Authors: Frank Langella
W
e did not meet or speak. And certainly did not touch.
It was the summer of 1956. I was eighteen years old, still a virgin, away from home for the first time as an apprentice at the Pocono Playhouse in the mountains of Pennsylvania. It would not be the summer I would lose my virginity but it would be the beginning of my appreciation for a kind of female that until then, I had no idea existed.
The untouchable was the magnificently beautiful Mexican actress Dolores del Rio. She was touring, as stars did in those days, from summer theatre to summer theatre, playing one-week engagements to full houses of audiences anxious to see the glamour, allure, and mystery celebrities of today no longer possess. No TV talk shows then for the incessant dismantling of self. If you wanted to see Miss Del Rio you had to watch her movies or venture forth of a summer's evening. She was the first great star into whose orbit I ventured for a period of time, and my first lesson in style, behavior, and elegance.
Miss Del Rio's costar was a formidable old broad named Lili Darvas, a well-known character actress and widow of the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar. The play was
Anastasia
, soon to be a film starring Ingrid Bergman and Helen Hayes, along with Yul Brynner as an opportunistic fortune hunter. Miss Del Rio played the title role of a twenty-four-year-old woman searching for an identity she believed made her a part of the royal family of Romanovs, and Miss Darvas played the suspicious Grand Duchess of Russia, her supposed grandmother. At the time, Miss Del Rio was fifty-one, and Miss Darvas fifty.
My job that week was prompter. I was positioned stage right in a small booth that had a narrow slit through which I could see the actors onstage. I held a flashlight while sitting on a high stool, the script on my lap. I never needed, in the course of their eight performances, to shout out a line to either of them. So I turned the pages, kept track of where they were and mostly watched their interplay. Few memories of the actual performances stay with me, except the absolute precision and repetition of their choices, down to the smallest gesture. What does remain are the circumstances surrounding those two and a half hours.
D
uring that summer, most of the touring stars appeared around the theatre somewhere during the day. Miss Darvas was ever-present. She arrived at lunchtime and ate with the rest of us.
“Will we see Miss Del Rio?” I asked.
“Darling! No! She doesn't leave her accommodations. Never on this tour does anyone see her in the daytime. She travels alone in her Rolls-Royce with her lady-in-waiting from theatre to theatre and only comes out for the performances. Her shades are always drawn in her rooms to protect her skin from the light, and she lies in a bath of milk.”
I was mesmerized by this story and by Miss Del Rio's reported meticulous daily and then nightly routine.
Each evening at about fifteen minutes before the curtain went up, the audience already mostly seated, Miss Del Rio's car, tinted windows tightly shut, drifted down the driveway and circled to the back door of the theatre, close to the stage entrance. She emerged fully dressed in her first-act costume, completely made up and breathtakingly beautiful. Her driver held an open parasol over her exquisitely coiffed jet-black hair and her lady-in-waiting preceded her up the wooden steps, making certain there would be no one in her path as she disappeared into the dark of the theatre. A special carpet had been laid up the steps and across the backstage to protect the soles of her shoes and the hems of her costumes and a private area had been set up for her in the wings, which consisted of three flats bracketed together to form a small cubicle with a table and chair inside. On the table sat a mirror, a flask of water, a crystal glass, the script, a small light covered by blue plastic, and a few basic makeup items for touch-up purposes.
I watched every night, hidden, next to the backstage door, as she sat down, smoothed out her dress, and folded her hands across her lap. When the stage manager called
Places
, I moved to my spot in the prompter's booth.
Miss Del Rio never left her cubicle between scenes but returned there for her costume changes, which were executed immediately; after which she sat back down to wait for her next entrance. She never once went into a dressing room or used a bathroom but spent both intermissions sitting calmly and quietly. We were told never to approach her and, certainly, never to speak with her.
During the act breaks, I was drawn to her lair like a cub looking for its mother. I obeyed the rules but did get what I hoped for. As I slowly passed by, I received a faint nod of the head and a warm smile. No word ever left her lips, other than onstage, where she spoke in a measured, slightly accented, beautiful voice.
Her final confrontation scene, with Miss Darvas as her grandmother, dramatically staged with Miss Del Rio on her knees, holding Lily's hands as Lily wept, calling out, “Malenkia, my little Malenkia,” was exquisitely played by both.
C
urtain, applause, and more magic to come.
Each actor came forward, center, took a bow, Lily being the last, and then exited, leaving an empty stage. A wait of approximately five seconds. The two center doors upstage opened, and out came Miss Del Rio in a stunning white flowing gown over which hung an equally beautiful soft and voluminous long white coat. She floated to the apron of the stage, a radiant smile on her face, and sank into a deep curtsy as the applause swelled; then rose, arms outstretched, and beckoned the rest of the cast back out for a company bow. She and Lily were then left alone, bowed to each other and the audience, and Lily once again left, leaving Miss Del Rio alone in a spotlight.
