By Myself and Then Some Page 3

  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 act 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. Leslie Howard was also playing Hamlet at a nearby theatre. Curious that I missed that – except rumor had it that he was not so good in the role. Perhaps I didn’t want to face less than perfection in my hero.

  Graduation at last — the end of school and the beginning of the pursuit of my destiny. We were photographed for the yearbook, called Spotlight, and alongside each photo was a two-line phrase meant to be the key to our personalities. Mine said, ‘Popular ways that win. May your dreams of being an actress overflow the brim.’ I briefly thought of going to college – another fantasy – campus life (all romance, no work) – but there was no real point in pretending, I was not meant for football games and sorority life. It all had nothing to do with my goal, so I gave it up very quickly and painlessly.

  Mother agreed that I could go to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. It would be a struggle, but with the help of Jack and Charlie once more, it could be accomplished. I had to make up my mind that I could have little allowance – no extras – essentials only. But I would be a full-time student and at last could devote all day, every day, to learning about the theatre. And I needed to learn. Four years of Saturdays at the New York School of the Theatre had given me a clue, but the Academy program would be quite different. Meanwhile I was forever inflicting my Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis imitations on anyone who would sit still for them. Needless to say, Charlie and Mother were my best audience.

  The spring before high school ended, Betty Kalb and I had read that Bette Davis was coming to New York. She always stayed at the Gotham Hotel. Traveling with her was her friend Robin Byron, who also happened to be a friend of my Uncle Jack. I called and asked him – begged him – to call Robin and try to arrange for me to meet my idol. While waiting for the answer, Betty Kalb and I stalked the Gotham Hotel. One afternoon when we were skulking in the lobby, Bette Davis came in – walked directly to the elevator. We rushed in after her and tremblingly rode to the tenth floor with her. She was wearing a small black hat, her hair was pulled back with a black ribbon – she was smaller than I’d thought she’d be, but that face was there, just as I’d seen it magnified so many times so far away on the screen. We stared at her openly. When the elevator stopped at ten, she got out. We asked the elevator operator to stop at eleven, rushed for the staircase, ran down one flight only to see her back as she walked through the door of her suite. We laughed weakly and waited awhile to compose ourselves before facing the questioning eyes of the elevator operator. But Bette Davis was wonderful – everything we had imagined. We had to meet her, we’d die if we didn’t.

  Finally my darling Uncle Jack called. He’d spoken with Robin, and though Miss Davis had a very busy schedule, Betty and I could come to her hotel on Saturday afternoon at four o’clock. Betty and I were hysterical. We spent hours on the phone – what would we wear – how would we do our hair – what would we say? We did our imitations of her walk, speech – to get that out of our systems at least. It was so exciting – the high point of my life, a dream come true!

  I was warned by Uncle Jack to make it brief – not to linger and for God’s sake to behave. ‘Don’t make a fool of yourself – this is a big favor Robin is doing, arranging this. Don’t let me down, and tell Betty Kalb to keep calm.’ Keep calm? Ha! Well, we’d just have to act. Oh, I wished I looked more grown-up. Betty’s figure was well developed – she was actually built not unlike Bette Davis – while I was this tall, gawky fifteen-year-old.

  Saturday came – Mother and Grandma couldn’t wait for it all to be over, they’d heard nothing but Bette Davis for days on end. Betty arrived to pick me up. I was trying to look my most sophisticated, but as nothing in my wardrobe suggested sophistication, I was wearing my best suit. My friend looked much better than I did, I thought – less like a stagestruck kid.

  We went to the hotel and I asked the receptionist to call Miss Davis’ room and announce that Miss Bacal was in the lobby with friend, we had an appointment. How would I keep from shaking – how would Betty keep from fainting? We were told to go right up. This time we looked the elevator operator squarely in the eye and said, ‘Ten, please.’ By then we were so caught up in thinking how to present ourselves – how to keep from falling apart until after the visit – that we couldn’t speak. The elevator arrived at ten too quickly. Out we stepped and proceeded shakily down the long corridor to Suite 1009–10. We grasped each other’s hands – took deep breaths – checked our hair – and finally I pressed the doorbell. I was trembling from head to foot. Inside and out. The door opened – it was Robin. She smiled at me – I introduced Betty to her – and she ushered us into a living room. There was a sofa with two chairs facing it. I sat on the edge of one of the chairs, Betty on the other. At last the door to the bedroom opened and out walked Bette Davis with that Bette Davis walk – Queen of Films – the best actress in the world. Oh, God!

