There i go again, p.13
There I Go Again, page 13
Since A Thousand Clowns was Jason’s first shot at starring in a comedy, I’m sure he felt he needed more help than the current director was giving him. I also think he acted impetuously by firing the first director at the very beginning of rehearsals, and I think he felt guilty about it. I came to this conclusion because, in the second week of rehearsals, he asked me to join him for a drink. I did have one drink with him, but then I excused myself and left him alone in the bar. He disappeared from rehearsals for three days after that.
Herb Gardner came to me at the theater.
“Billy,” he said, “you must never leave Jason alone in a bar!”
“How should I know that?”
“If you’re with him in a bar, call me before you leave.”
Jason finally returned to rehearsals and we proceeded. I do not want to give the impression here that Jason was miscast or not up to playing the part of Murray. He was the main reason that the play was successful. The reality he could create on a stage—the believability of his character’s commitment and love for the young nephew he was raising—was the foundation that supported the wit and comedic elements of Herb’s play. That time I left Jason alone in the bar led to a special relationship between Herb and me. Sometimes he would share his concerns about Jason’s behavior, and later he sought out my impressions of his writing.
Some of Herb’s trials and tribulations as Jason’s watchdog are funny—sad and funny. Herb had a right to worry. After Saturday night’s performances, having finished another eight-a-week, Jason would disappear on a binge. He was married to Lauren “Betty” Bacall at the time (his third marriage and her second, coming after the death of her first husband, Humphrey Bogart). She was the only one who would know his whereabouts. Jason would drink in the Village or on the Lower East Side and end up in a hotel his father used to frequent, which in his father’s day was decent enough but was now a flophouse. (Jason Robards Sr. had been a famous actor as well, with a career stretching from Broadway and silent films to television.)
Jason would sometimes resurface Monday afternoon to sleep it off in his dressing room at the theater, but occasionally he wouldn’t sober up until the second act of the play, frightening the young child actor who played his nephew. Once, after frantically searching for Jason all night, Herb finally called Betty Bacall and asked if she knew where he might be drinking.
“Have you tried the Village, or maybe that place where the truckers drink on the Lower East Side?” she said.
I suppose the thought of going into that area late at night led Herb to ask, “What’ll I do if I find him?”
“Give him a Viking’s funeral,” Betty snarled, in that signature deep voice of hers.
One night we were at a dinner party at the Robards apartment when Jason wandered in half drunk.
“Good evening, Mrs. Bogart,” he said, and he saluted his wife.
That cleared the room.
I spent one night trying to get Jason out of the bar at Frankie & Johnnie’s Steakhouse, where he was reciting poetry to a small crowd that had gathered. He was reciting from a book they kept under the bar for his personal use.
I poured him into a taxi, and we made it to his apartment at the Dakota. He pleaded with me to come up for a nightcap because it was his birthday. When I refused, he lay down in the gutter with half his body under the cab.
“Driver, don’t move—don’t move,” I said.
I relented and went up to Jason’s apartment with him. As we passed a darkened bedroom a shadowy specter rose up.
“Who the hell is that with you?” Betty roared.
Jason whispered to me, “Shh! Mother Courage!”
I fled the apartment, went down in the elevator, and rushed out onto the street, where the cabbie had wisely waited for me.
The film version of A Thousand Clowns was shot in a studio in Hempstead, Long Island. Just before filming began Lee Strasberg had asked me to come to London to do his production of Three Sisters, starring George C. Scott, Kim Stanley, and Sandy Dennis. I was flattered that Lee had asked me and most certainly would have said yes if it weren’t for the film, which I wanted to do. And so I said no. The play was mercilessly lambasted and the audience literally booed. The only solace George Scott had was the proximity of his lover, Ava Gardner, who was also in London.
A Thousand Clowns basically takes place in one place (Murray’s one-room apartment), so shooting the film should have been simple enough. But it was a problem.
There were cast changes. Gene Saks had played Chuckles in the stage version, but he was unavailable for the film. (Gene would later have a huge career as a Tony Award–winning Broadway director, specializing in Neil Simon’s plays.) The role of Chuckles went instead to Paul Richards, and Barbara Harris replaced Sandy Dennis in the cast. Why Sandy was replaced remains a mystery to me, although the word I got was that they were looking for a pretty face. But that didn’t make sense since both women were attractive. If I had to guess, I would say that Sandy’s whole approach to acting was bothersome to both the author and our leading man. In Boston, Herb Gardner had remarked to me that Sandy could singlehandedly add ten to fifteen minutes to the running time of the play. Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but it was still pretty close to the truth. In her big crying scene while seated next to Murray on his bed, she sniffled, wailed, and stammered and did indeed add minutes to the scene.
Once Jason just stared at her and finally said, “Are you finished?”
She ended her performance by blowing her nose and giving him an innocent look.
Barbara Harris came with her own set of problems. The thought of making her film debut by replacing Sandy Dennis must have scared Barbara to death because she made an extraordinary demand. She wanted to be coached by one Billy Daniels. This demand was met by the producers, and I wound up earning twice as much for my coaching as I made for playing my role in the film.
