraid to get personal: If he knew you, and knew your issues (with your mother, father, with sex, your ex-husband, whatever) - he would pull you aside, and whisper something to you that would trigger a response that was perfect for the scene. Many people hated that kind of intimacy in working, it seemed manipulative and too personal - but of course Kazan got the results. Carroll Baker was a young actress at the time of Baby Doll, and had only done two movies before that one (one of which was Giant).

Baker had devoted her time to studying at the Actors Studio, it was THE place to be at the time (mid-1950s) - not just for the opportunity to work on scenes and get involved in projects, but for the networking possibilities (a word I despise, but whatever, let it go). Baker didn't want to just be famous. She wanted to be good. She worked hard. She was a pretty serious person, actually. Dare I say humorless? And some of the stories (at least one in the excerpt below) show that being too serious, or too eager to be "good" can lead to a kind of paralysis when the time comes to actually get up and do it. Carroll Baker knew that. Without the part of "Baby Doll Meighan" the rest of her career wouldn't be possible. It is what she will go down "in the books" for. Baby Doll was a notorious movie. It's really quite bizarre, and I highly recommend it, if you haven't seen it. Kazan loved it. Tennessee Williams' play is quite tragic (although the actual title is: 27 Wagons Full of Cotton - A Mississippi Delta Comedy). Shades of Chekhov - who called all of his great plays "comedies" and would splutter with rage at the interpretation director Stanislavsky would put onto them at the Moscow Art Theatre. Why is everyone so dreary? Why is the mood so sad? Doesn't he know this is a COMEDY? It's an interesting view of comedy, more complex than what we are accustomed to. How can a play about a big rough boob of a man married to a woman who is obviously mentally disabled, who sleeps in a crib - grown woman! - and who has one desire in life: a neverending supply of Coca Cola ... and the big rough boob of a man burns down his neighbor's cotton gin, in order to boost his own business, and then - in the climax scene - allows said evil neighbor to rape his wife, so that they will be "even" ... how can such a play be a "comedy"? Is Tennessee Williams insane? But I do think it's important to remember that "comedy" is in the title, when playing those characters - don't lose sight of that! And Kazan didn't either. Baby Doll, the movie, is a delightful weird little romp, whimsical, amusing, with slapstick elements, people running around the house, slamming doors, etc. The rape is soft-pedaled - and becomes more of a mutual seduction (and there are elements of that in the play as well ... Flora likes being raped, she enjoys being hurt). Kazan saw the whole thing as funny. "Baby Doll" is not a tragic nitwit. She's an adorable little creature, who is unfortunately manhandled by her ridiculous husband (played by Karl Malden in the movie) - and finds a playmate, a fun and silly playmate, in the vaguely sinister yet sexy neighbor Vicarro (played by Eli Wallach). Vicarro does not come across as strictly a predator in the film. He is hot for her, yes, and he looks at her and thinks, along the lines of Rhett Butler, "This woman needs to be kissed ... and often ..." But it doesn't become violent, you don't weep for "Baby Doll". You're actually happy for her that she found someone who "gets" her, who doesn't make fun of her or make her feel stupid.

Baby Doll caused a shitstorm upon release. The Catholic Church condemned it. Morality groups across the nation began screaming at the tops of their lungs. The billboard in Times Square, stretching an entire city block, was Carroll Baker, in a "baby doll" dress, lying on her side in her crib, sucking her thumb. It was perverse! I love it!

It put Carroll Baker on the map, forever and always. And in a funny way, her career never recovered. She was NOT a sexpot ... her sensuality was a more subtle and pained thing, perfect for Tennessee Williams ... I'd have loved to see her play Blanche Dubois (excerpt here), or Princess from Sweet Bird of Youth (excerpt here). If she had been born a decade later, she would have flourished in the burgeoning independent film movement in the late 60s and 70s.

As it was, in the 50s, she became un-place-able. Because of that billboard, because of the controversy surrounding the film, she was labeled as "sexy", and she had a very hard time in more conventional sexy roles. It wasn't her "thing". It didn't come naturally to her. But that didn't matter. She had become pigeonholed very early, and she could not get the parts she wanted to get, she could not escape the shadow of that billboard to save her life.

The movies she was in became less and less worthy of her, although there is much to recommend some of them. The Carpetbaggers is very good (with a couple of famous scenes - the chandelier, the nude scene at the mirror) ...

She also got a key part in How the West Was Won, which she says was her favorite movie ever, and her best working experience. She and Debbie Reynolds became best friends, and remain so to this day.

Then came Harlow in 1965. Baker was cast as Jean Harlow.

It was an unhappy shooting, nobody knew what they were doing, it was thrown together at the last minute, and very sloppy. Baker, the "good" actress who had been trained well, did her research, took it seriously, tried to embody Harlow (although, frankly, she is terribly miscast) - and the results are not bad (I've always liked watching Baker act, it's a pleasure) - but certainly not good. The playful sexiness of Jean Harlow had nothing to do with who Carroll Baker is, was, or could even embody. She looks uncomfortable. It's just not "right". Not every actress can play everything. It made matters worse that only a month before the release of Baker's Harlow, another movie called Harlow was also released, starring Carol Linley. Terrible timing. Despite that fact, Baker's Harlow did better at the box office than Linley's Harlow, but it wasn't enough to save the film from disaster, or to save Carroll Baker from taking the fall for its failure. She eventually was let out of her contract at Paramount, after a messy ugly battle.

If you look at Baker's IMDB page, you can see a two-year gap after Harlow. Work dried up. Carroll Baker ended up moving to Europe, and working there, primarily - she could get jobs, probably way more interesting than what she was struggling for at the studio ... and she could regroup. She worked in France, Spain, Italy. Over two decades passed. Her American career was over. She did stage work. She got married (for the third and last time - they stayed married until his death last year).

And I remember this well: Suddenly, in 1987, a movie called Ironweed came out. I was in college at the time, deeply engrossed in my own acting training, and we were all insane to see this movie - with two of our collective acting idols playing off of each other - Streep and Nicholson. Mitchell and I went to see it together. There is one scene where Nicholson's character goes home to visit his long-suffering wife, who has "let her husband go", because he has become a bum and a drunk. It is a haunting scene, full of silences, and broken dreams ... it's one of the best scenes in the film. When I think of Ironweed now, I think of Streep singing in the bar, and also the scene between Nicholson and his gentle plump wife, who still loves him, you can tell, but how do you love someone who has decided to leap off the grid? Her tragedy emanates off of the screen, and she never says a word. The dead baby is IN that scene, never referred to, but hovering between them. Great stuff. When the credits rolled at the end, I felt a jolt when I saw "Carroll Baker" go rolling by. I don't know - I have this connection to her ... I associate her with being young and eager and discovering who I really am. That was what was going on in those library shelves ... I was discovering and embracing who I really am, who I am NOW. There is much in my childhood that does not feel connected at all to who I am now ... but that? My research, self-directed and self-perpetuating? It doesn't matter that I was only 12 years old. That girl is ME. So ... ohmygod ... Carroll Baker? Was that THE Carroll Baker? The photos in her autobiography came to my mind, her delicate pretty face, the small mouth, the tall forehead ... That was her! That wife in Ironweed was her! I hadn't thought about Carroll Baker's career in a long time. Her book came out in 1983, before Ironweed, and it ended with her being satisfied with her European acting career and her stage work. But there she was ... I was so, weirdly, HAPPY for her. Not just happy that she was back in a high-profile picture again - but that she was so damn GOOD. I thought she should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Yes, her screen time is not very extensive - but Beatrice Straight won the Academy Award for Network and she had much less screen time than Baker did!

Beautiful scene, and I felt somehow invested in it. Yay for Carroll Baker, I thought to myself, like some sort of lunatic.

Ironweed did not resurrect her career into something more steady. She wrote novels, she appeared in lots of television, and you know what? She's still out there. I don't know what she's doing, but, as always, I hope it is interesting, and I hope she is okay with it. Her book "pointed the way" - it showed me the kind of life I wanted to have - one that was about work, and collaboration, and theatre.

There are many better autobiographies out there. But Baby Doll is the one I most cherish.

Here's an excerpt - from the shooting of Baby Doll. Kazan liked to shoot on location as much as possible - so for Baby Doll the entire cast and crew went down to Mississippi, and holed up there for a couple of months, shooting everything in and around that particular town.

Carroll Baker had had a nice small part in Giant and she did a good job.

But Baby Doll was a lead. And this was no ordinary picture. This required acting chops. Bravery. A sense of safety mixed with courage. It's a weird movie, I don't want to paint a picture of it that is not accurate, but it's fun. It stands alone in Kazan's canon, that's for sure. It is mostly unclassifiable - Wallach is awesome in it, Malden is hysterical and awful - and you cannot take your eyes off of Carroll Baker. I like, too, in the anecdotes below, how open she is about how "green" she was an actor. You get more ease with more experience ... but she wasn't there yet. This was her chance, her big break, she knew it ... and so she tossed herself into it with an earnestness that is touching to me, even as it shows her inexperience.

EXCERPT FROM Baby Doll, by Carroll Baker

Gadge was earthy and completely approachable. He made everyone involved in the project feel like a full participant. His crew would have walked through fire for him, because no other director had ever made them sense that enormous satisfaction of being an equal contributor to the whole. On his sets, everyone was encouraged to come forward with an idea. When Gadge had a problem he discussed it openly. For example, the opening shot of the film was of the old Southern mansion. Gadge was concerned that the audience might get the impression of a period piece. It was a gaffer who stepped forward and said, "Hey, Gadge, why not wait until a jet plane flies overhead?" It was a brilliant idea which Gadge jumped at, one by the way which has been imitated many times since. Imagine the feeling of pride that will forever be with that gaffer!

I had a scene in which I was waiting in the open car for Archie Lee. The script indicated that all of the local men standing outside the store made fun of Archie Lee as he exited the store and walked to the car. Because the whole town knew that the marriage had not been consummated and that Baby Doll was still a virgin, the local men were always jeering. Gadge also wanted something visual to hinge the laughter on. He asked Karl and me, "Can either of you think of something that you might be doing? Something that might motivate the jeering?" I said, "My daddy was a traveling salesman, and whenever I used to wait for him in the car, he would always bring me an ice cream cone." Gadge threw his cap down in the dusty street and stamped and hollered for joy. "That's perfect, perfect," he howled. "It will make Archie Lee feel silly and doubly humiliated having to cross in front of the guys with a dripping ice cream cone. It is a perfect childish prop for you. I'll shoot Archie Lee's reactions and those of the crowd as you lick the cone, and we'll have our sexual connotations there, too." Even now, whenever I remember this, the pride I felt at having my idea accepted rushes back to me.

