All About “All About Eve” (39 page)

“It turned out to be pleasant and civilized. Joe was kind of pissed that I wouldn’t go along with what
he
thought I thought about the movie. But he agreed finally to reinstate my material—to put back what I had originally said in the way I had said it. And that’s all I cared about. I didn’t want to come out looking like a horse’s ass. The restorations were made, which was all I had demanded. Ultimately, I felt that Mankiewicz treated me fairly, though he did everything he could to keep my name out of any publicity about the book. That was fine, too, because I was paid a flat fee and therefore got no royalties. And the book didn’t do very well anyway.

“I ran into Joe a few times in later years at critics’ parties and screenings, and our meetings were cordial. In the end, I came to be amused by the book episode. I learned a lot from it. One of the things it taught me was that I wanted nothing to do with Hollywood.”

And Carey did avoid Hollywood, though in later years he wrote biographies of some of its leading citizens, including Katharine Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Judy Holliday, and Louis B. Mayer.

When the book was published, Mankiewicz told a reporter, “I’m a pain in the ass with interviewers. Because too often they take it upon themselves to rephrase me, and if you make your living writing you don’t like to be rewritten in midair, so to speak.” He said he found his own quotes in the first draft “simplistic, skimpy, uninteresting,” and had therefore rewritten them.

Whether one accepts Mankiewicz’s version or Carey’s, the “colloquy” between them speaks for itself. (The word
colloquy
, chosen by Mankiewicz, is defined by some dictionaries as a conversation that is “formal or mannered.”) In this instance, Mankiewicz’s side of the conversation is not only mannered, it’s baroque. His comments on
All About Eve
, and his account of the rest of his career, are sometimes fascinating. His lengthy digressions, however, are maddening, and though the book is ostensibly a “biography” of
Eve
, it’s only through Carey’s clear journalism that the reader gets any of the “who, what, when, and where.” Mankiewicz supplies the “why,” but too often it’s turgid and meandering.

*   *   *

Mankiewicz at his worst, however, was less turgid than Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the German director who paid him a dubious compliment in
The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant
(1972). One could go mad watching Fassbinder’s films, and madder still trying to locate his “meanings.” And so a brief pause only, to note the letter that lesbian fashion designer Petra Von Kant dictates to her mute secretary, Marlene. The letter is directed to a moneylender named Joseph Mankiewicz. In her silky “professional” voice Petra dictates, “Dear Mankiewicz, dear friend,” then leaves the rest of her message to Marlene’s discretion.

Is this allusion perhaps faintly anti-Semitic—pairing Mankiewicz’s name with an occupation once reserved for Jews, who were in turn condemned for their “sin” of usury? More likely, Fassbinder intended an abstruse compliment.

In 1977 the Canadian film
Outrageous!
starred chubby Craig Russell as a hairdresser whose night job is impersonating Garland, Streisand, Bankhead, et al., onstage at gay bars. For his first club date Russell wears a scarlet version of Margo Channing’s off-the-shoulders gown. But instead of “Fasten your seat belts” he starts off with “What a dump!” and from there lapses into Bette-and-Joan shtick from
Baby Jane
. Surprisingly, his Bette Davis/Margo number is the weakest in his repertoire. He’s much funnier as the other Channing—Carol.

About the same time, but light-years from such drag monkeyshines, Films Inc. (a company that supplied classic movies to various nonprofit groups) put out an
All About Eve
discussion guide for use by schools, church groups, and cinema clubs. The brochure, written by a professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, was entitled
Dialogue With the World
. A brief introduction of the film ends with forced theological insight: “One of the things we say in the Church about the Crucifixion is that it unmasked evil and showed it for what it really was. In a similar manner, the gradual ‘crucifixion’ of Margo reveals to us the true complexion and inner workings of the evil that makes a god of selfish ambition.” (The closest Margo comes to such deep thoughts is when she likens Eve’s love of the theatre to “all the religions in the world rolled into one, and we’re gods and goddesses.”)

On the last page of its last issue of the 1970s,
Esquire
in December 1979 ran a full-page caricature of the
All About Eve
cast, drawn by Edward Sorel. Three cast members were conspicuous by their absence from the cartoon: Thelma Ritter, Hugh Marlowe, and Celeste Holm.

*   *   *

With each new decade,
All About Eve
became an increasingly recognizable American—and international—institution. Its characters and its dialogue were so familiar that they began to function as touchstones in the media and as shorthand in the marketplace.

In
Evil Under the Sun
(1982) Roddy McDowell played Rex Brewster, a prissy gossip columnist who reminded some reviewers of Addison DeWitt.

Not long after that, when Joan Collins was guest of honor on Dean Martin’s televised
Celebrity Roast
, Anne Baxter appeared not so much to skewer Joan as to contribute a note of civility to an evening of cruel put-downs. Baxter pointed out that Alexis Carrington, whom Collins portrayed on
Dynasty
, had learned some lessons in villainy from Eve Harrington. Baxter added that the two characters’ names even echoed each other.