  We stood up immediately – she shook our hands and moved to the sofa. I sat down again in the same chair – I was terrified to take a step – but Betty plunked herself down next to the Queen. Bette Davis was open, direct, easy, and sympathetic. She asked us about ourselves, said she had been told by Robin that I wanted to be an actress. In a voice barely audible, I said that I did and that I had been going to drama classes on Saturdays until I finished school. Betty was much more talkative than I – seemed to have more to say. I suppose I was tongue-tied. I was so nervous, my hands were shaking. She offered us tea, but I didn’t dare pick up a cup and saucer for fear it would fall on the floor or spill all over me. She motioned me to come sit on the other side of her on the sofa. I don’t know how I got there, but I did. Of course we told her we had seen all of her films many times over. The silences seemed endless, why was my mind so blank? I couldn’t think of any words.

  Bette Davis was very patient. She said, ‘Well, if you want to act, you should probably try to work in summer stock. That’s the best way to learn your craft.’ ‘Oh yes, that’s what I want to do – I want to start on the stage and then go into films just as you did.’ ‘Well, be sure it’s really what you want to do with your life. It’s hard work and it’s lonely.’ I remembered she had said in an interview when talking about her life, ‘I have two Oscars on my mantelpiece, but they
don’t keep you warm on cold winter evenings.’ More silence. Robin looked at me – I knew it was time to go. I said, ‘Thank you so much, Miss Davis, for your time – for seeing us – I am so grateful.’ Betty said much the same. Bette Davis shook our hands, wished us luck. Robin opened the door and out we went.

  Betty had started down the corridor and near the end of it she fell in a heap of emotion. I panicked – Bette Davis mustn’t hear us, mustn’t know this was going on. I helped Betty up – we staggered to the elevator – rushed to the nearest drugstore so we could sit down. What a relief! Ordeal over. We both started talking at once. ‘I will never wash my hand again!’ ‘Nor will I!’ ‘Wasn’t she wonderful – did you notice her walk as she came into the room?’ ‘What do you think she thought of us?’ ‘Why didn’t I ask her what her favorite film was?’ ‘Why didn’t I ask her what it was really like to work in films – to be a star?’ ‘Why was I so nervous? She must have thought I was a fool.’ ‘I want to be just like her.’ ‘We must write her and thank her.’ ‘We mustn’t let her forget us.’ ‘Maybe next time she comes to New York she’ll invite us to see her again.’

  It was truly generous of Bette Davis to have seen us. It meant so much. To be stage-struck and star-struck is an unbeatable, overpowering combination. Such emotion! Only kids who have wanted to be something really badly and have had a specific someone or something to identify with know that feeling. It’s more than ambition. It comes at a time when you’re still in school and your life work is still very far away, but you feel you’re getting closer to the gold ring and maybe someday you’ll not only catch the ring but keep it. Everything seems possible, but your life is all frustration because you can’t do anything about it yet.

  I reported to Jack that I would be forever indebted to him for making this happen. No crown of diamonds placed on the head of a fairy princess by a handsome prince could mean as much. I told Mother and Granny all about it, almost. I left out Betty’s collapse – that didn’t come out till years later. Then I wrote Bette Davis the fan letter to end all fan letters – I composed it at least twenty times, choosing only the best words from each version – thanking her and saying some things I’d been too nervous or shy to say when I saw her. Betty wrote her too. We sent the letters to Maine, as we knew from the fan magazines that she had a house there where she spent a good deal of time. About a week later the morning mail brought a blue envelope with unfamiliar writing. In it, a letter from Bette Davis thanking me for my flattering words – saying she had enjoyed our visit – wishing me luck – and at the end: ‘I hope we meet again sometime.’ I couldn’t believe it – all in longhand! I treasured that letter – read and reread it hundreds of times. Betty Kalb got one too. Writing us was another generous thing for that busy actress to do.

  The next play I saw, some years after Hamlet, was The Philadelphia Story, starring my other favorite, Katharine Hepburn. Again I was nested in the balcony, but the atmosphere in the theatre was totally different from what it had been for Gielgud. There was the excitement of seeing a movie star in the flesh – live – onstage. And because the play was billed as a comedy, the audience entered the theatre with different attitudes.

  Katharine Hepburn was mysterious, wonderful – offering her considerable self and her incredible personality that was totally there for you even in the second balcony. She was so beautiful – and so funny and so touching. And the play was so good and funny. The leading men were new names to me – Joseph Cotten, Van Heflin. Shirley Booth played the second female lead. Hepburn’s clothes were floating, graceful – her hair was shoulder length and shining – she was glorious – the theatre was filled with laughter. To be able to give such joy!

  Would I ever be able to do that? I thought. It was one thing to make people in a room laugh, especially relatives. But to do the same for strangers was quite another. Katharine Hepburn that afternoon made me glad to be alive – and sure that being an actress was the only goal in life.