An "activity" suggestion of mine which Gadge went for in a big way was used during the "bathroom scene". Archie Lee stands outside the bathroom talking to Baby Doll through the closed door while she takes her bath. We had naturally thought of the toy boats and rubber ducks for Baby Doll, but I suggested that, during the dialogue, Baby Doll be washing her laundry in the tub along with herself. It was wonderfully tacky. And Gadge also let me wear a funny, unflattering shower cap halfway down my forehead, with my ears sticking out. What joy it was to work with him on the comedy.

The end of that scene, by the way, is when Archie Lee can't contain his lasciviousness any longer, and we see him rush into the bathroom. Off-camera we hear the sound of his splashing into the tub over Baby Doll's howls of protest.

Before leaving for the location I had seen my first pair of Baby Doll pajamas in a New York store window. I couldn't resist the tie-in with my character's name, so I bought them on the spot and took them with me to Benoit. Both Anna Hill Johnstone, the costume designer, and Gadge thought that those rompers were perfect for my initial crib scene. Too bad I had no marketing sense then, because I never requested a cent for having made those Baby Doll pajamas so famous.

Other than the pajamas, Anna Hill and I shopped locally for my clothes. They had to be inexpensive and a couple of sizes too small, as if I had grown out of them. We came across a silly little white-satin pancake hat. The moment I saw that ridiculous hat I went mad for it. Anna Hill agreed that Baby Doll would be pretentious enough to wear a hat, along with her best suit, when going for a drive in Archie Lee's rattling, decrepit, mud-caed car. That satin pancake was the most chic and expensive hat in all Benoit. It cost $12.95, and Anna Hill even went so far as to give Baby Doll a pair of short, white gloves to complete her ensemble during her simple outings. What laughs we had while coming up with one outrageous idea after another! I believe Gadge wet his pants when Karl suggested that Baby Doll would be snotty enough to insist upon riding in the back seat of the old Chevy, making Archie Lee chauffeur her to town.

My most difficult acting scene was the one I call the "pig-sty scene". Although I can't remember any longer why Baby Doll was so upset, the scene called for hysterical crying and then laughter and tears together. I knew that if I was to continue fierce crying and add simultaneous laughter, I would have to enter the scene fully sobbing my heart out. I went behind the barn to do my preparation - hours and hours of preparation! I thought of every terrible memory I possibly could, and although I felt like hell, no tears would come. Finally our cameraman, Boris Kaufman, told Gadge, "I'm afraid we will have to shoot it right now or else postpone it until tomorrow because the light is going."

Gadge came to me and said, "We can't wait for you any longer, Carroll. Never mind. We'll do the scene without tears."

I was so humiliated to have kept Gadge and Eli and all the crew waiting all afternoon, and so frustrated over my lack of ability that while running to my position in front of the pig sty I burst into the most gorgeous, sloppy tears. My feelings swelled and overflowed convulsively into laughter, making it my most effective scene. But alas, the audience will never share that opinion. Flushed as I was with my histrionic triumph, I failed to notice that in the background those squealing, snorting, grunting, groveling, farting little piggies were completely stealing the scene away from me.

Gadge never wanted his cast to be aware of the camera. No technician was to worry the actors about a difficulty with the sound or the lights. Our concentration was given the highest priority. During the camera rehearsals, Gadge went so far as to whisper his instructions to the crew, to protect us from any concern about the technical aspects.

No scene was rigidly plotted, so during a take the camera operator was trained to follow the actors whatever they might do, to be alert for any unexpected movement or gesture, and to guide the camera accordingly. If we begin to edge out of frame and there was a split-second decision to be made, the operator knew that Gadge relied on him not to halt, but to make that decision. At one moment in the "swing scene", my head drifted sideways and hung over the swing nearly to the ground. It was lovely the way the operator caught that spontaneous dip.

Under no circumstances did any of us, in front of or behind the camera, stop or cut a take. Even if we said the wrong line or there was a technical hitch, we continued until Gadge called out, "Cut." He sometimes loved the effect created by a mistake. He often allowed the film to roll after the completion of the dialogue in order to capture some lingering expression or an added thought.

We had a scene on an outdoor double-seated swing where Vicarro seduces Baby Doll. I doubt that Eli and I could have done that provocative, sultry "swing scene" without the thoroughly professional, no-silly-jokes attitude on a Kazan set. I certainly would never had the concentration and courage to allow myself to become so totally passionate, or the security and willingness to reveal the depth of what was happening to me.

Given that ideal working atmosphere, the youthful enthusiasm with which I threw myself into the character, the story, and the relationship, I underwent the emotional confusion often felt by actors. The way I treated sweet, darling Karl Malden must have been intolerable for him. I thought so long and hard about my resentment and physical abhorrence of Archie Lee that I couldn't just turn it off. I'm sure Karl felt some of that attitude unintentionally directed at him. Mildred Dunnock resigned herself to my petulance toward her at one moment and protectiveness the next. I think she understood that for the duration of the film, I was going to relate to her as Aunt Rose Comfort. And gentle, refined Eli Wallach loomed in my imagination as that frightening, callous brute Silvo Vicarro, to whom I was also irresistably drawn. I soon found myself besotted by Eli/Vicarro.

Eli, however, could never quite take me seriously. He forever had a twinkle of understanding in his sparkling, dancing eyes. Whether I was showing an exaggerated fear of him or a scorching fervor, he regarded me quite rightly as an overimaginative, overheated pubescent. But that didn't dampen my ardor or keep me from making a complete fool of myself. I might as well describe how wrapped up I was in the Stanislavski method and how I behaved offscreen during the "unsatisfactory supper scene," because it is no secret any more - thanks to Eli.

In this scene, Aunt Rose Comfort is in the kitchen preparing her unsatisfactory supper, and Archie Lee is at the daft old lady's side, harassing her. Vicarro and I are kissing in the hallway just outside the kitchen. Vicarro and I then enter the kitchen with telltale smears of lipstick on our faces and our clothes askew.

Although they had finished filming Eli and me kissing, and had moved the camera away from us and into the kitchen set, I didn't release Eli. Since we were supposed to re-enter dishevelled and breathless and flushed, I just wouldn't stop kissing him. All through the lengthy dialogue between Milly and Karl, as well as several takes of that scene, I had Eli pinned against the outside wall of the set in an endless, inescapable kiss. Now another method actress might possibly kiss once again, so as to enter in the called-for emotional state, but no halfway preparation for this method actress. I wasn't willing to let one puff of steam evaporate. It was only the cue to enter the scene that saved Eli from being utterly suffocated by my determined and feverish assault.

Eli must have been surprised at first, then curious to see how far I intended to go, possibly a bit flattered, no doubt somewhat excited himself, and certainly amused. The last must be true, because I have never been able to shut him up about this indiscretion. That devil has told that story around the world, and it has been repeated to me by journalists from Calcutta to Chicago, and from Tallahassee to Bangkok. There is no way I can ever hope to live it down.

"Though her words are simple and few, listen - Listen, she's calling to you ... "

An a capella choir's beautiful rendition of "Feed the Birds", from Mary Poppins.

Jason Miller in The Exorcist

Jonathan has put up a clip of his favorite moment.

That movie basically ruined my childhood.

Great flick nonetheless. Shattering.

Ecstasy: "The Most Talked About Picture In the World"

With that tagline, who could resist?

Here is the original poster for the film. Provocative, isn't it?

Ecstasy, directed by Bohemia (now Czech)-born Gustav Machatý, was notorious by the time it hit the screens in the US, in 1935. It had been filmed in Prague, and had already been seen by international audiences; hence: the tagline. Ecstasy caused a firestorm of controversy, and when the print was sent to the US, it was seized by customs, due to its supposedly being "obscene". Shades of James Joyce here. The obscenity was due to the fact that Hedy Lamarr, star of the film (then named Hedy Kiesler) has a scene where she runs through the woods, naked, after skinny-dipping, and you get some full frontal nudity going on. The US exhibitor pleaded his case for the film, and an edited version was cobbled together, taking out Hedy's lady-bits, as well as adding a "moral" (along the lines of the "We don't condone any of this" message added to the beginning of James Cagney's Public Enemy, another pre-Code film which pushed the boundaries of what you could show)- basically making it clear that there was a divorce, and adding an ending that justified her behavior ... as though wanting to be sexually happy (in your marriage, let's not forget) was somehow shocking.

The film does not judge her, and that's what is so extraordinary about it. Perhaps that was the most shocking "obscene" thing of all, and the focus on Hedy Lamarr's nudity was a smokescreen for that larger "disturbing" issue (rolling my eyes). Once the Code came down, women were put in their place, and "bad" girls were punished, or feared ... separating women out into split personalities. The thought that a woman would love sex was not to be mentioned ... and the sneakiest directors were able to get around the Code and suggest what they needed to suggest. I mean, Only Angels Have Wings, in 1939, is HOT - the scene between Cary Grant and Jean Arthur at the bar, where he invites her to "come up to his room" to see photographs ... I mean, it's not a coy film at ALL. But the words hide the true meaning - as opposed to reveal it. The Code films are full of euphemisms and metaphor, to trick the censors, but a discerning viewer will certainly get the message.

What is startling about Ecstasy is the lack of euphemism. There are some clever sight-gags - like her lying alone in bed on her wedding night, longing for him to come to her - and we see only his feet, in another room, and they suddenly sag - suggesting he has fallen asleep standing up.

Hm. The man is sagging ... what could THAT represent?? But again: this was not a tricky way to get around censors. It's quite blatant what is happening, and the sight-gag is merely a clever storytelling device, a way to make the situation visual. (There is barely any dialogue in the film, either. Most of it is a very sophisticated pantomime.)

If you list the plot elements, it sounds silly and vulgar:

1. Man and woman on wedding night. She wants to have sex. He is not interested.

2. They are out to lunch, and he reads the paper, and she stares at all the dancing couples, and feels like she is missing out. Then she watches her husband kill a bee. It is upsetting to her.

3. Eventually, she leaves him and runs home to her father. She is upset. The father is a bit distracted because one of his mares is in the process of giving birth. She hugs the horse as the horse gives birth. I mean, duh.

