Garson Kanin, from Tracy and Hepburn: An Intimate Memoir
Spencer had an aversion to makeup. To most actors, beards and mustaches, putty noses and tooth work, wigs and contact lenses are not only tools, but toys. Spencer shuddered at the thought, believing that characters had to be created from within rather than with artifice.
Laurence Olivier once said to him, “I admire so much about you, Spence, but nothing more than the fact that you can do it all barefaced.”
“I can’t act with stuff all over me,” said Spence morosely.
“But don’t you feel as though they’re looking at you? Don’t you feel naked?”
“Only when I have to say a lousy line, ” said Spence.
This attitude once caused friction between us. When I directed him on Broadway in The Rugged Path, there was a scene in which the character he played reached an island in the Philippines, having survived a torpedoed battleship.
Eddie Senz, a brilliant makeup artist, devised an easily applied piece to simulate a beard growth. When he demonstrated it, Spencer turned and went to his dressing room. I joined him there a few minutes later.
“Has he gone?” asked Spence.
“May I ask you one question?”
“No.”
“How could a man drift in the sea for eight days and turn up clean shaven?”
“Guess,” he said.
“I know your feeling about all this, kiddo, but you’re not going to tell me you can act unshaven!”
“Watch me,” he said.
In performance, he did precisely that. I still find it difficult to believe.
I believe it.
awesome…im not relating myself to Tracey(obviously)..but i was in a play in which i was supposed to be 5 different people..the designer got all busy creating various things to “cover me up”..i was like..can’t i just try acting??? Anyway..i was supposed to be a Swedish version of Fabio in one scene…anyone who knows me will see the hilarity in that..but when my friend Julie saw the show..she thought i was wearing lifts in my shoes and a chest plate..but it was just me…i have a hard time acting with all that stuff on my face too.
“can’t i just try acting?”
hahaha
i know..it was like he had decided that i couldnt pull it off..i needed bells and whistles..he also had avery very BAD moustache prepared for the role i played all thru the second act..it never fit and during an extremely difficult tech..it slide half off my lip…i was done…i turned so that the flaccid catepillar was visible to the whole gang in the seats…i ripped it off and stuck it to the outside cover of the notebook prop i was carrying..where it remained for the next 45 minutes..it was such a diva fit that nobody responded. Oh..the most important part of the story..the other actor in the scene ( competent but humorless) found my sagging furry pasty very funny and kept laughing during the scene..needless to say they let me “just act it” Wow..i can be a bitch!
I can so see the expression on your face when you whipped off the mustache. I can so see it! Nothin’ like Mitchell throwing a diva fit.
And yeah – if you’re gonna have fake mustaches and stuff, they better work and not call attention to themselves … otherwise, they suck.
Hey, member my quick wig-change? hahahahaha
oh shit..remeber when i tossed the good wig off the back of the Cuthberts house??? Then i whacked my head when i went down to get it???
and your brother heard the clang of your head hitting the metal from his seat out in the audience!!
also, I was then late for my entrance … and Jan Grant improvised for 20 seconds. Like the fucking PRO that she is.
“I am just so pleased at how Anne is doing. Her schooling, her manners, she has learned to cook, she is polite … I am just so shocked at the difference in her personality from when I first met her …”
She just KEPT TALKING until I appeared.
hahahahahahahahaha
I love her!
omg..i love her!!! And Anita! Remember her..so freakin talented..but scared to deal with it..ya know?
Anita was amazing. One of the most specific actresses I have ever met. Like – she was so on TOP of her game, at ALL TIMES. But also, so humble about it.
But then – member when she cracked? When we all cracked at that one rehearsal of Edwin Drood? When Susan B and Lee M accused all the rest of us as not knowing the steps when it was them who didn’t know the steps?? Do you remember Anita referring to Lee as a “honeypot”?
She was enRAGED. Especially because … if anybody in that room knew the steps and had them down pat, it would be Anita.
Damn, I wonder where she is right now.
“And on a Tueeeeeesday…”
“i was supposed to be a Swedish version of Fabio in one scene…”
Those words will linger with me for the rest of my life, Mitchell.
Also, I LOVE that bit —
“May I ask you one question?”
“No.”
“Okay, I’m going to ask you anyway…”
Emily – hahaha I know. So crotchety – like his immediate answer is “no”
Emily..of u could see the funny looking Jewish boy i really am..the Swedish Fabio would be downright disturbing.
Oh, Red, you’ll just love this book. Wait till you get to the quote about Laurette Taylor!
Mitchell – I think I might have nightmares tonight about you in that costume.
Stevie – was this book on the list you gave me? I know there were a couple more Garson Kanin books there … I’m very excited to read it.
L. Morse is a honeypot!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Do you remember that?? Anita was so ladylike, so proper, but in that moment – she had had enough.
yes and the time they were pissed at Alec..classic..those are true dames!!!
“Doesn’t he realize she has a show to do???”
hahaha
ha..they didnt even take time to think about his side(of he had one) they were all about you
Actually, I don’t think they were concerned about me either … they were concerned about the SHOW. Which is even more endearing. Great acting lesson there.
“the Swedish Fabio would be downright disturbing.”
Mitchell, you don’t have to be a funny looking Jewish boy for that image to be disturbing.
I’m typing this when I should be live blogging The Last Waltz. They’ve made it to the “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and I have shed bonafide tears.
emily…love that song..great concert film
emily..are u in LA?
Mitchell,
Yes. They just did “Stage Fright.” My heart is so goddam full right now.
i saw a doc recently about the filming of that..lots of crazy and talented people
im about to watch Babs at the MGM Grand..for the millionth time…im proud to be a stereotype!
I love that concert, Mitchell – love it.
i know..wish u were here..i got it on DVD..there are extra songs
Red: Yes, it was on “the list” and It’s one of my favorites. There’s the one moment when Garson and Ruth invite Spence and Kate to dinner on the spur of the moment, and Spence and Kate look at each other, their eyes searching each other’s for whether they could or should, and you get this loud CLUNK of, “Whoa, this is love, this is real, this is what it can be between two people who love and respect and appreciate.”
I wish I could just be there with you while you read the book, because there are so many incredible moments, and I’m sorta teary to think you’re gonna read them and love them as much as I’ve loved them all these years.