By Myself and Then Some (73 page)

We previewed on Monday. First time in all the clothes. We’d staggered through a dress rehearsal, but it wasn’t quite the same ballgame. Elizabeth White, my great dresser, and Jerry Masarone, in charge of my crowning glory, helped to calm me. I got through it, but so scared I was no judge of how it went. The house was full and the audience responsive. Just before you open, you always think it’s a hit, whether it is or not. When you’re that involved, how would you know? The next night we opened. The Baltimore papers were on strike, and we weren’t sure which Washington critics would turn up. Our notices were not overly favorable, but the audiences loved us and business was splendid. We knew we had work ahead, and I was keyed up and ready for it.

Through all this time I kept myself aloof from Len. He was attractive and bright, a wonderful actor, a joy to work with. He seemed to be his own man, self-confident. We had fun and worked wonderfully well together. A natural situation in a somewhat unnatural circumstance. I had no intention – not the slightest – of any involvement. But given the parts we played, it was inevitable. Oh, it’s difficult – you’re together without a let-up – and we did get our parts and ourselves all mixed up. I knew we had a year ahead of seeing each other six days a week – an involvement could only lead to disaster, certainly for me. I couldn’t let anything happen. Besides, he had another life, settled and happy. I wanted us to be friends. I wanted not a day to pass when we wouldn’t be pleased to see each other. I wanted no strain. And I was unrealistic. I held him at arm’s length for a while. But only for a while.

After the opening, the changes started. There was a feeling of depression after the notices, but we had eight weeks ahead of us, time enough to make the show what we all knew it could be. Every day we rehearsed, every night we played. Before the Saturday matinee Ron came into my dressing room. I’d heard rumors that Diane Macafee was going to be replaced. I asked him about it and he said, yes, he felt it had to be. I said, ‘Don’t you think it’s that out-of-town panic? The minute something isn’t quite right, an actor is fired.’ I was very troubled at the prospect. Ron said, ‘Do you like Diane?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ He said, ‘But you shouldn’t – that’s the problem. She should present a threat to you.
That’s why the show isn’t working the way it should. She doesn’t come across as all those things Eve Harrington must be.’ I said, ‘It seems so unfair.’ ‘Maybe it is. It’s my mistake, but until I saw her in the show I couldn’t be sure. Just trust me.’ I had no choice – I’d believed him up until then, and I did trust him. But it didn’t lessen the hurt I felt for her.

The pressure was constant. Rehearse all day – scenes, songs, dances; performance at night; drinks at the hotel, sleep; breakfast and start all over again. The routine out of town is killing, designed to finish actors off, but you keep going – on nerves, hope, and creativity. The adrenaline pumps on. An occasional call to my children to make sure all was well, but I felt, and indeed was, very removed from them. I’d have a weekend at home before Detroit, so they wouldn’t feel totally deserted.

The first day we did the new opening number, everything went wrong – lights crazy, sets not working, sound off, everyone off. Pure disaster.

Ron walked into my dressing room before the next Saturday matinee, looking down at the floor. I had become very sensitive to him, felt very close to him. He knew I still felt badly about Diane – he did too. I told him I still felt uneasy about replacing her – there ought to be another way, less traumatic. He said, ‘You think so? Just look in the fourth row center this afternoon. You’ll see Gower Champion sitting there.’ ‘So what?’ I said. ‘So I’m being replaced,’ said Ron. ‘What?’ I screamed. ‘Over my dead body!’ He had planned to go to New York during the matinee. I made him promise to stay, to come to my room after the performance and we’d take it from there. Five days ago we’d had a hit. One set of reviews, one negative word, and panic had set in. But there was no way I would continue with another director. Replacing Diane was awful enough, but replacing Ron was going too far.