By now I was out of the prompter's box and hovering by the back door of the theatre in order to watch my favorite ritual of the night: the sight of Dolores del Rio moving toward the French doors of the set, the audience behind her, then turning with a radiant smile to face them, bow once more, take the handles, and close the doors just before the curtain hit the stage. The house lights were very slowly timed to coincide with her next actions.
In the dim backstage light, I watched as her attendant lifted the voluminous trains of her gown and coat and followed behind her across the carpet. Her driver, standing by the door, arm outstretched, took her hand, brought her down the steps, and put her into the waiting Rolls-Royce, its engine already humming. The yards and yards of material were pushed in and gathered around her, the backseat looking like a mass of cozy clouds. Her attendant moved to the front door and the mysterious lady was transported down the driveway, into the summer night, away from the theatre before the audience stopped applauding and the houselights were up full.
O
ne could, I suppose, remember her as a lonely older woman, desperate to preserve her beauty, living on illusion and reputation. Or one could see her through the eyes of this virtuous eighteen-year-old, as the epitome of glamour, discipline, and professionalism, exemplifying the magic of Live Theater.
“D
o you still love it?” asked possibly the most beautiful speaking voice I have ever heard, then or now. Original, distinct, and totally unself-conscious, it belonged to James Mason, the actor.
He and his wife, Clarissa Kaye, sat across from my wife and me at a small round table in the home of Marilyn and Alan Bergman, the married composers of such classics as “The Windmills of Your Mind” and “The Way We Were.” It was the early 1980s. Scattered around at other tables were Tommy Thompson, the writer; Roddy McDowall, the actor; and Georgia Brown, the singer.
I still remember Mr. Mason's melancholy sadness and the wistful way he held his hand under his chin, his pinky resting on his lower lip as he spoke.
“Do you still love acting?”
“Yes,” I said, “I do. I wouldn't do it otherwise. Don't you?”
“Oh no. Not anymore.”
“Why do you do it?”
“For her,” he said, glancing at his wife. “She wants it.”
“Well, I find it very exciting still. I particularly like being onstage in front of a live audience.”
“Well, don't let me stop you,” he said in the perfectly modulated British style that gives no hint of opinion.
H
e was, to my mind, an absolutely marvelous actor whom I had never once seen give a bad performance. He is breathtakingly perfect as Humbert Humbert in Stanley Kubrick's
Lolita
âfunny and tragic. The same in
A Star is Born
opposite Judy Garland and particularly wonderful in Marlon Brando's
Julius Caesarâ
the perfect combination of truth and technique. He also had an androgynous sex appeal that made him seem languorously available to both genders.
That night at the Bergmans he had about him an air of bemused resignation. I can still see him clearly, smaller than I had imagined, and appearing to me deeply disillusioned and fatalistic. When in the future I would watch him onscreen I was always impressed with his natural intelligence and uncommon grace, but could always spot that hint of sad resignation. A look of bored complacency that put me in mind of three other wonderful actors with whom I had equally brief but similar encounters.
I
n the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel sat Peter Finch in the late 1970s, Oscar nominated for his brilliant performance in
Network
, appearing desperately unhappy as he barely shook my hand and accepted my congratulations. He died only two months before winning it.
S
itting in a greenroom with Jack Palance before taping a Charlie Rose interview, he talked of nothing but his horses and told me he regarded our profession as a meat market in which, if you hang in long enough, you get lucky.
“It's not the actor that wins,” he said. “It's the role.”
A gentle, polite, and soft-spoken man also nominated for an Oscar late in his career and winning it in 1991.
A
nd sitting a few seats away from me at the Oscar ceremony in 1998 was James Coburn, who won that night for his marvelous performance in
Affliction
. When he returned to his seat, I said, “How do you feel, Jimmy?”
“I just want to go home,” he said, rueful and exhausted.
I
n all three men I sensed a light gone dim, a fatigue of the spirit. It was what I'd seen in Mason that night at dinner. He never achieved the great stage stardom of Laurence Olivier or the great film stardom of Marlon Brando, and he never won an Oscar. But if Peter Finch, at sixty, Jack Palance, at seventy-seven, and James Coburn, at seventy-four, are any indication, it doesn't appear it would have lifted his spirits all that much.
R
ichard Burton, a Welsh actor looked upon in his youth as the successor to Laurence Olivier, received his sixth Oscar nomination, for his performance in the film
Equus
, on the morning of the day the phone rang in my apartment in New York. It was Robbie Lantz, our mutual agent calling. The year was 1977.
“I've organized tickets for Richard and Suzy to come see you in
Dracula
tonight. Do you have any liquor in your dressing room?”
“No.”
“I think it would be a good idea to get some.”
A
fter the performance Richard arrived at my door with wife number three in a floor-length gown over which she wore an even longer white fox coat. Richard was wearing a black mink car coat and very heavy deep orange makeup. His fine hair was dyed and teased in an effort to make it look thicker and him younger, but succeeded only in aging him further. Behind him, crowding the hallway to my dressing room, was an enormous group of photographers.
