Authors: Frank Langella
O
f all the short men I've known, the guru of the Actors Studio, Lee Strasberg stood tallest on the list of the arrogant and insufferable. Even climbing as he did onto a self-constructed pedestal, he seemed still, in my estimation, to rise only to the height of a pompous pygmy.
Many classic traits of the diminutive man were his in abundance: misplaced narcissism, imperiousness and the tendency to view himself as a benevolent god. He was, I thought, a cruel and rather ridiculous demigod who ran a highly profitable racket.
Our first meeting was not a meeting at all, and I was not even supposed to be there. A good friend of mine wanted desperately to belong to the Actors Studio. At the last moment, her scene partner backed out, and she asked me to help. It was the early 1960s. In a room so dark you could see no one other than your partner, sat a few bodies facing the light. By the end of the audition one could make out their shapes and sizes. Sitting in the center was Strasberg, most definitely in need of a booster seat. He said nothing. When he left the room, a man came over to me and said:
“We would like you to prepare something of your own and come back to see us.”
“Oh, no thanks,” I said. “I just came by to help out my friend.” I was, at that tender age, already uninterested and unimpressed with Mr. Strasberg and the Method. And I will confess, at the height of my own youthful arrogance.
I can still see the look of incredulity on the messenger's face. It was as if he had told me I'd inherited a fortune and I told him to keep the cash. It was reported to Mr. Strasberg that I had declined to cross the moat, and his drawbridge was forever after closed to me.
My future encounters with Strasberg were all the same. We would be introduced, he would look at me with disdain and condescensionânot easy to do when you're the height of my belt buckleâand give me a clammy, all fingers, no grip handshake. Hell had no fury it would seem like a Strasberg scorned.
L
ee Strasberg encouraged his actors to act not in
spite
of their neuroses, but
because
of them. The result being floods of tears, both on celluloid and floorboards, from actors determined to sacrifice their characters' lives to a subplot of personal turmoil and aimless rage that may make them comfortable, but leaves the viewer misled. I had occasion to work with one such Strasberg acolyte onstage, whose predilection to wallow in sense memory obliterated his character as written and subsumed the author's intention. It resulted in the audience feeling totally left out of and uninterested in his masturbatory performance.
Both Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan, on a number of separate occasions, told me they felt Lee to be a complete charlatan and a self-serving martinet. And the really great teacher of the twentieth century, Stella Adler, said to me:
“Lee is not a man of the theatre. It will take one hundred years to undo the harm he has done to the acting community.”
And Marlon Brando, perhaps the greatest film actor of the twentieth century; at his best a brilliant combination of truth and technique until he dissolved into a self-indulgent, lazy bore, found Strasberg to be, as Stella repeated it to me, “An asshole and a fake who taught me nothing.”
Oddly enough Marilyn Monroe, whom Strasberg had under his spell, seemed to profit from his misguided teachings. In the film
The Misfits
, she is transcendently and heartbreakingly honest. Strasberg certainly profited from her as well. In Marilyn's will he was left her entire estate.
There was a great deal of hoopla around his acting in a film with Pacino, one of his renowned students, in which his sense of “truth” was offended when he was given a pair of brown socks instead of the black ones more appropriate to his costume. His performance was ordinary and without distinction, but nevertheless Oscar nominated. As comfortable as he may have been in his black socks, he lacked the magic and mystery that makes a star actor, and his most famous students all had that and would have succeeded, I believe, without him.
I am prepared to admit that my antipathy toward Mr. Strasberg had a great deal to do with his grandiosity and his misguided self-importance. And certainly, I have seen some remarkable performances from one or two of his students. But my sense was always that his outsized ego and kingly behavior stemmed more from his diminutive stature than his desire to protect and nurture his students. A teacher, I believe, should guide, not rule. Too many actors told me how afraid of him they were. The very opposite, I would think, of the emotion a teacher should inspire in a student.
In 1964 he directed a stupefying production of Chekov's
The Three Sisters
. At twenty-six years old I sat mesmerized by only one person. It was the great actress of her generation, Kim Stanley, who gave a transcendent performance combining all the ingredients necessary for great acting: truth, honesty, skill, and craft. Mr. Strasberg's methods helped his students find, perhaps, their inner truth, but resulted in a limited and narrow perspective, creating actors totally unprepared for the classics and the challenges that come with the technique required to perform them. The Method is, for me, a dangerous movement put forth by a self-serving charlatan, who totally misreprensented the brilliant technique of Stanislavski.
Whenever in the same room with Strasberg, I avoided his sycophantic circle. The last time I was in his presence he sucked the air out of the elevator we were riding in and when we hit the ground floor he put out his hand in a “stand back, I'm departing” gesture that caused me to laugh out loud. He stopped, looked up at me with pure hatred and exited in a low-hanging cloud of fury. It remains one of my fondest sense memories.
I
t was her eyes that first struck me. Huge and saucer-like.
A renowned television personality named David Susskind was producing a series of dramatic stories and had cast me in one of them. It was called
The Choice
. My costars were Jill Clayburgh, Melvyn Douglas, and Celia Johnson, whose fame in America had come from a classic film she'd done for Noel Coward in 1945 entitled
Brief Encounter.
Melvyn Douglas had appeared opposite Greta Garbo in
Ninotchka
and was considered now a venerable and charming character actorâ a quiet, polite man with a constant twinkle in his eye.