4. Divorce proceedings happen.

5. One day, our heroine, living with her father, takes a horse ride. She comes across a pond and decides to take a swim. She takes off all her clothes and dives in. She swims and frolics by herself, as her horse grazes on the sidelines. Meanwhile, in a nearby field, a stallion in his pen sees the grazing horse ... and begins to snort and stamp and flare his nostrils. He wants some SEX, his muscles ripple, he is a fearsome and gorgeous beast. The grazing horse takes notice (I mean, wouldn't you?) ... and basically bats her eyelashes at the stallion (I am not even kidding - the horse sequences are pretty amazing) and runs off to meet up with her potential lover ... leaving our heroine naked and stranded in the pond. Panic! Our heroine runs out of the pond, naked, and so begins a chase. Hedy Lamarr chases her horse through the woods and fields. The horse ends up running into the middle of a surveying project - with lots of workers - and the head of the project, the head engineer, starts to run off after the horse. (I am never clear why he chases the horse for so long. Isn't it enough to just chase the horse out of the middle of his work area?) Our naked heroine sees the man coming and she runs and hides behind a bush. Engineer-Man sees that the runaway horse has white overalls draped across its back ... so he begins to wander thru the woods, basically looking for a naked woman who has obviously lost her clothes. He comes across the cowering naked Hedy Lamarr. Grinning, he throws her her clothes. She dresses. (I just have to say that I WANT her overalls.)

She leads her horse away. She trips and sprains her ankle. Engineer-Man runs after her and takes care of her ankle. They do not speak. It is highly erotic, him massaging her foot as she lies there, passive. Then they sit together quietly - and whaddya know, Engineer-Man picks up a flower and gently scoops up a nearby bumblebee and places it in the flower. A stark contrast to her bee-murdering ex-husband.

6. The two part. She goes back to her house. She lies in bed, dreaming and fantasizing. There is a windstorm. She can't stand it anymore so she goes out in the middle of the night and goes to his small cottage. She opens the door. He is sitting there, reading, and shocked to see her there.

There is no dialogue. They embrace. He lies her down on the couch, and then descends from view (Huh. Where is he GOING, do you think?? I'm confused) - and the camera focuses on her face as she experiences 'ecstasy' for what is presumably the first time. Then she lights a cigarette. I mean, what else are you going to do in such a moment? He lies his head on her breast, and we fade out.

7. The next shot is the two of them parting - and it is daylight. She is wearing the same clothes as the day before (those scrumptious overalls). They are happy, giggly, giddy.

8. She comes home, only to find her ex-husband waiting there for her. Awful. Now that she's had sex, and had an orgasm, she wants nothing to do with that nincompoop. She has seen the light! (Again: none of this is played with too much euphemism or tricks. It is what it is. The amazing thing is how little she is judged for wanting to be pleased, for wanting pleasure. It's presented in a pretty straight-forward manner.) But her husband feels bereft and ashamed - that his wife has basically fled the scene. He is not portrayed as an evil man, or a bad man. Just unimaginative, a little bit OCD (the way he corrects how she puts the toothbrush in the cup on the side of the sink), and not passionate at all. She needs more.

9. There ends up being an encounter between Engineer-Man and Ex-Husband - although Engineer Man does not know who it is. There is a careening car ride that gets a little scary. Ex-Husband is starting to seem very unstable. Poor guy.

10. Engineer-Man (who is also a stud, with hard shapely forearms, who also reads books, who also saves hapless bumblebees, who not only gets in the elevator but he also goes down - I mean, what more does a woman want?) and our heroine are going to get married.

And after that, I will say no more ... to avoid spoilers.

There's an expressionistic feel to much of the film. Scenes take their time. There are long montage sequences where we see clouds moving in the sky, floating strands of grain, a tap dripping water into a well, the sun beating down ... None of these things have a "point" in terms of plot, although they do serve important purposes: bringing about a certain mood, a certain dreamy quality. The film is told primarily from Eva's point of view. She begins her marriage excited and eager. Once sex is denied to her, she begins to droop. The depression is acute, of course, and she feels left out of the joys of life (there's a scene where she stares out of rain-streaked window at a couple embracing in a doorway, and there is such sadness in Eva's face). But there's another element of Eva's psychology - and that, I think, is one of the things people found shocking back then. (Interesting thing: in the director's commentary for Waking the Dead - my review here, the director said that some of the most hostile responses at previews were for the scene where she masturbates. She's thinking of her boyfriend, it is a monogamous relationship, she is totally in love with him, and he is on duty - far across the country - and she aches for him. She masturbates. Wow. How DARE she? The responses were vehement. This is 2000? What the hell year are we in? She was called a "whore", a "slut" - people didn't like her, etc. etc. Are you kidding me? So I guess we haven't come a long way, baby. I'm just saying.) In Ecstasy, the meandering montage sequences - of sunshine and grass and leaves and objects ... begin to create a dreamy atmosphere, a non-literal energy ... which adds to the feeling that she is now living almost completely in a fantasy life. She lies in bed, with bands of moonlight across her face, and she moves, just slightly ... we get a small montage of the lit-up lace curtains, the shadows on the walls, the light through the slats in the window ... and we begin to feel ourselves unhinge a bit, as she has. It is an erotic atmosphere, where sensations add up, piling, layering, until your entire being is ready for ... whatever. Love, sex, climax, whatever - the great unknown to this character. She is on the verge. The scenes, which do not rush themselves, add to that sense of waiting, of being on the verge of something.

Kim writes, in her piece on the film:

Gustav Machaty's Ecstasy explains some simultaneously simple and convoluted facts of life. Women get bored. Women daydream. They desire sex. They enjoy sex. And if they find it, they'll have sex, even if they're a little scared, or the man is over-eager, or they're afraid of the resulting guilt (which seems worse today -- in this Miley Cyrus/virgin/whore/Hester Prynne/fuck me now let me throw a rock at you society). No rocks for Hedy, Ecstasy is actually nice to its sexed up lass.

How nice the film is to her is one of its most shocking elements.

Hedy Lamarr was not a big star when Ecstasy came out, but it did get the attention of Louis B. Mayer, who hated the movie, but loved her in it. He put her under contract, and the rest is history. But for years, only the edited version of Ecstasy was available, and it never got large distribution due to the controversy. Regardless, it was condemned left and right - similar to Baby Doll, another controversial film that refused to judge its "sexed-up lass" ... it was condemned by the Catholic Church, and ... you know ... if people were to see this film they would immediately descend into degenerate behavior ... whatever.

What's fascinating about seeing the unexpurgated Ecstasy ... is how kind it is. How ... well ... sweet. Again, by just describing the plot elements it might sound salacious but that is only because of the world we live in now, which is even more unkind to its sexualized young things. Hedy Lamarr runs through the woods of Bohemia, naked, and somehow it does not come across as objectification. It is a woman's body. It is certainly erotic, and those scenes are quite beautiful ... but it doesn't have a dirty mind behind it, if that makes sense. Quite a revelation.

Ecstasy drags in its second half, and I didn't like the ending. I was also completely gobsmacked by the throngs of singing "workers" which suddenly made it seem like a propaganda film for Unionizing the world. What? Where did THAT come from? And where did she go?

Nevertheless, Ecstasy is obviously no longer "the most talked about picture in the world", but once upon a time it was, and now, thank goodness, we all can have a look at it.

I mentioned in my earlier post that people are shown in fragments throughout the film. In the beginning, the fragmented shots - his hands, her feet, whatever - end up making you feel the dissociation she feels from the wedding-night experience.

There will be no sex had here, and so she splits off - becoming just her parts - and he, too, has split off into fragments - not a whole man at all. This fragmented filmmaking continues on throughout, even after she leaves him ... but it takes on quite a different aspect with her lover (played by the wonderful Aribert Mog - who manages to inject humor, grace, sexiness, and manly concern - all into what could be an incredibly schmaltzy part) ... we just see her knees, curled up on the couch. Or we see her hand, hanging over the edge of the couch. Or we see her face in acute close-up, we're almost going up her nose, for God's sake.

What is happening here is not an increase in objectification and dissociation - but just the opposite. We are moving into her psyche ... we are no longer observing her, we are her. So her knees curled up on the couch become objects, yes, but objects that are not separate from the whole ... but a part of her. What we can't see is hidden, not missing.

Here are some screenshots.

ECSTASY (1933) dir. Gustave Machatý

The Books: "By Myself and Then Some" (Lauren Bacall)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

By Myself and Then Some, by Lauren Bacall

This is an expanded and updated version of Lauren Bacall's first autobiography By Myself (excerpt here). We've got more photos (some really great ones), more anecdotes, more detail ... I suppose as one gets older, one sometimes remembers more about the past. Whether or not it is all true and accurate and fact-checkable is not really relevant. Bacall goes deep into the past, remembering her childhood in New York in the 30s, the shoes, the cigarettes, the smells she remembers, conversations she had ... We have the same stories about meeting Bogart, only more detail. She incorporates material from her second autobiography Now (excerpt here) and then moves on to the present - with her comeback, starting with her Oscar nomination for her touching wonderful performance in the abysmal The Mirror Has Two Faces. She hadn't had a part like that in a long time. And to see her in that film, no makeup, unglamorous ... for a woman of that age, and that reputation ... it was something else. I thought she was terrific. She had always worked, although more in the theatre in the 70s and 80s than on screen - but suddenly, she was in hot properties again, things that got notice: Dogville, Birth ... She was seen on red carpets, she's BFF with Nicole Kidman. Good for Betty Bacall. Her "sunset" years have not been a descent into obscurity. She has just gotten more and more parts, which is rare indeed. By Myself and Then Some covers all of that.

I also love the pissed-off title. I relate to it. She's alone, she's lonely. She wishes for a mate. She divorced Jason Robards in 1969 and since then? She's quite open about her loneliness in all of her books, how she longs for that man beside her, someone to be her companion, helpmate, whatever. At the end of Now, she wonders if it will ever happen for her again, if she will ever find another man. 10 years later, she publishes a book called By Myself and Then Some. It makes me laugh. I know how you feel, Lauren. I really do.

While By Myself and Then Some is full of so many showbiz anecdotes that Hollywood-lore crack addicts like myself will be kept happy and satiated for years to come, I wanted to pick an excerpt from her early years, before she was famous. (I mean, she became an international sensation at age 19, so there's not much time to look at the non-famous years!) One of the reasons I love memoirs and biographies of famous actors is because of those "early years" sections. I love watching how they formulated their dreams for themselves. I love reading about any "A ha!" moments they might have had. I love watching the dawning of the passion that will rule their whole lives. It's also exciting to read about those moments when people realize: You know what? I'm GOOD at this!