Since I had worked with Barbara Harris and Austin Pendleton in Oh Dad, she evidently trusted me to help her get through A Thousand Clowns and her rather large part. I had a great deal of respect for Barbara’s acting ability, particularly her gift for comedy. But I also understood what problems might lie ahead when it came to Barbara playing Sandra Markowitz, the social worker who falls in love with Murray.
Barbara came to everyone’s attention for her work with The Second City, based in Chicago. The comedy troupe’s work was entirely improvisational. They would, for instance, call out to the audience and ask for a topic. Then the actors would instantly improvise a whole sketch based on what they were given. That was Barbara’s background; she was most comfortable when she was allowed to go off-script. Learning the lines of a screenplay and sticking to them was another matter. At the Mayflower Hotel on Central Park West we were given a suite where I would urge her to memorize the scenes. I would urge, I would insist, I would demand that she learn the goddamn lines. Barbara would be stretched out on the sofa and, at times, actually doze off.
To get her attention and get her going, I suggested she improvise a scene in which she talks to her mother on the phone and explains why she hadn’t communicated recently. Barbara did this brilliantly. She was hilarious. Of course this had nothing to do with the film or her role. When the director and author came to the hotel after their day of shooting to see how we were getting along, I could only say in desperation that we were working on the subtext.
“Barbara, let’s show them what we are working on. Let’s do that conversation you had with your mother on the phone,” I said.
And off she went. She soon had them rolling on the floor.
Perhaps because A Thousand Clowns was Fred Coe’s first feature film and he was feeling insecure, I was asked not to be on the set to coach her when they filmed the famous crying scene. And that was fine with me. I had my own performance to worry about. Things seemed to go along smoothly. I heard no complaints about Barbara’s work. And the shooting finished on schedule.
Months later I was invited to a private screening of the director’s cut of the film. Those attending the screening were all involved in the production end: producers, director, author, film editor, and so on.
I was the only actor there, perhaps because I had coached Barbara or because Herb Gardner wanted me there. The film we saw was a disaster. Usually at these screenings (or when watching dailies) the production people laugh their heads off at the slightest hint of an amusing moment. Here there was utter silence. The entire action took place in that one-room apartment, except for a brief scene on the staircase, and the audience came away with a feeling of claustrophobia. On top of that the camera was often not in the right place to capture a line or a reaction. Consequently, the laughs that we knew should be there were absent. Gene Saks, who had brought something special to his role on stage, was also missed.
Herb Gardner was not about to let this happen to his play. He went to the studio producers and made a deal. Herb would give up his screenwriting fee, and in return he would be allowed to reedit the film with his editor, Ralph Rosenblum. Herb would rewrite and take some scenes out to the street (including the end shot of Murray, in a suit and hat, briefcase in hand, trudging along with the rest of the crowd, returning to the job he had quit). Herb wanted to add the recorded marching music that was in the play but had been missing in the film, and he put Gene Saks back into the role of Chuckles.
The producers agreed, and the film disappeared for more than a year to be reworked. Herb told me Ralph Rosenblum’s wife accused him of driving her husband mad, because Herb was insisting they go frame by frame and put back shots that were missing to recover the laughs.
More than a year after that dismal private screening, Barbara and I were both in a musical, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (she in a starring role, I playing her boyfriend). We received an invitation to a midnight showing of the new version of A Thousand Clowns. There were the laughs, there was the music, there were the street scenes, and there was Gene Saks, as funny as ever. I left the theater amazed at the transformation. The film got excellent reviews, had a successful run, and it can still be seen on television some forty odd years later.
The cinematographer of A Thousand Clowns, Arthur Ornitz, must have known of my background working with Jerry Robbins because he called with an intriguing offer that I couldn’t refuse. Arthur was about to work for the legendary Oscar-winning film director Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve, Letter to Three Wives), who was directing Rod Serling’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol, scheduled to be broadcast on live television. It had an all-star cast, including Eva Marie Saint, Sterling Hayden, Robert Shaw, and Peter Sellers. Would I be interested in being an assistant director on a project like that? He didn’t have to ask twice.
I learned a lot watching Mankiewicz work. I liked the way he said to the actors “Whenever you’re ready” instead of “Action!” and his notes were always sparing and precise. He quietly gave the cast a lot of freedom, and he was exactly the kind of director I liked to work with.
Peter Sellers had a bad heart, so I would do his lines when he was supposed to be off-camera resting. One day I was doing a spot-on impersonation of the comic master, and Robert Shaw, a superb British actor who would later star in Jaws, came up to me.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m filling in for Peter Sellers.”
“You shouldn’t be doing this. You should be in London, acting.”
He went on to offer me his flat in London so I could go and establish myself with the acting community there, but I never took him up on it. We remained good friends until his early, untimely death.
My next play was Kirk Douglas’s Broadway production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1963. I say Kirk Douglas’s production because he owned the stage and screen rights to Ken Kesey’s novel, he hired the producer and director, and he starred in the show.
I was cast in the role of Dale Harding, a man who was running away from a marriage and any self-awareness by institutionalizing himself in a hospital full of mentally ill “cuckaboos.”