After the matinee Ron was in my room when the door opened and in walked one of Broadway’s most successful producers, Alex Cohen. He hugged both of us enthusiastically. ‘You’ll all get Tonys! It’s sensational – the most exciting show I’ve seen in ages – your work is marvelous!’ Ron told him he was being replaced, whereupon Alex, after a few expletives, tore over to tell Joe Kipness the error of his ways. I took Ron to my hotel suite, Len joined us, sensing trouble, and we sat him down, ordered a drink for him, food for me, called Kippy and started raving. ‘He’s my captain – if the ship sails without him, it sails
without me.’ I ranted on and on. Of course I had another show to do, and Ron was terrified I’d lose my voice with strain. Finally Joe said, ‘Gower just came down to visit, he’s passing through, we’re old friends – as a matter of fact, he’s meeting me in the bar in a little while.’ ‘Oh, he is, is he?’ I thought. My position was clear. I called my agent and told him the story: ‘If Ron goes, I go. Make it clear to Kippy!’ I was livid. The theatre – God! So much insecurity, so many people thinking change means better. Ridiculous! How in hell can you be talented one minute and, because of a critic or two, lose it all?

After I hung up, I said to Ron, ‘Let’s go to the bar and say hello to Mr Champion.’ Ron paled. We were all fragile people just then. Just before entering the bar, I put my arm through his – Len was on the other side – and in we walked. Big smile to Kippy and Gower. When Gower said, ‘Great show,’ I patted Ron on the shoulder and said, ‘It’s all because of him – I don’t know what I’d do without him.’ I did everything but flutter my eyelashes. And that was the end of that.

Replacing Ron would really have done the company and the show in. With his second wind, renewed faith, Ron plunged ahead. More changes, more meetings with Comden and Green, Strouse and Adams. The changes were concentrated in large numbers like the party scene, involving the whole company. As much as possible, scenes that Eve was not in. There was so much to do, it didn’t matter, except that we were unable to work in sequence. At last I got the word – Penny Fuller was to replace Diane. The day she arrived, Ron called me into his room to meet her. We got along immediately. She knew what a tough situation it was, what ambivalent feelings are involved in firing and hiring. Penny was great to work with. So skillful. Our scenes had another dimension, no question. It was very exciting. Funny how imperfection can be thrilling. It’s the possibilities of what may come, what might be, that make you tingle.

After Baltimore, Len and I drove back to New York. It was very late, but before heading for our respective homes we just had to drive by the Palace Theatre. There was my name up there, and the enormous logo above the marquee – bigger than I’d ever dreamed it could be. I felt like a kid again looking at that theatre – that theatre which had housed some of the greatest variety artists in show business. I might become part of its history. Unbelievable.

After a hectic happy day with my children I headed for Detroit. My
mind was only on the show – I’d never thought I would look forward to Detroit with such enthusiasm.

We opened on February 19 and Ron read me the reviews. After the opening we’d had a cast party fraught with drink, manic gaiety, and some strain. Margo Channing was beginning to get to me. I had been too keyed up, so naturally now felt too let down. The insecurity of Margo was becoming mine and, added to my own, it laid me very low. The reviews were excellent, though not quite so glowing as I would have liked. I became full of doubts. ‘Maybe it isn’t there – maybe it’ll come later. Maybe, maybe …’ Ridiculous to have to be assured by a stranger that you’re good, but I wanted all those adjectives. Is it pleading for affection as in childhood? Or simply wanting approval, also as in childhood? I felt quite alone. Totally vulnerable.

At the end of four weeks we had made many changes in the show, rehearsing daily and playing at night. One night my voice went. I was terrified. It was clearly because of too much work and too little rest. I was taken to a throat doctor for treatment. When the star takes ill, everyone becomes very nervous – including the star. I didn’t rehearse for a day or two, but I didn’t miss a show and was back to normal by week’s end.

My spirits started to climb. With all the changes – a line, a speech, part of a song, a move – dressing room, quick-change room plastered with yellow paper delineating each change, act by act, scene by scene – how one head can retain it is a mystery. Except that somehow it becomes possible. You have to do it, so you do. There were six versions of the party scene. Len was given a new ballad ten days before we closed in Baltimore. A new version of a group number. And my final song went in with a new tag scene five days before our closing in Detroit. But at last the show was frozen.

Press interviews were interspersed – some good for New York, some not so good. One jerk wrote a piece having a conversation with me as though Bogie were present and commenting. I had refused to answer questions about Bogie. I made it clear before agreeing to an interview that it was to deal with
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and me, nothing else. It was time. If they didn’t want to talk to me about me, the hell with it. I wanted my own life, my own place. Bogie had been dead for thirteen years, I’d had another marriage and a divorce, I had embarked on a new road. I had to stop looking over my shoulder all the time, and I didn’t want anyone looking over it for me!