Lauren Bacall was a skinny flat-chested teenager, living with her mother in New York. She went to dancing classes and singing classes, and did some modeling, although she never felt she was any good. It was acting that turned her on. She pounded the pavement. She worked as an usher in a Broadway theatre (and actually was so striking that she got a mention in a review of a play ... THAT'S star quality!), she sat around at lunch counters with other actors, hearing about auditions, running around town, reading for this part, that part. Again, Lauren Bacall didn't struggle for long. It was a magazine cover she nailed that got the attention of Hollywood and Howard Hawks in particular, and she never had to play a bit part in a movie (unlike Ms. Marilyn Monroe, and so many others) - she never had to suffer on the sidelines ... Hawks pushed right to center stage. Bacall's story is unique. So many people were put under personal contract and we never hear anything about them. So many of "Howard Hughes' girls" kept on retainer were just foolish teenagers who were a 1940s version of Coco from Fame (that awful scene). Lauren Bacall was picked by the right director at the right time. He did not squander her. He did not take advantage of her. He was very very careful in the first thing he put her in, and who he put her against (Bogart). And when his little creation began behaving in a way he did not approve (falling in love with Bogart), emotionally Howard Hawks cut off from her. He was DONE with her, very pissed off. An interesting Pygmalion relationship there. He felt he created her, and he felt that falling in love was a useless waste of her energy - she should be focusing on creating her mystique, remaining separate, working on her craft ... But to quote the end of What's Up, Doc: "Listen, kiddo, ya can't fight a tidal wave."

But I wanted to choose an excerpt today that was from Bacall's early years in New York, taking classes, modeling, hoping ... for something to happen to her.

Oh, and I also find it interesting (and she has spoken a lot about this) that she has terrible debilitating stage fright. She trembles uncontrollably. Her head shakes (she mentions becoming aware of it on her first day of shooting To Have and Have Not) ... her hand trembles ... it is beyond her control. The "tricks" she performs on herself, to just allow herself to be up there in front of people (head down, chin down, arm down ... ) - are extraordinary, I admire the smart-ness of her coping skills very much ... but lots of people have coping skills and don't become PHENOMS at the age of 19. Her "coping skills" (head down, chin down, look up while head is down so head doesn't shake, arm down, cross one arm over the other) - all of that stuff became her "look", her persona, what she was famous for.

Amazing! What began as a way to stop her head from shaking - became her "trademark". Bacall is smart. She's not just smart as an actress, but she has the other kind of smarts: smarts about herself. And the choices she made only made her seem stronger, more specific, more herself. None of those invented gestures come off as studied, or stiff. It looks like Lauren Bacall is just one cool dame, who doesn't NEED a lot of extraneous movement. When really it all began as a way to deal with nervousness. I love that!

Onward to the excerpt:

EXCERPT FROM By Myself and Then Some, by Lauren Bacall

I continued venting my energy on acting. At the end of the year, students of the New York School of the Theatre performed for parents. I had learned the portion scene from Romeo and Juliet. For weeks I studied it - during class, in school, on the street (why I wasn't hit by a truck I'll never know), at home. The day came and my moment with it. And the shaking started. I got through it, with Mother, Grandma, Charlie and Rosalie, Vera and Jack in attendance. It must have been awful - but what mattered was that I had done it, and that meant I would continue. No stopping me now.

My restlessness with regular school was due to the fact that I wanted to get on with real life - or away from real and on to pretend. I cut classes three times one week - once to go to the zoo, the other times for Bette Davis - and wrote a note saying I'd been ill and signed my mother's name. I always got to the morning mail first, but one morning I didn't. There was a letter from the principal's office saying I'd been out and they'd like to speak with Mother. What a scene! My tears - 'Oh, Mother, forgive me, I'll never do it again.' Mother asking how I'd got away with it. My confession to signing her name to a note. She: 'Don't you know that's against the law? That you can go to jail for that?' What was it in me - why and how was I able to do such things? For a girl who was dedicated to truth, it was most strange. Was it just mischief? Or was it a streak of my father - perish the thought! It reminded me of a time when I was about eleven. My friends and I used to walk through the five-and-ten-cent store. That's what it really was then, you could buy almost everything for five or ten cents. As I had no money, I used to look at all the appetizing items on the counters and imagine which I would buy. On one counter were pencil cases - cheap little pencil cases, but I'd never had one and I wanted one so badly. So badly that I took it. I suppose most kids have done something like that once in their lives - there's so much to see, to buy. And when you don't have the money, so much that is beyond your reach - even a silly pencil case. I went home as usual and Mother noticed the case. She took me by both arms, looked at me, and said, 'When did you get this pencil case?'

'I found it.' Eyes slightly off center.

'Where did you find it?'

'On the street, Mother.'

'You're lying, Betty. It's brand new. Now tell me where you got it.'

My chin trembled - I couldn't help it - I was caught, and frightened of what I had done. 'I took it from the five-and-ten,' in the smallest voice - a voice only birds could hear.

'Well, you are going right back there and return it. And when you return it you are to give it to the woman behind the counter, tell her that you took it, and apologize.'

'How can I ever do that? I'll be punished! Can't I just put it back on the counter and leave?'

'No - you do as I say. Let this be a lesson to you. Taking what isn't yours is stealing - it's against the law. If you return it now, they will do nothing to you.'

She walked with me to the store, went in with me, and quietly stood to one side while I made my confession. The woman took it back, and it was an experience I never forgot - nor was it ever followed by another like it. Facing a situation head on was the only way to deal with anything. I learned the lesson early. My mother gave me a solid foundation. Any little quirks along the way were my own. It was hard growing up. (It's still hard.)

I studied journalism at Julia Richman to fulfill a momentary dream of becoming a reporter. It must have been the result of a comic strip - that and seeing His Girl Friday. Years before when I saw a rerun of Loretta Young in The White Parade, saw how beautiful she was, how brave, how dedicated, I knew I would be a nurse. That is until my first sight of blood and the wave of nausea that accompanied it. The nursing dream became a thing of the past.

All this came from wanting so desperately to be someone - something; to have my own identity, my own place in life. The best thing about dreams is that youth holds on to them. I was always sure mine would come true - one of them, anyway. Clearly my fantasies resulted from my identification with movies and certain stars. Like the time I had seen Margaret Sullavan in a movie. She was a wonderful actress and I loved her looks. I wanted to look like that. My hair was long - it had been for years. Time for a change. But my mother and grandmother would be furious, so I pondered for days. Finally I decided I'd pondered enough. Time for action. I was to have my hair trimmed. Mother gave me the money. I took off for the shop. I was so excited - I'd leave 86th Street looking like me, I'd return looking like Margaret Sullavan. Thrilling. I sat in the barber chair and told the man what I wanted - I had a small photograph of Margaret Sullavan with me. He looked at me and said, 'Are you sure that's what you want?' 'I'm sure. Cut it all off.' He picked up his scissors and began. One side went and I looked cockeyed. It was awful, but it would be lovely when both sides were done. They finally were. I looked in the mirror. The hair was Margaret Sullavan, all right - very short, just below the ears, bangs - but the fact was still mine. The two definitely did not go together. But it was too late now, there was nothing for it but to go home and face the music. I walked in the door and when my grandmother saw me she gave a horrified scream, as did my mother. 'Are you crazy - cutting that beautiful hair? Whatever got into you?' 'All I wanted to do was look like Margaret Sullavan. I love it - I've had my long hair long enough. I'm not a baby anymore.' But it was awful - I looked hideous and I hated it. But it would grow back - I hoped. Fortunately, it did before I had finished high school. I was an awkward mess anyway, the hair just added to the picture.

Movies were accessible to me, of course - they were the cheapest entertainment form that I knew - twenty-five cents for entry. My exposure to the theatre was almost non-existent, as I could simply not afford it. I was given a very special treat in 1939 - seeing John Gielgud as Hamlet. The combination of John Gielgud, Shakespeare, and a Broadway theatre was almost too much for me. The feeling of walking into a legitimate theatre - the shape of it, the boxes, balconies, upholstered seats, and the curtain with the magical stage behind it. What seemed like thousands of people crowded inside. So this was what a real theatre was like! It lived up to every vision I had ever conjured up in my mind. I reached my seat, program clutched in hand. The house lights dimmed - the chatter ceased - the entire audience was focused on the stage - the hush - the feeling of awe - and the power actors have to affect people's lives while they sit in a theatre. At the rise of the curtain one could feel the expectation, the concentration of everyone in that house. What followed depended on what was given by the actors - they could do almost anything, they could lead an audience anywhere, make them feel anything. The power of it - it was unforgettable. That day I was transported for two and a half hours from my perch high in the balcony. Even the wave of applause that came at the end of each ac did not shake me back to reality. Would I ever come close? Was there any way for me to be anywhere near that good? Gielgud's performance was so affecting that, despite my youth and my inability to understand Shakespeare's language totally, I left the theatre in a complete daze, bumping into people, being stepped on, unaware of where I was. Since then, of course, I have realized that Gielgud's Hamlet was one of the great performances of all time. And I can still see the beauty of that head and his total immersion in his role. It took some time for me to return to my reality.

"In the land of the killers, a sinner's mind is a sanctum"

Eminem's another guy I want to write more about. Thankfully, Cara - of former RTG fame - has done some of it FOR me. Amen, sister, you're preachin' to the choir. His performance in 8 Mile is a revelation - but at the time it came out, I remember thinking, "I'm not at ALL surprised at how good he is. Of course he is." The Slim Shady LP and the Marshall Mathers LP still have the power to knock me on my ass. I find new things in them all the time. In "My Fault" (or as I think of it: the "never meant to give you mushrooms girl" song) ... what strikes me now is Eminem starting to sob at the end of it, how he didn't mean it, how sorry he is ... I don't know why I missed that moment before. I was too swept away in other elements of the song, but his freakout at the end is what stays with me now. It is real. He is sobbing hysterically. And all of the snarky "whoops!!" jokey tone of the rest of the song flies out the window. He always does that: performs a jujitsu move after something particularly offensive ("I'm just playin', ladies ... You know I love you ...") and to hear him start to freak out - you can see him, you can literally see him hovered over his girlfriend who has ODd, and he's panicked, he's sobbing ... and the song fades out on that sound, Eminem sobbing how sorry he is. Truth? Sincerity? Who cares? It gets me.