“It was quite a problem keeping the audience's attention on the stage tonight,” I said, as the flash bulbs popped. This was pre-digital time.
“You managed quite well,” he said, in one of the most distinctive voices of the twentieth century.
My dressing room at the Martin Beck Theatre on West 45th Street was large and spacious, rare in Broadway houses. So in they swept: Richard, Suzy, and the entire group. More photographs as Richard said:
“You know, I was nominated for the little fella today.”
“Yes, congratulations,” I said, knowing of course that Robbie had seen this as a great photo op for both his clients.
A
fter the press departed, Richard sat down at my dressing table and turned in my barber chair to face the room. My dresser offered drinks from the bottle of Scotch she'd gone out to buy before the show, leaving it next to him on the table. I grabbed a hand mirror, sat on a straight-backed chair and began the nightly ritual of removing my makeup.
“Who was your Renfield tonight?” Richard asked.
As fate might have it, the actor playing Renfield, who had never missed a performance, was out sick, and his understudy had acquitted himself admirably.
“It was an understudy,” I said. “I thought he did very well.”
“I want to meet him.”
I asked my dresser to fetch the young actor. Richard poured another drink as I continued wiping off the residue of my makeup and Suzy made small talk with my wife, who'd come to get a look-see. The three of us did not talk nor were we offered a drink.
A knock at the door and in came Sam, the understudy.
Richard did not rise. Sam came up to meet him, excited and nervous.
“Marvelous,” Richard said. “I'm doing
Lear
on Broadway next season. I want you to play the Fool.”
It was, of course, going to be a great story: Understudy Catches Burton's Eye! On to Stardom! I knew the actor playing Renfield was going to be miserable when he heard of it, but Sam might, after all, become the Shirley MacLaine of the 1977â78 Broadway season. Shirley had been raised from Chorus Girl to Movie Stardom after going on for the star in the musical
The Pajama Game.
After he left, I asked Richard a question that may have been close to the last words I uttered for the next two hours. As the level of liquor lowered in the bottle, he began a series of reminiscences about Olivier, Richardson, Gielgud, and other theatrical luminaries, and then launched into reciting lengthy sections of Dylan Thomas. By the time the bottle was near empty, so was my brain. The sonorous voice, now slurring its words, had succeeded in numbing and stunning me. Could anyone, I wondered, be so unaware of what a crashing bore he had become? There sat a man approximately fifty-two years of age, looking ten years older, dressed in black mink, with heavily applied pancake, under a tortured, balding, helmet of jet-black dyed hair, grandly reciting tiresome poetry.
It was well past 1 a.m. when the night watchman knocked on my dressing room door. The first and only time he'd needed to do that in the year I played
Dracula
.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Langella, but I've got to shut down the lights and close up the theatre now.”
I was still in my robe and slippers, and as I managed to quickly change into street clothes, Richard launched into yet another poem. Suzy and my wife had long since dried up on small talk and were sitting stupefied on the couch, facing straight ahead. As I grabbed my coat, they leapt up, and we all four made our way out of my dressing room. The ladies preceded us through the dimly lit backstage toward the street, no doubt aching for a nap in the backseats of our waiting limos. When Richard and I got to about center, he stopped, lifted up the rope slung across the back of the stage and headed toward its apron.
Although terrified that he might recite a monologue from some obscure Irish play, I nevertheless ducked under the rope and joined him at the edge of the stage. And there we stood, staring out over the empty house, the standing lamp dead center reflecting on one of the most famous faces of the era. A once young Welsh buck primed to take Olivier's crown, now looking more like a successor to some aging Italian fashionista about to present the best of his collection; and, in the glow of the single lamplight appearing even more surreal than he had in my dressing room.
He seemed melancholy and pensive. A colleague, I thought, anxious to return to the boards as the great King Lear. I had never forgotten his brilliant performance as King Arthur in the musical
Camelot
, and his early promise as a major force in the English theatre. Maybe his return as Lear would be a way of undoing the last two decades of debauchery, booze, lousy movies, and Elizabeth Taylor, his second and third wife, I thought. He stared intently out into the dark.
“How many seats in this house?” he said.
“About eleven hundred,” I answered.
“Hmmm,” he said. “Can't gross enough for me.”
Then he turned, walked upstage, and we proceeded out the door.
Only a few die-hard fans were waiting for us, as, Richard, ignoring them, moved quickly to his car, tossed back a “good night,” and was gone.
He did not win the Oscar that year. Or ever, in fact. Richard's inevitable descent began in earnest with his meeting and marrying Elizabeth. The Welsh boy had climbed to the top of a ladder on rungs covered with money, fame, sex, booze, and all the other slippery slop of our profession. He clearly loved it all, and it was tragic to watch him slide slowly down and eventually disintegrate.
He stumbled on for another seven years, divorced the Suzy, married a Sally, toured in a play with La Liz, and revived
Camelot
. Sam the Understudy was denied his chance at playing The Fool, and Richard The Star never ascended to Richard The King.