  A year later came the appearance of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh on Broadway in Romeo and Juliet. Julia Richman had gotten seats for seniors. To see two brilliant actors from England in Shakespeare – I convinced Mother it was an essential part of my training. Even then I could feel the difference between American and English actors in their delivery of Shakespeare. The language seemed so natural as the Oliviers spoke it. And they were so beautiful in addition to everything else – they were blessed. Critically the production was not well received, but the theatre was packed and I felt very lucky to be in the audience.

  The fall of 1940 was the beginning of serious training for my life’s work. There would be no distractions. School was finally behind me. I was free to start down that long, winding, one-way street with my head free and clear. And with my entry into the American Academy I could turn myself over completely to learning anything and everything I could about acting – eat and breathe it, live it, make it real. This would be the start of my life as an actress. I couldn’t fail. There was no doubt, no doubt whatever.

  The American Academy of Dramatic Arts was located on 57th Street just next to Carnegie Hall. It had rooms filled with chairs set in a semicircle – one desk in the center – for voice lessons and improvisations. There were large rooms for fencing, body work such as dancing, learning to fall; there were rehearsal rooms with small stages for scenes; a room with counters and small mirrors and lights for learning how to use make-up.

  That was a golden year. A friend from summer camp, Marcella Markham, was there – we had lunch together daily, shared classes. Also in some of my classes were Nina Foch and Terese Hayden. I chose all morning classes. That gave me the afternoons to study the parts I was assigned and left me free to attend plays put on by the second-year students (called the Senior Stock Company) at the Empire Theatre on Tuesday afternoons. The Empire Theatre was to me the theatre of John Gielgud and his Hamlet. It was on Broadway at 40th Street, lavish and beautiful in the old and true theatre tradition.

  The curriculum of the Academy was very comprehensive and geared totally to the stage. There were rules to be observed – no employment of any kind was allowed without special permission of the Board. They stressed self-discovery – studying life, as that was what acting was all about. Learning technically how to speak – how to breathe. How to use one’s body to project emotion. How to analyze plays and characters. It was a marvelous way to start. My year there was very serious and every course taught me something that in one way or another I have been able to apply practically. All through the years I have found myself observing people, animals. The Academy taught me to be aware of humanity in a new way – a vital part of an actor’s equipment. In life-study class, at first I would imitate the moves of another student – very elementary at first; as observation grew keener, we would bring things into the classroom and reproduce scenes observed outside. In pantomime I learned to use every part of my body to express emotion. I was taught body control – each section of the body to be separately developed and used. I had never realized all that was involved in becoming an actress, I had only thought in terms of vocal expression – standing on a stage, speaking lines. But there is so much more involved – so many preliminaries to learn before you reach the point of standing on a stage. Really before you have the right to stand on a stage. I didn’t learn them all, but it was a beginning of awareness of what I would have to know someday.

  My days were full and near perfect that year. All of us, boys and girls alike, hungry to learn. Some more frightened than others, but all willing to try our wings. There was self-consciousness to overcome – we all wanted to give the impression of enormous confidence, but most of us were floundering. I loved learning to fence – it was so dramatic to stand with foil and face mask in hand, learning the preliminary moves before ‘En garde.’ I couldn’t figure out where I might ever use that training, but it was fun. Speech classes taught us the beginnings of voice placement, breathing, projection. All of us facing an open window, breathing deeply the then unpolluted ai
r – hands on rib cage – using the diaphragm – making incredible sounds accompanied by even more incredible face-making. It was funny and I remember feeling an incredible fool. I did giggle a lot. But I loved every class.

  Playing scenes was the most difficult at first. You had to learn the lines and stand in the middle of the classroom with another actor – the rest of the class sitting and watching. I was very self-conscious, very nervous, but you began to get a sense of yourself and what acting was all about.

  Dance class was funny. Our instructor, Mr Riley, was full of innuendo. For the rhumba, for instance, we would be in lines five across and he would move among us saying, ‘You can’t do the rhumba until you’ve lived – you know what I mean!’ I didn’t know quite what he did mean and I never asked. In body-movement class for posture, learning how to move around a stage, we practiced sitting in a chair with a book on our heads, then rising and walking all round the room. In the same class I learned how to faint – on stairs or at floor level. Walk a few steps, slow down a bit, a slow weave and then down a bit to the side, knees, then hip, then torso. I haven’t used it much, but it was all part of the loosening process. When Ralph Richardson fell three or four times in Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land, his limbs hit the deck in that same order. Whenever I see an actor faint or fall, I recognize my basic training.

  We learned all sorts of character make-ups – old age, tarts, middle age, and straight. That was fun, and there was a reason for it. In the theatre one does one’s own make-up. As a result of that training, even in films I have always found it difficult to lie back while a make-up man worked on me. I do it, of course, those are the rules, but I always make up my own eyes and lips.