I fluctuate on which song on Eminem Show I like best. I KNOW it's not Track 9. Dear Eminem, why oh why did you include Track 9? I know I covered this before, dear Marshall, so forgive the repetition. I don't think many albums are perfect ... there are only a couple I would give that label - Fleetwood Mac's Rumors is the first one that comes to mind ... but I do believe that Eminem Show would be what I would call a perfect album without that damn Track 9!! I know there are those who disagree ... and I wish, how I wish, I could love that track. Just so I could succumb to the perfection. Anyway.

The song I think that has the most long-lasting impact for me, from that great album, is "Sing For the Moment" (the one that samples Aerosmith's "Dream On" so brilliantly). It's an anthem. I think, too, it's one of the reasons why he is so beloved ... not just admired and feared and grooved to. The kids love him. Because he talks right to them. He sees them. He knows what they're going through. He was there, too. He remembers.

These ideas are nightmares to white parents
Whose worst fear is a child with dyed hair and who likes earrings
Like whatever they say has no bearing, it's so scary in a house that allows
no swearing
To see him walking around with his headphones blaring
Alone in his own zone, cold and he don't care
He's a problem child
And what bothers him all comes out, when he talks about
His fuckin' dad walkin' out
Cause he just hates him so bad that he blocks him out
If he ever saw him again he'd probably knock him out
His thoughts are whacked, he's mad so he's talkin' back
Talkin' black, brainwashed from rock and rap
He sags his pants, do-rags and a stocking cap
His step-father hit him, so he socked him back, and broke his nose
His house is a broken home, there's no control, he just lets his emotions
go...

{C'mon}, sing with me, {sing}, sing for the years
{Sing it}, sing for the laughter, sing for the tears, {c'mon)
Sing it with me, just for today, maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you
away...

Entertainment is changin', intertwinin' with gangsta's
In the land of the killers, a sinner's mind is a sanctum
Holy or unholy, only have one homie
Only this gun, lonely cause don't anyone know me
Yet everybody just feels like they can relate, I guess words are a
mothafucka they can be great
Or they can degrade, or even worse they can teach hate
It's like these kids hang on every single statement we make
Like they worship us, plus all the stores ship us platinum
Now how the fuck did this metamorphosis happen
From standin' on corners and porches just rappin'
To havin' a fortune, no more kissin' ass
But then these critics crucify you, journalists try to burn you
Fans turn on you, attorneys all want a turn at you
To get they hands on every dime you have, they want you to lose your mind
every time you mad
So they can try to make you out to look like a loose cannon
Any dispute won't hesitate to produce handguns
That's why these prosecutors wanna convict me, strictly just to get me off
of these streets quickly
But all they kids be listenin' to me religiously, so i'm signin' cd's while
police fingerprint me
They're for the judge's daughter but his grudge is against me
If i'm such a fuckin' menace, this shit doesn't make sense Pete
It's all political, if my music is literal, and i'm a criminal how the fuck
can I raise a little girl
I couldn't, I wouldn't be fit to, you're full of shit too, Guerrera, that
was a fist that hit you...

{C'mon}, sing with me, {sing}, sing for the years
{Sing it}, sing for the laughter, sing for the tears, {c'mon)
Sing it with me, just for today, maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you
away...

They say music can alter moods and talk to you
Well can it load a gun up for you , and cock it too
Well if it can, then the next time you assault a dude
Just tell the judge it was my fault and i'll get sued
See what these kids do is hear about us totin' pistols
And they want to get one cause they think the shit's cool
Not knowin' we really just protectin' ourselves, we entertainers
Of course the shit's affectin' our sales, you ignoramus
But music is reflection of self, we just explain it, and then we get our
checks in the mail
It's fucked up ain't it
How we can come from practically nothing to being able to have any fuckin'
thing that we wanted
That's why we sing for these kids, who don't have a thing
Except for a dream, and a fuckin' rap magazine
Who post pin-up pictures on their walls all day long
Idolize they favorite rappers and know all they songs
Or for anyone who's ever been through shit in their lives
Till they sit and they cry at night wishin' they'd die
Till they throw on a rap record and they sit, and they vibe
We're nothin' to you but we're the fuckin' shit in they eyes
That's why we seize the moment try to freeze it and own it, squeeze it and
hold it
Cause we consider these minutes golden
And maybe they'll admit it when we're gone
Just let our spirits live on, through our lyrics that you hear in our
songs and we can...

Sing with me, {sing}, sing for the years
{Sing it}, sing for the laughter, sing for the tears, {c'mon)
Sing it with me, just for today, maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you
away...

Yeah ... so? He's on my bulletin board. So is Dean Stockwell. You gotta problem with that??

Video clip below:

Marshall: come back! Whenever you decide to come back, the entire O'Malley clan - all 45 cousins - all HUGE fans of yours - will be waiting!

Objects in Ecstasy

Thanks to Kim for the inspiration.

I'll write more about this haunting weird controversial little movie later but for now I just wanted to mention that much of the film is fragmented, we see pieces of people, sides of their faces, hands, feet ... a visualization of the dissociation our heroine feels within her own marriage. Nothing is whole, nothing is complete. Things are split off from the larger picture. It's a wonderful device. This is a film told without too much metaphor, which is rather shocking, considering the year it was made (1933). It is the story of a woman who just got married to a man and on her wedding night discovers that he doesn't like sex. There is no euphemistic portrayal of this situation. It is blatant.

Like I said, I do want to write more about it (and Hedy Lamarr's wonderful brave performance, and the dreamboat Aribert Mog) but for now, I wanted to just mention in passing the filming of objects throughout the film.

Not only people are filmed in fragments and pieces. But objects. The objects, at times, take on a life of their own, especially in one erotic sequence during a windstorm when Lamarr's character makes the decision to "go to him" in the middle of the night ... But from the beginning, we don't just get a straight narrative, with wide shots, and masters, moving into closeup ... We see parts of the action, and then there is a cutaway to an object in the room. The objects have import. It is up to us to assign them meaning. The tassels on the end of a rug being smoothed out by a man's hand are not just tassels. They become an evocation of an entire emotional state. I loved that about the film. Later in the movie, when she begins to blossom sexually, we still see things in fragments, but now it becomes erotic, a burlesque dancer with feathers, what we don't see is not what is missing ... but what is hidden. A vital difference. She becomes whole, a full woman. And now, a hand twirling the tassels of a rug has a very different meaning - it is lazy, languid, like a woman dangling her fingers into a lake from a rowboat ... The same gesture we saw earlier from her uptight husband is now about the relaxation that comes over her post-orgasm (literally! I told you this film was controversial!), and the feeling of love and trust and satisfaction she now experiences ... NOT about a fussbudget rigid dude trying to keep things neat on his honeymoon.

I have this "thing about things", anyway, as I have covered before. I love contemplating the life of objects. Objects do seem alive to me.

More on Ecstasy later, but for now: some objects from the film.

Trolls

A masterpiece of an article in this week's upcoming NY Times Magazine about trolls on the Internet. Bravo, Mr. Schwartz. I'll read anything you write now. I don't want to go into why I think it's so damn brilliant ... but I will say this: it goes further into the conversation than most "oh woe is me there are bad people on the Internet" conversations go. Here's just one example from the article:

Is the effort to control what’s said always a form of censorship, or might certain rules be compatible with our notions of free speech?

One promising answer comes from the computer scientist Jon Postel, now known as “god of the Internet” for the influence he exercised over the emerging network. In 1981, he formulated what’s known as Postel’s Law: “Be conservative in what you do; be liberal in what you accept from others.” Originally intended to foster “interoperability,” the ability of multiple computer systems to understand one another, Postel’s Law is now recognized as having wider applications. To build a robust global network with no central authority, engineers were encouraged to write code that could “speak” as clearly as possible yet “listen” to the widest possible range of other speakers, including those who do not conform perfectly to the rules of the road. The human equivalent of this robustness is a combination of eloquence and tolerance — the spirit of good conversation. Trolls embody the opposite principle. They are liberal in what they do and conservative in what they construe as acceptable behavior from others. You, the troll says, are not worthy of my understanding; I, therefore, will do everything I can to confound you.

Why inflict anguish on a helpless stranger? It’s tempting to blame technology, which increases the range of our communications while dehumanizing the recipients. Cases like An Hero and Megan Meier presumably wouldn’t happen if the perpetrators had to deliver their messages in person. But while technology reduces the social barriers that keep us from bedeviling strangers, it does not explain the initial trolling impulse. This seems to spring from something ugly — a destructive human urge that many feel but few act upon, the ambient misanthropy that’s a frequent ingredient of art, politics and, most of all, jokes. There’s a lot of hate out there, and a lot to hate as well.

I get sick of the "well, on the Internet you're anonymous and so you can say anything" argument because, hey, I'm part of that, I'm sitting at my computer, safe and sound, and no one can "get" me, I COULD go onto sites and stir up shit, and call people names, but I DON'T. Why? What is it in some people that enjoy disturbing the peace? I haven't had "trolls" to that degree, although I've had a couple of stalkers - and a couple of folks who do the driveby "You're a stupid C***" comment. These people ARE trolls, make no mistake ... but my site is small enough that I just delete, ban, and move on. But what is it in someone that would read a post like this and feel the need to say, "You're a stupid c***" in response? THAT'S what interests me. That's what intrigues me. What button was pushed? What in my tone brought out such rage? What in my post disturbed that individual to such a degree that he HAD to lash out, and get personal? It was NOT random. It was a personal attack. Now of course I know where he is from, I have his IP address on file, and yes, he is anonymous. If I told that story out in public, would he, standing in a group with me in a public place, say, "You're such a stupid c***." Probably not. But there's more to it than that ... and that's, ultimately, what Schwartz's article is about. I've said it before: those who come up with easy answers in such matters I look at with suspicion - I consider them to be part of the problem, and they don't want to really look.

It's been a long time since I've read something so fascinating, gripping, something that upset me as I read it, but that I needed to continue.

Well DONE. Read the whole thing.

Diary Friday

Two entries from my junior year of high school (I posted them 3 years ago or so -but I thought it was time to unearth them.)

The second entry, reading it now, made me laugh so hard that tears streamed down my face. It's about one of our teachers who used to give us all nicknames. I am howling reading them. I am so glad I wrote that crap down!!