It was 1968 and I was dressing androgynously. It was the era when most young men in New York were wearing bell bottoms, scarves, love beads, bandanas, all accented by an earring or two. I asked my girlfriend how I looked as I was preparing for my first day of rehearsal and she said: “Great! But take any three things off.”
So I arrived late in what I thought was a fair compromise: a white silk Cossack shirt, hanging loose, with gold braiding around the neck and sleeves.
“I'm so sorry,” I said. “I overslept.”
“Looks like you forgot to take off your pajamas,” Mr. Douglas said.
A few days later we started shooting in Toronto and I was deeply impressed with Celia as a consummate actress and trouper. One late morning I watched her perform a complicated tracking shot in which she would be given some bad news about her husband while walking with a doctor and end up entering an elevator, turning to the camera, and registering heartbreak. She was flawless and perfect in one takeâeyes welling with tears precisely at the right moment. Everyone applauded. She made no fuss about it, just blew her nose and headed for her camp chair.
The assistant director then announced there'd been a glitch in the camera and they'd have to go again.
“Right away, people,” he said. “It's twelve minutes to the break. We can do it.”
Celia was up and to her first mark immediately. She could have said that the scene was too emotional and complicated and she'd prefer to do it again after lunch, but she didn't. It was reshot and the camera was perfect. Celia was notâless powerful, less emotional. They got it one minute before the break.
Susskind came over to her.
“Brilliant, darling,” he said.
“Is there any way you could use the first one?” Celia asked. She knew she hadn't nailed it again.
“I'm afraid not,” Susskind said. “It's one long shot, no cutaways, and we had a bumpy camera.”
“Bad luck,” Celia said and headed to lunch.
T
he following year I was making my film debut in Mel Brooks's
The Twelve Chairs
and was in London rehearsing. Celia lived in a place called Nettlebed, Oxfordshire. I called and she immediately invited me out for the weekend. I was not prepared for the beautiful country estate and large property she owned with her husband Peter Fleming, brother of the famous Ian Fleming, scion of a banking dynasty and author of the James Bond books. I began visiting Nettlebed often, loving the beautiful countryside and damp English weather. Peter did all the English country gentleman things. Coming in from a ride in jodhpurs, his dogs floating around his legs, standing at a roaring fire and banging his pipe bowl on the mantelpiece.
My room overlooked a courtyard with a stone wall surrounding it, and I could see the tops of the heads of people whizzing by on their bikes. One tall thin man came careening past every morning at roughly the same time, fine white hair billowing in the cold wind.
“Oh, that's Alastair,” Celia answered when I inquired at breakfast who he was. “You should meet him. Lovely actor.”
“Alastair Sim?” I said.
“Yes.”
Alastair Sim was most famous in America as Scrooge in the classic English film
A Christmas Carol
and I had seen him once on the stage in a light British comedy and found him to be extraordinary. He had been Mel's choice for the lead in
The Twelve Chairs
, but turned it down. The part went to Ron Moody, Fagin in the musical film
Oliver!
, a much less charismatic actor.
I never did meet Mr. Sim, but love a story Celia told me about him.
“One day, I was pulling into the courtyard in the pouring rain,” she said, “and I could hear the phone ringing. I'd just been to the market and I had quite a lot of bags with me. I came round to open the boot, the pelting rain flooding over my hat and into the bags. One bottom began to break and I was trying desperately not to drop the eggs. Still the phone kept ringing incessantly. Bloody hell, I thought, go away. I got everything in the kitchen on the counter. I was soaked and furious. The phone did not stop. I picked it up and shouted into it:
“ âHallo!'
“ âCelia? Alastair here. Darling, I just saw you in the market. You were marvelous!' ”
I
t was from Celia that I got some perspective on what it was to be a working actor and to live a full family life. She loved to ride around her property in a Land Rover and would often take me with her. One afternoon as we were bouncing along she told me she'd been offered a play in New York.
“Johnnie and Ralphie are doing it.” (Gielgud and Richardson, of course.) “I'm to be one of the four characters. It's called
Home.
”
“Why don't you want to do it?” I asked.
“Oh, darling. It's just when all my flowers will be blooming.”
Y
ears later I saw her perfect performance opposite Maggie Smith in the film
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
and called to congratulate her.
“Smashing part,” she said.
In the winter of 1978, I was again in London shooting
Dracula
at Shepperton Studios and I received a message from Celia. I immediately rang her up.
“Come out for the dayâbring your new wife.”
I agreed, but cancelled at the last minute because of a 5 a.m. set call the next morning.
“Is it because you're now a bloody film star?” she said.
O
ne afternoon she came into town and we had tea at the Savoy Hotel.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” she said.
“What's wrong?”
“Doing
Hamlet
! Having a go at Gertrude. I'm afraid it's a disaster. The avant-garde bohemian approach. Greeting the audience in half makeupâutter rot. Oh well,” she said, sipping her tea, “nothing to do but carry on.”
M
any years later, after Celia had passed away, I was performing in New York opposite the great English actor Alan Bates in a Turgenev play entitled
Fortune's Fool
. One night at supper I told him the story about Celia and the disastrous
Hamlet.
“Oh, I know that story very well,” he said. “
I
was her Hamlet.”
He then proceeded to tell me his fondest memory of Celia:
“She was quite right. It was a tiresome approach. I remember one day our director said,
“ âCelia, I think that scene could be a bit more moving.'
“ âMore moving?' Celia said. âRight.'
“She then proceeded to devastate us into floods of tears. When it was over she looked at him and said:
“ âYou mean like
that
?' ”