By our last week in Detroit I felt there wasn’t a bad moment in the show. I’d never felt so good in a part, nor worked so hard, nor functioned so well. And emotionally I became Margo Channing more and more. The reality of New York – children, my own home, Len’s life there – was just around the corner, but fantasy was where I was living, and I wanted to stay in it as long as I could. The theatre is insidious. All my professional life I’d been warned not to confuse a part I was playing with myself. I was able to avoid it in films, less in the theatre, and out of the question in
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. I was having a marvelous time, so why not? And when in hell had I ever heeded warnings? I was the only one who would be hurt – though I didn’t really believe it at the time. Lives take on a pattern in spite of your conscious effort to break it. Before Bogie my emotional life hadn’t worked – and after, God knows, it certainly hadn’t. Yet the hope remained – the ability to enjoy, to trust, to give. I refused and still refuse to believe that my first love – my happy marriage of eleven and a half years to Bogie – was the beginning and end of that experience. I demanded and still demand the possibility of another good relationship before my time is up. Having tasted the fruit, I flatly refuse never to taste it again.

At this point in my life, just before the opening of
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, I would say I was at my peak, mentally and physically sharper than ever before. Using every bit of me. Determined to be the best I could be. New York was approaching – final rehearsals, technical rehearsals, readying ourselves for the first of four previews before the opening. All so exciting and frightening. And then opening night – Sunday, March 30. I’ve never seen so many flowers, so many telegrams – an avalanche. On one dressing-room wall Larry Kasha had framed
Life –
I was on the cover, my second time. A surprise. Friends from everywhere thought of me. Only one person would I not hear from, and she lived in the back of my mind, never leaving it. This one was for her.

Voice lesson, body warm-up, more vocalizing. Concentrate on the part. You cannot shake – it’s going to work, try to enjoy it. It’s time to walk out on stage and deliver. As I made up, I went over all the changes to make sure I forgot nothing. Liz had the usual tea and honey at hand. The call ‘Half-hour’ on the speakers. Ron came in with a beautiful necklace of small gold hearts. It was the biggest night either of us had ever had, the culmination of so much work and love. A new beginning. ‘Fifteen minutes.’ Charles Strouse and Lee Adams dashed in to wish
me luck, Betty and Adolph too. Leslie, Sam, and Lee were out front along with many friends. ‘Five minutes.’ Masarone gave the hair a final lift. Oh God. Len came into my room to take me upstairs, a routine that had become regular for us. He knew how nervous I was. ‘Places, please.’ Take many deep breaths – remember what Keith told you. Stand in the wings. The overture – that’s what a musical has that is so incredible, that gives such a lift, that hits you in the pit of your stomach. The rustle of the audience, the theatre packed …

The show began. My entrance was coming up – ‘Margo Channing.’ I walked onto the stage – huge applause – the show moved forward from scene to scene, Len and I working together like a charm, Penny – the whole company terrific. Yes, I was frightened, but I loved it. And this one was for my mother.

At the interval Ron came back happy. It was going well, better than ever. Second act the same – everything worked, even the sets, nothing stuck, all ran smoothly. Then the finale. Ron had staged exciting curtain calls, like a musical number. The whole company took theirs, and when they parted I was standing upstage, back to the audience. On cue I swirled around, arms in the air, and walked downstage for my bow. A thrill to do, and an added high for the audience. We took many calls – opening-night enthusiasm, but the show was good, we all knew it. Then photographers backstage, dressing room full of people, changing for the traditional trip to Sardi’s – I wasn’t about to miss that – and then Kippy and Kasha were giving an opening-night party at Tavern on the Green.

Sardi’s and the Tavern were an extension of the Palace – excitement upon excitement. Then the first reviews. Clive Barnes singing my praises. A hit. Leslie and Lee there to share it – all my New York friends. Ron read the reviews aloud – we might have written them ourselves, they were so good. Dancing in the streets – hooray! Then suddenly, sitting at my table, I was on the verge of tears. Too much tension – geared too high – nowhere to go but down? Who knows? Mother, more than likely. I’d gotten what I’d always wanted, I was an enormous hit, the show was an enormous hit, but the hole was there, that cavern that would never be filled. I could forget it most of the time, but that night I had been totally vulnerable on the stage and went on being so off it.