Once again, my junior year was when I was WILDLY AND PASSIONATELY IN LOVE ... with a boy who sort of liked me. He liked me as a person, not as a girl, which is devastating (devastating then, devastating now). It took me an entire YEAR to realize that he liked me as a person, not as a girl. Bummer.

In the first entry, my mother gives me some AWESOME advice ... (which, of course, I blatantly ignored for the next 20 years of my life to increasingly tragic results. Sorry, Mum!! Shoulda listened!)

Also, Meredith: In writing about Mr. Butler, I STILL felt punching the air - like I did so many years ago in the high school cafeteria. How I hated that man!!

December 2

Thank God the week is over. And tomorrow -- I shall be in NYC with Drama Class and Mere and Kate and Beth. ["shall"?? Who are you, Elizabeth Bennett??] I really need this break now. I can't wait! The city just excites, exhilarates me. I can forget about stupid Chemistry and stupid school.

Oh yes - I finished my paper for English. I am so proud of it! I worked really hard on it - 12 typed pages. Last night I got 4 - count them - 4 hours of sleep. [Can a diary "count"?] I typed and typed - my back still aches. I got up late and had to dash out without breakfast. I got to school - I felt so weak and light-headed - J. told me my face was stark white. My stomach gnawed painfully - I must have looked gorgeous.

Once again - French picked me up. [Shorthand translation: HE was in my French class, so I got to be in his presence; hence, the "pickmeup".] French comes at a perfect time for me -- in the middle of the day. Project Adventure days [a gym class that HE was in with me] are heaven. First period just sets me off in a good mood. I don't have to struggle on to get to period 4. [Okay, Sheila ... so ... you might want to look at your propensity to WILT when you are not in the presence of the guy you love. Not a good habit to get into.]

He has no idea. [THANK GOD.]

I came home today and thought about him really intensely. [hahahahahahahahahaha The image of that] I didn't think about us [There is no "us"], or asking him to dance - but I thought about him. He's a person. Why is that so thrilling to me? I just look at him - hair combed, glasses - Mum said to me, "I think at the dance, you should wait for him to ask you. You've let him know, don't push it. But also - you don't want to take away from his masculinity, his maleness." It sounds sexist but I know what she means. If he does feel something, then I want to give him a chance to do something about it first. I hate being such a dreamer. I'm gonna be crushed someday. [Yes. You will. You will be crushed over ... and over ... and over ... and over ... ]

I think humans are beautiful. Aren't people beautiful? I imagine his growth [as in height? or his soul-growth?] and his teenager-hood - He is a teenager. Just like everyone else. He has up days, down days. I don't really know what I'm trying to say but -- I know that when he looks at me, I feel in awe of nature for just creating life. Individuals. Created out of the stuff of nature. Atoms. Molecules. And him -- I mean - who is he? What is it like inside his head? Does he have questions or fears about sex? Is he a virgin? Oh God I don't even want to contemplate that one. I wonder if I look as virgin pure as I feel (and am!!!!)

I think the masculine race is wonderful.

[Race? Ah well. To a 16 year old girl, boys sure are a different race.]

December 3

Dance tomorrow night. I am not going. I wouldn't care about it if he weren't there. [All eggs in one basket. A basket who liked me as a PERSON, not as a GIRL. Not a good idea.] That was the reason I went to Homecoming and it was going to be the reason I went to this one. He is now at Harvard representing some little country and debating. [This must be Model UN. At least I hope it is. Otherwise I have no idea what he was up to. "Representing some little country"?? Unofficially? Or ... hahahahaha] I WISH I WERE THERE! I'll have to get April to tell me all about it.

Next week - the 15th - the band puts on their annual Christmas concert in the gym. Of course I planned on going. Now what I didn't know was that he is in the Stage Band and -- he has a solo where he stands up alone to play. J. says he really gets into it, leaning into the music. I can't wait!

I have too much homework. I feel extremely close to a mental breakdown. [hahahahahahahaha.]

Every night I stay up until midnight. Chemistry is plaguing my life out, no thanks to Mr. Amoeba Man [the teacher, a man we all despised]. I really am teaching myself Chemistry. History is so boring. Mr. Butler is really sexist. He openly tells the girls in our class he doesn't think it's right that girls wear pants. "Oh, Kelly, you look very pretty today. It's a shame that girls wear sweatpants nowadays." Kelly has gym right before History. Asshole. I mean, he's a nice grandfatherly sort of guy, but he condescends to the girls when they ask questions, and treats the boys like members of his team. It gets a bit much!! [I'll say. Fuck HIM, Sheila, fuck HIM. Don't give him another thought. Not worth it. He was actually NOT a nice grandfatherly type. He was a dick. Anyone who treats girls in their class the way he treated us girls is a dick, I don't give a shit how old he is.]

First period studies and gym are heaven. Studies -- of course we never study! Studies are not there to study in, are you crazy?

Kate, J., April and I sit at one table and cry with laughter for forty-five minutes. It's a blast!

Math is crazy. Mr. James is crazy. He throws chalk and erasers at people. He threw a pencil at me - it hit me in the tooth. [I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING] He gives everyone nicknames. He calls Kim Gately - Rusty. (Think about it.) He calls Dawn Wemmer - Sunrise. He calls Tim Devinck - Leonardo. Steve W. has his hair cut really evenly - he is called Bowl. Mark W. has the same haircut, and he is called Bowl II. John Marcus is called Aurelius. Sue Rice is called Corn Flakes. He calls me Marsha. (As in Marsha Malley). Oh yeah, and there's this kid in our class named Tuan Do - Mr. James calls him Don Ho. Sean O'Brien is this kid who looks like a leprechaun, or an elf, maybe. Or the Baby New Year in the Christmas special. Mr. James always calls him Baby New Year, right to his face. "Who knows the answer - Baby New Year?" [Is anyone else guffawing right now? This is all SO inappropriate and SO FUNNY] Everyone laughs in that class so much. The kids who don't have nicknames feel left out. Mr. James is always saying, "Hey, come on, Sean - wake up! New Years is coming!"

I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE CHRISTMAS CONCERT! [I find the lack of segue and the capital letters quite alarming]

My favorite author, by the way, is JUDITH GUEST. [Where the hell did THAT come from?] Oh my God - her books honestly make me cry. It's rare to find a book just as good as the movie or vice versa. But - it runs both ways here, with her Ordinary People. I loved both equally. I bought her 2nd book Second Heaven in NYC. I love how she writes. Her characters are wonderful! I'd love to act in a movie of one of her books. I'd love to be able to have one of her characters and say, "That's my character." If I was a guy, I would have killed to play Conrad!! I hope Judith Guest keeps writing more and more and more and more.

God, this entry is boring. I'm bored just writing it - so I am going back to Chemistry and p⁺ and e^- and moles and Avagadro's number and 6.02 x 10²³ and I can't wait!

What's new with me?

Oh, you know. This and that. I love to tear up pieces of paper with my mouth. That's something I've been exploring. I love to sit in the window and twitch my tail back and forth. I love to follow her around, and sometimes I enjoy licking her toes while she cooks dinner. I love my food, and I am learning to love my scratching post, although there are times when I still have to tear up her carpet. Sorry, beeyotch. A scratching post don't cut it. I really enjoy losing my mind for no apparent reason and running through her apartment at top speed, fur bristling, and eyes insane. That's really fun. I enjoy skulking around under her bed and pouncing out to gnaw on her bare feet, scaring the shit out of her. I enjoy lying on my back, exposing my belly to the world. That's really fun. I enjoy chasing my own tail because you just never know what that douchebag is going to do next and I MUST keep it in line.

Let's see, what else.

Oh yeah. Have I mentioned the sink? And how much I love it?

Happy birthday, Herman Melville

Herman Melville was born on this day in 1819. Moby-Dick is one of my all-time favorite books (my essays and excerpts are linked at the bottom of this post) - so I figured I wouldn't just re-hash that old territory - but compile here 5,000,000 quotes about Melville. They come from everywhere - from reviews of Moby Dick when it first came out (baffled, for the most part) - to John Huston's comment on it, when directing the film (it's a John Huston kind of day) - to Hart Crane's stunning poem about Melville's "tomb". Oh, and I included a link to a correspondence I had with a certain gentleman I was in love with, where we covered "The Whiteness of the Whale" in our emails. Whatever. It's a mish-mash.

Enjoy!

The Maldive Shark by Herman Melville

About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea,
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw,
They have nothing of harm to dread,
But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank
Or before his Gorgonian head;
Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth
In white triple tiers of glittering gates,
And there find a haven when peril's abroad,
An asylum in jaws of the Fates!
They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey,
Yet never partake of the treat--
Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,
Pale ravener of horrible meat.

Art by Herman Melville

In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt--a wind to freeze;
Sad patience--joyous energies;
Humility--yet pride and scorn;
Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity--reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel--Art.

"Moby Dick proved hard and exhausting to write. But he knew it was original and he understood that it was good. Published in 1851, it was not a success; until the first quarter of the twentieth century it was neglected. Ambitious later books were rejected. The failure of Moby Dick helped turn his primary attention to verse. Battle-Pieces (1866) was welcomed as peripheral work by a man who had once been famous for his prose. Seriously disturbed in his mind, he made a trip to the Holy Land (meeting with [Nathaniel] Hawthorne in Southport en route), and out of this visit emerged his most ambitious if not his most accomplished poem, the 18,000-line Clarel, twice as long as Paradise Lost, and in the octo-syllabic couplets of Gower's Confessio Amantis. Eventually, Melville - after working as a minor customs officer in New York - was reduced to dependence on his wife's money: she gave him an allowance to buy books and to print his later works in small editions for the tiny readership he retained. He died in 1891, quite forgotten, with the manuscript of the prose work Billy Budd completed but unpublished. His reputation was at such a low ebb that even this masterpiece went unpublished until 1924." -- Michael Schmidt, The Lives of the Poets

"The paucity of primary sources derives in large part from the downward trajectory of Melville's career. When Typee came out in 1846, he was only 27 years old. A best seller in its day, the book 'made him as famous as he would ever be when he was alive,' says Samuel Otter, an associate professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Melville's Anatomies (University of California Press, 1999).

"The name died before the man," Mr. Olsen-Smith says. "Compare Melville to Mark Twain, for instance - a man who remained beloved throughout his life and after, up to the present. People saved every scrap. ... It's a different story with Melville.' " -- Jennifer Howard, "Chronicle"

At Melville's Tomb
by Hart Crane

Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men's bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.

And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death's bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.

Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.

Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides . . . High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.

"Give me Vesuvius' crater for an inkstand!" -- Melville apparently shouted this, as he sat at his desk writing "Moby Dick"

"...a cosmos (a chaos) not only perceptibly malignant as the Gnostics had intuited, but also irrational, like the cosmos in the hexameters of Lucretius." -- Jorge Luis Borges on the "cosmos" of "Moby Dick"

"In general, it is the non-psychological novel that offers the richest opportunities for psychological elucidation. Here the author, having no intentions of this sort, does not show his characters in a psychological light and thus leaves room for analysis and interpretation, or even invites it by his unprejudiced mode of presentation... I would also include Melville's Moby Dick, which I consider the be the greatest American novel, in this broad class of writings." -- Carl Jung inThe Spirit in Man, Art, & Literature

"Moby Dick was the most difficult picture I ever made. I lost so many battles during it that I even began to suspect that my assistant director was plotting against me. Then I realized that it was only God. God had a perfectly good reason. Ahab saw the White Whale as a mask worn by the Deity, and he saw the Deity as a malignant force. It was God's pleasure to torment and torture man. Ahab didn't deny God, he simply looked on him as a murderer - a thought that is utterly blasphemous: "Is Ahab Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm?...Where do murderers go?... Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?"' -- John Huston, An Open Book, 1980

"We have little more to say in reprobation or in recommendation of this absurd book.... Mr. Melville has to thank himself only if his horrors and his heroics are flung aside by the general reader, as so much trash belonging to the worst school of Bedlam literature -- since he seems not so much unable to learn as disdainful of learning the craft of an artist. --Henry F. Chorley, in London Athenaeum, October 25 1851, review of "Moby Dick"

Correspondence about love and "The Whiteness of the Whale"

Letter of Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne:

June 29 1851

My dear Hawthorne ,

The clear air and open window invite me to write to you. For some time past I have been so busy with a thousand things that I have almost forgotten when I wrote you last, and whether I received an answer. This most persuasive season has now for weeks recalled me from certain crotchetty and over doleful chimearas, the like of which men like you and me and some others, forming a chain of God's posts round the world, must be content to encounter now and then, and fight them the best way we can. But come they will, -- for, in the boundless, trackless, but still glorious wild wilderness through which these outposts run, the Indians do sorely abound, as well as the insignificant but still stinging mosquitoes. Since you have been here, I have been building some shanties of houses (connected with the old one) and likewise some shanties of chapters and essays. I have been plowing and sowing and raising and painting and printing and praying, -- and now begin to come out upon a less bustling time, and to enjoy the calm prospect of things from a fair piazza at the north of the old farm house here.

Not entirely yet, though, am I without something to be urgent with. The "Whale" is only half through the press; for, wearied with the long delay of the printers, and disgusted with the heat and dust of the babylonish brick-kiln of New York, I came back to the country to feel the grass -- and end the book reclining on it, if I may. -- I am sure you will pardon this speaking all about myself, for if I say so much on that head, be sure all the rest of the world are thinking about themselves ten times as much. Let us speak, although we show all our faults and weaknesses, -- for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it, -- not in [a] set way and ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation. -- But I am falling into my old foible -- preaching. I am busy, but shall not be very long. Come and spend a day here, if you can and want to; if not, stay in Lenox, and God give you long life. When I am quite free of my present engagements, I am going to treat myself to a ride and a visit to you. Have ready a bottle of brandy, because I always feel like drinking that heroic drink when we talk ontological heroics together. This is rather a crazy letter in some respects, I apprehend. If so, ascribe it to the intoxicating effects of the latter end of June operating upon a very susceptible and peradventure feeble temperament.

Shall I send you a fin of the Whale by way of a specimen mouthful? The tail is not yet cooked -- though the hell-fire in which the whole book is broiled might not unreasonably have cooked it all ere this. This is the book's motto (the secret one), -- Ego non baptiso te in nomine -- but make out the rest yourself.
H.M

"I am like one of those seeds taken out of the Egyptian pyramids, which, after being three thousand years a seed, and nothing but a seed, being planted in English soil it developed itself, grew to greenness, and then fell to mould." -- Herman Melville

"Some critics would place his name among the most important American poets of the nineteenth century, or even today." -- Robert Penn Warren

"Melville's poems, less sumptuous in semantic nuance than the prose, less second nature to him than his fiction, are worked at and worked up, yet the difficulty of the restraining forms remains central. So does the rumor of an 'unspeakable' theme, unacknowledged at times, at times veiled from himself, which has to do with a radiant sexual irresolution. More insistently even than Conrad, Melville depicts a male world in prose and verse, a world in which intimate relationships and erotic experiences are between men and types of men: at sea, in the army and elsewhere. He celebrates, laments, touches - and he occasionally foresees, not the huge and benign vision of Walt Whitman, but with narrowed eyes, looking further than the future. His is not the optimism of Emerson but something more serious: he sees beyond a bad age, he sees to the other side of evil; nature consoles, but it also remembers and comments." -- Michael Schmidt, "Lives of the Poets"

"Mr. Herman Melville has earned a deservedly high reputation for his performances in descriptive fiction. He has gathered his own materials, and travelled along fresh and untrodden literary paths, exhibiting powers of no common order, and great originality. The more careful, therefore, should he be to maintain the fame he so rapidly acquired, and not waste his strength on such purposeless and unequal doings as these rambling volumes about spermaceti whales." -- London Literary Gazette, December 6 1851

"I could readily see in Emerson ... the insinuation that had he lived in those days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable suggestions." -- Herman Melville

"Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had 'pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated'; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation.... He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne, on a walk on the beach with Melville, 1857

"Mardi is a rich book, with depths here and there that compel a man to swim for his life. It is so good that one scarcely pardons the writer for not having brooded over it, so as to make it a great deal better." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne, in a letter to Evert Duyckinck

Various images of Moby Dick ...

"Readers will note that I have said nothing very much about Moby-Dick . But what can anyone say? Its quietly portentous first sentence is as famous as any in world literature ('Call me Ishmael'), and some of Ahab's monologues, like the one beginning 'Is Ahab Ahab?,' achieve an eloquence rivaling that of the Bible and Shakespeare. There are longueurs, but even in the midst of tedious cetological lore, one comes across such disturbing passages as that in which the Pequod's sailors squeeze and squeeze and squeeze handfuls of white spermacetti. Then there are the marvelous portraits of the crew -- the black cabin boy Pip, who goes mad and loses his sense of self, the well-meaning but weak Starbuck, the mysterious harpooners Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo. There are the haunting encounters with other ships, especially the Rachel 'searching for her lost children.' And throughout there is philosophizing that at times rises to a kind of prose poetry:

'All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in a whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.'

In Melville's lifetime few recognized or even suspected the writer's exceptional genius -- but Nathaniel Hawthorne came close, and the two men established a long-lasting friendship. After their first encounters, the writer of Polynesian adventures went back to his romantic tale about 'Whale Fishery' and, in Delbanco's words, 'tore it up from within.' Melville deepened and amplified his novel, enlarged it in every sense, with the obvious hope of joining what he called, in an essay on Hawthorne, that fraternity where 'genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.' With wonderful appropriateness, then, the author of The Scarlet Letter -- which appeared in 1850 -- became the dedicatee of the following year's Moby-Dick . -- Michael Dirda, 2005

"It will be a strange sort of book, tho,' I fear; blubber is blubber you know ... and to cook the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the things, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves." -- Melville on "Moby Dick" - in a letter to Richard Henry, Jr.

"A sense of unspeakable security is in me at this moment, on account of your having understood the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb." -- Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne - after Hawthorne read Moby Dick

"...fresh from his mountain charged to the muzzle with sailor metaphysics and jargon of things unknowable," -- Evert Duyckinck in his journal, describing a meeting with Melville, 1856

-- "[He is] a little paler, and perhaps a little sadder.... and no doubt has suffered from too constant literary occupation, pursued without much success, latterly; and his writings, for a long while past, have indicated a morbid state of mind." --Nathaniel Hawthorne, on seeing Melville in 1857

"It is--or seems to be--a wise sort of thing, to realise that all that happens to a man in this life is only by way of a joke.... And it is also worth bearing in mind, that the joke is passed around pretty liberally and impartially, so that not very many are entitled to fancy that they in particular are getting the worst of it." -- Melville to Henry Savage

"Moby Dick is an easy book, as long as we read it as a yarn or an account of whaling interspersed with snatches of poetry. But as soon as we catch the song in it, it grows difficult and immensely important. Narrowed and hardened into words the spiritual theme of Moby Dick is as follows: a battle against evil conducted too long or in the wrong way. The White Whale is evil, and Captain Ahab is warped by constant pursuit until his knight-errantry turns into revenge. These are words -- a symbol for the book if we want one -- but they do not carry us much further than the acceptance of the book as a yarn -- perhaps they carry us backwards, for they may mislead us into harmonizing the incidents, and so losing their roughness and richness. The idea of a contest we may retain: all action is a battle, the only happiness is peace. But contest between what? We get false if we say that it is between good and evil or between two unreconciled evils. The essential in Moby Dick, its prophetic song, flows athwart the action and the surface morality like an undercurrent. It lies outside words...we cannot catch the words of the song. There has been stress, with intervals: but no explicable solution, certainly no reaching back into universal pity and love; no 'Gentlemen, I've had a good dream.'

The extraordinary nature of the book appears in two of its early incidents -- the sermon about Jonah and the friendship with Queequeg.

The sermon has nothing to do with Christianity. It asks for endurance or loyalty without hope of reward. The preacher 'kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea.' Then he works up and up and concludes on a note of joy that is far more terrifying than a menace...

Immediately after the sermon, Ishmael makes a passionate alliance with the cannibal Queequeg, and it looks for a moment that the book is to be a saga of blood-brotherhood. But human relationships mean little to Melville, and after a grotesque and violent entry, Queequeg is almost forgotten. Almost -- not quite...

Moby Dick is full of meanings: its meaning is a different problem. It is wrong to turn the Delight or the coffin into symbols, because even if the symbolism is correct, it silences the book. Nothing can be stated about Moby Dick except that it is a contest. The rest is song." -- E.M. Forster, from one of his lectures on the novel. He said that "prophetic" literature was one of the "forms" of the novel, and that only 4 writers came close to being prophetic: Dostoevsky, DH Lawrence, Emily Bronte, and Herman Melville. I also have to say I cannot agree strongly enough with his comment: "The rest is song." YES.