Most of you know the story, but to summarize: there comes into the institutional nest a fairly sane man by the name of McMurphy who gathers these misfits together and gives them enough backbone to stand up to the big, bad Nurse Ratched. McMurphy, of course, was played by Kirk Douglas. In those days I didn’t have the luxury of picking and choosing my roles; a job was a job and there was rent to be paid. If I’d had that luxury I would have turned down the role of Harding, but it was hard to say no to a Broadway play. It was one of the times I should have said no and didn’t. Trouble started for me early in rehearsals.
As we began getting the play on its feet the director, Alex Segal, came to me and said my main scene, in which I explain why I was in this asylum in the first place, was to be cut. There I was again, fighting to preserve my role in the play.
“How can you cut something we haven’t even blocked yet or seen how it would play?” I asked.
“Well, the play’s a little long, and, well, it was Kirk’s idea to cut it.”
“But it explains why I’m in this darned place,” I said.
“Let’s go speak to Kirk about it,” Alex said.
Big mistake. We went to Kirk’s dressing room, where I made my plea about this speech being the crux of my part. Kirk, sitting at his makeup table, looked into the mirror in front of him and spoke to Alex in a very menacing tone: “Why did you bring him in here?”
That moment may have been the beginning of Alex’s declining influence as director of the play.
“Billy, Billy, I don’t want you to think that some Hollywood star is doing this play just for himself,” Kirk said. “I think we’re long, but I tell you what—let’s stage it and see how it plays.”
Once again, as in A Thousand Clowns, I had to fight for self-preservation in the role. The speech stayed in. I learned to stay alert when it came to dealing with Kirk, who had the habit of directing everyone around him and injecting pieces of business for himself that were not indicated in the play. For example, a few of us were seated around a table and Kirk suddenly pulled out a deck of cards and fanned them.
“Pick a card,” he said, turning to me.
“Oh no, Kirk—you know Harding is in his own world,” I said.
So Kirk turned the other way, toward Gerald S. O’Laughlin.
“Pick a card.”
Gerald became the straight man and Kirk, what do you know, a magician! Apparently the play wasn’t too long for this sort of addition. The director meanwhile sat in the back row of the orchestra reading the newspaper.
We tried out in New Haven, and most of the cast stayed at the Taft Hotel. I had the room next to Kirk’s corner suite, and there was a door connecting both rooms. The door was so old it no longer hung properly, and you could see light coming from under it. One morning Kirk was doing vocal exercises, lots of “ohs” and “ahhs” and “moos” up and down the scale. It was very early, and after this had gone on for quite a while I went over to the door and yelled, “Gimme a stick and I’ll kill it!”
I don’t know what I expected to get—maybe a laugh or certainly an inquiry such as “Who said that?” But what I got was utter silence—and no more vocalizing in New Haven.
Bonnie made the trip up to see the show. Her critique of my performance was short and not so sweet.
“You look like you don’t want to be up there on the stage,” she said.
That about summed it up. It prompted me to put aside the distractions and get to work. The play opened at the Cort Theatre back in New York and ran for eighty-two performances.
On opening night Bonnie came into Sardi’s looking for us and the opening night party (she was playing Off-Broadway in Telemachus Clay and couldn’t attend the opening night performance). She found me seated at a table with some other cast members, including Gene Wilder and Jerry O’Laughlin.
“Where’s the party?” she asked.
We pointed upstairs, where Kirk, Ethel Merman, and some big shots from Hollywood were celebrating with the VIPs; the cast wasn’t invited.
The irony of this whole episode was that Kirk had always thought that he would make this play into a film starring himself. He tried for years to get it done; he even came backstage to my dressing room in 1776 wanting to know if I was still on board to play my old part. It wasn’t until his son Michael took over the script that the award-winning film starring Jack Nicholson and directed by Milos Forman was made.
In my opinion the film is far superior, not only to the play but to Ken Kesey’s book as well. One of the reasons is that Michael Douglas brought his great sense of humor to the project. I’ve known and liked Michael since he was a child, and his stepfather, Bill Darrid, who raised Michael with Kirk’s first wife, Diana, actually became my best friend.
My story about Kirk Douglas may seem harsh. I’ve been accused of being an SOB, too, I’m sure, but I got to see the other side of him many years later when he made an important, selfless gesture at the beginning of my presidency at the Screen Actors Guild.
Broadway would not end for me on the sour note of Cuckoo’s Nest. I had finally established a name for myself in New York, and there were many opportunities ahead.
10
On a Clear Day You Can See Paris
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever was a musical written by Alan Jay Lerner with a score by Burton Lane. It was a show that was as overly long as its title, and that proved to be one of its problems. I was asked to have a meeting with Mr. Lerner, who informed me that he wanted me to take on the role of Warren Smith, the leading lady’s boyfriend. Now Warren was a real schnook of a part, as dull as his name, and I told Mr. Lerner that I wasn’t interested. But Alan Lerner was a man who was used to having his way.
“Suppose we write you a song?”
“I heard of an actor who went to Boston with three songs and came back with just a few lines,” I said. I don’t know what possessed me to say that.