Moby Dick, excerpt 1

Moby Dick, excerpt 2

Moby Dick, excerpt 3

Moby Dick, excerpt 4

The Books: "Now" (Lauren Bacall)

Next book on my "entertainment biography" shelf:

Now, by Lauren Bacall

Published in 1994, Now is the second of Lauren Bacall's three autobiographies. By Myself (excerpt here) was published in 1978, and Now came out in 1994. For the most part, it fills in the gap - of what happened in those years, in her career (Woman of the Year, Applause, her love of the theatre), as a mother, as a widow. But a lot of it is long ruminations on people she knows. There are sections on Olivier, Slim Hawks, and of course her years with Bogart. She loved him. I remember her saying to our class, when she came and spoke at our school, "You know, we had a lot of fun together." Bogart taught her about being a celebrity. He taught her what you do and what you don't do. The tabloids will not tell you who you are. Bogart created a wall of privacy around their very public relationship, and for the most part, they were homebodies. They had crazy parties (and the group of folks who congregated at the Bogart house for hours on end were the original "Rat Pack"), but they put up a united front against the world. Bacall learned a lot from him, and she kept those lessons going in the years after his death. She obviously had a good upbringing, with standards and morals ingrained in her from her mother, but Bogart reinforced those lessons.

I wanted to choose an excerpt today that is a "profile" of one of her friends. In the same manner as By Myself, Now is written in a chatty yet confident prose. It doesn't go all over the place, there is a nice structure to it. You can feel Bacall's personality breathing and living behind it, which is one of the reasons why the books are so good. Bacall insists that she wrote "every word" and I believe her. She would procrastinate writing the book, due to fears and insecurity, it's hard sometimes to sit down and write (don't I know it!). So her editor at Random House, aware of the approaching deadline, said to her, "Look. You've got to finish this. Why don't we set you up here at Random House with an office, a place you can come to every day, like a job, and write?" So that's what she did. She went to the Random House offices every day, closed the door of her office, and wrote.

Today's excerpt is Lauren Bacall's memories of John Huston, one of Bogart's greatest friends (he did the eulogy at Bogart's funeral), and a great friend of Bacall's too. Their friendship and working relationship spanned decades.

The Maltese Falcon was Huston's first directing job. He directed both Bogart and Bacall in Key Largo. The experience of filming African Queen was one-for-the-books, and Bacall sat on the sidelines, battling the scary bugs in her bungalow, and trying to be a good sport. Huston and Bogart were crotchety old old friends. Both of them wild. But good men. Bacall paints a touching portrait. To me, Huston leaps off the pages here, alive, unpredictable, quirky, real. It's a marvelous picture, too, of the lifelong friendship between Humphrey Bogart and Huston.

EXCERPT FROM Now, by Lauren Bacall

And I thought then and after, and reflect now, on what a major part John played in my life: through all my married years with Bogie; through Bogie's illness and the eulogy he delivered at Bogie's memorial; through providing two of our greatest out-of-the-country adventures, in Mexico and Africa, and taking part in some of our funniest, most outrageous times in various world capitals; as one of the leaders of our trip to Washington during the horrible Hollywood investigation years. He never stopped being fascinating, brilliant, funny, mad, and infuriating.

I have never met and I'm sure there has never been anyone remotely like him. He gave me an awareness of writers I had never heard of, such as B. Traven, Stephen Crane, W.R. Burnett. He had the gift of words and ideas; he was always searching, and I'm not sure he was ever happy. Generally, I don't think he liked women - when he was humiliating a wife, it was deeply unnerving - but he was able to like me because I was Bogie's wife.

All he did, he did in his own Huston way. He loved his father, Walter; he loved Bogie; he loved Anjelica, Danny, Tony, and Allegra; and that was about it I would say. And all through his devastating, painful illness, he, like Bogie, never complained. He left an unfillable space in work and life. He contributed knowledge, adventure, and excitement that was original and unique to him and that cannot be duplicated.

His relationship with Bogie began long before I came on the scene. Both of them were at Warner's - John a writer, Bogie an actor - until The Maltese Falcon and Bogie's willingness to take a chance on this writer's first directorial effort. They were not personally alike, really: Bogie wanting a more stable life, a saner one; John more driven, being quite incapable of staying in any one place too long. They made each other laugh. They challenged each other's work - each reaching higher because of the other - and finally they respected each other.

They both were professionals, perfectionists, and they both were devils - drank well together, enjoyed the working of each other's minds, disagreed, fought mildly - and very occasionally they were slightly cuckoo, both of them always fun to be around, though unpredictable and prankish. Like John bringing home a monkey as a pet, playing touch football at his house at three in the morning, tweaking and twisting Bogie's nose one drunken evening in Africa - the result of one of those wild disagreements. But they loved each other.

This was no ordinary friendship. They were together socially a great deal, but in actual fact, spent such an enormous amount of time together because in addition they worked together so often and so well. Their personalities each had an edge, so in that way they were very alike. That was part of the mutual attraction. Bogie may not have gone along with all of John's life choices, but he did understand his personal problems. And he empathized with them. And John was able to talk to Bogie, whom he knew he could trust and who he knew would be honest with him. Not only did they enjoy each other, but each of them recognized the uniqueness of the other - how they stood out and rose about the ordinariness of so many around them. When John would cast a picture, Bogie was almost always the first choice; and when Bogie was asked by John to join him in moviemaking, there was no question about Bogie's saying yes. He always felt that as high as you might go with another director, with John you could always go higher. At the same time, John's attention span was fairly short and his boredom level easily reached. Bogie, ever aware of this failing, always kept a weather eye and pulled him back into the proper finishing of the movie. John was dazzling. He drew people to him like a magnet. You had to be careful not to be too drawn - at least not to the exclusion of everything else, for John was a love-'em-and-leave-'em kind of guy. He would see you, and you would be convinced you were the one persona in the world he wanted to see. The hugs, the enthusiasm, the Hello, honeys! But when you left or he did, you had to know you were forgotten: you were only in that moment of John's life. But he did mean it - at the time. I still always felt lucky to have had that moment. After all, John was not like anyone else.

Having been with him in Mexico for two months and in Africa and London for four or more, I was able to observe him in his directing mode quite often. With Bogie he had unspoken communication. I never knew what the shorthand was specifically, but I knew that when they talked about a scene they figured it out, and then in the shooting of that same scene, if the result was not quite what John wanted, eye contact and a word or two seemed to be enough. That kind of connection is so rare as to be almost nonexistent. Is it any wonder they worked together every chance they could? The locations were always difficult, not easily accessible - part of the attraction for John. Bogie beefed, but he would always go; partly, I think, because he was incredulous and because he wanted to see for himself how far John would go.

On The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, John was very much the same with his father, Walter, except that it was the first time they had worked together and the joy and personal pride they had in each other was palpable. Walter impressed with John's ability, and John thrilled to be giving Walter the role of a lifetime. As John was a man who did not openly or, I daresay, easily deal with his emotions, watching him soften, open up a little more with Walter, becoming somewhat vulnerable, therefore more human, more connected, made the hours spent with him there all the more moving.

I experienced his creative gifts firsthand in Key Largo. He was articulate with actors: he knew what he wanted and told you. But he told you privately. An arm around your shoulder, a walk away from the set to explain. Never to embarrass; never to make you feel uncomfortable. It is difficult to isolate specifics in John the director. Friend or not, he was the figure of authority on the set. He had a gift for listening to anyone working on the picture. Working with John was an exchange of ideas - it was a cooperative effort. John instilled trust; I certainly trusted him in Key Largo, wanted his help and got it. As in my last scene in Key Largo: after a tense exchange between the Bogart and Edward G. Robinson characters, there I was with my father, Lionel Barrymore, worried that I would never see Bogart again. The phone rang, with the Bogie character telling me he was on his way back to me. It could have been a soapy moment - instead of which, it was quite real. Me telling Lionel he was returning to us; filled with emotion. I had to cross the room to Lionel, go to the window, open the shutters to let the sunlight in, signaling the start of a new day and hope. It was John's idea to open the shutters. Another visual that said more than words ever could.

He was a friend to me. Not the kind of friend I would call in the middle of the night for help - though, come to think of it, he'd probably have rushed right over. So I guess I would say he was not a day-to-day friend. His interests were elsewhere, and they were many and far-flung. He had been a boxer in his youth, had always loved horses, riding to hounds, as he did in Ireland. He was a writer, a lover of the written and spoken word. And a lover of art - paintings, sculpture. I had never heard of pre-Columbian art until John, who had an extraordinary collection of it. For no apparent reason, I hadn't expected him to live in great style. I was totally wrong. His house in Tarzana, California, which he designed and built, was in keeping with his size: large, expansive, comfortable, modern - mixed with antique furniture - different kinds of wood, a perfect background for his pre-Columbian art display. You can see in his movies how uniquely visual he was. He saw people and places in a way nobody else did.

I didn't see much of him for a few years after Bogie's death. He lived in Ireland; invited me numerous times. Stupidly, I never went. He was never happy about my second marriage, though he never said so. But I knew. He wanted me with Bogie or no one. That's who I was to him.

Though John had talked to me a couple of times about appearing in something he was developing, those projects unhappily were never done. To him I was first and foremost Bogie's wife. I never thought of John as being a true lover and enjoyer of women, except as possible conquests. Wives should be at home with their husbands. Wives should bear children and, almost always, or preferably, speak only when spoken to. I think he was genuinely fond of me but that a lot of it was because he associated me with good and happy times when all of us were working together. On the locations, I was the nonworking tagalong wife looking after her husband, and we had great times together. Then during Bogie's illness and after, in John's eyes I behaved as a wife should behave. Because of the closeness we had all shared, and because Bogie and I were such a complete pair, any man who might come into my life was looked upon as an interloper. How dare he! John was a macho man, and perhaps it was my insecurity with him that made me feel as I've described. It certainly did not hamper our relationship. In fact, it probably made it a stronger one than most women had with him. Anyway, it lasted a hell of a long time and saw us through the best: the birth of children, the rewards of work well done, and the shared laughter of friendship and the worst of life, sickness, and death.

In the most unforgettable and probably my favorite memory of John, it is early morning in Africa - he is in safari pants and jacket, brown slouch hat, brown boots, brown cigarillo in hand. In kingly fashion John is waving, smiling, and bowing to the natives who lined the route daily as we headed for the Ruiki River for the day's shooting. Pure, beautiful Huston.