Alan Rudolph’s 1984 film
Choose Me
is sprinkled with sly allusions to
Eve
. The first shot in the movie is a neon sign of “Eve’s Lounge,” owned and operated by Eve (Lesley Ann Warren.) A bit later, Warren utters an “Oh, brother” with a Thelma Ritter inflection; there is a character named Max; and in Rae Dawn Chong’s apartment the camera pans posters from many movies, including
All About Eve
. Scraps of dialogue seem to have mutated from the Mankiewicz script, as when Chong says to Warren, “I’m telling you, Eve—woman to woman.” (Addison DeWitt and Eve Harrington talk “champion to champion” and “killer to killer.”) Geneviève Bujold says she has never loved anyone. (Addison to Eve: “We have … an inability to love and be loved.”) Bujold, as radio sex therapist Dr. Nancy Love, speaks in a much lower, sexier voice when she’s on the air, indicating that Anne Baxter’s upper and lower registers in
Eve
may have given her the idea.

In 1985 a group of British singers formed a gothic rock group called All About Eve. They are often referred to as “the Eves.” From their songs and from information on their two Web sites, they must have chosen their name only because it struck them as euphonious, not because they felt any connection to the movie. It’s quite possible that “the Eves” have never seen
Eve
.

The 1987 movie,
Anna,
is like a deconstruction of
All About Eve
, for in it we see the grunge and not the glamour of life in the theatre. The movie is about the humiliation of over-the-hill actors who are out of work and desperate for any job at all. Sally Kirkland plays the middle-aged refugee Anna Radkova, a former film star in Czechoslovakia who can’t find a niche in America. Paulina Porizkova plays Kristina, also a Czech refugee, but a young, pretty one—an ambitious ingenue.

In a melodramatic variation on Eve Harrington, Kristina arrives penniless in New York and faints from hunger at the feet of ex–movie star Kirkland, who takes her in. Soon Kristina learns English and lands a Hollywood contract.

If you want to see a movie about an aging actress with everything but the bloodhounds snappin’ at her rear end, this is the one to see. Anna, in a self-pitying Margo Channing mode, tells the ingenue: “You can borrow my life. Do whatever you want with it.” “Thank you,” says the younger woman. And she takes Anna literally. She appropriates Anna’s life story—imprisonment, escape from the Iron Curtain, loss of career and family, etc.—and recounts it as her own on a TV interview show. Whereupon Anna throws Kristina’s possessions out the window into the street.

Many years earlier, Margo Channing only threatened to “stuff that pathetic little lost lamb down Mr. DeWitt’s ugly throat.” But Anna doesn’t stop at threats: She shoots the young usurper, then suffers a nervous breakdown. Kristina, recovered and back on the set, supplies the voice-over denouement of this low-camp trinket by informing us that she has paid for a face-lift for her benefactress so that Anna can restart her career in Hollywood.

The year
Anna
came out, a theatre in New York held a Seven Deadly Sins Festival. The sins were represented by the following pictures: Greed by Erich von Stroheim’s
Greed
(1924); Lust by F. W. Murnau’s
Sunrise
(1927); Envy by
All About Eve
; Gluttony by Percy Adlon’s
Sugarbaby
(1985); Sloth by Nikita Mikhalkov’s
Oblomov
(1979); Pride by Orson Welles’s
The Magnificent Ambersons
(1942); and Anger by Fritz Lang’s
Fury
(1936).

In 1988 Bette Davis made a commercial for Equal sweetener. Bette isn’t seen; instead, a little girl of ten or so lip-syncs her distinctive voice. The little girl wears a Margo Channing hairdo and gown. A pint-size grande dame, the child sits at a restaurant table while the contrived little vignette plays itself out. The commercial itself is no better and no worse than most. What’s interesting, though, is the advertiser’s assumption that millions of TV viewers will not only recognize Davis’s voice but will also get the Margo Channing allusion.

*   *   *

Merchandising efforts using various cast members from
All About Eve
started even before the film was released. The exhibitor’s manual, prepared by 20th Century-Fox for theatre owners, shows Anne Baxter and Hugh Marlowe in print ads for Black & Decker’s electric tool kits. From the
Saturday Evening Post
, November 1950: “Take a Tip from Anne Baxter: Put Home-Utility on Your Christmas Gift List!”

Elsewhere in the exhibitor’s manual: “To add momentum to your campaign for
All About Eve
, a giant nationwide promotion has been set up in conjunction with the distributors of Sortilège, the famed French perfume. Special window displays, poster art, etc., will be used setting off this distinguished promotion. In addition, scene stills from the film will be used showing stars Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, and Celeste Holm seated in the famous Stork Club where Sortilège has become a noted table favor.”

Even then, merchants found Marilyn’s image irresistible. From the same page of the manual: “Starlet Marilyn Monroe, featured in
All About Eve
, lends her beauty to an endorsement of Sortilège that will be included in this exciting promotion package. Her picture will appear wherever the perfume is sold.” The list of stores included Neiman Marcus and Jordan Marsh.

By the 1990s, when Marilyn Monroe was as famous as God, her name and signature, now registered trademarks, were used as often as permission could be secured from Roger Richman, the lawyer in command of her estate. Often they were merchanted in tandem with
All About Eve
as well as with her starring vehicles. Foley’s Department Store in 1997 ran ads for “The Marilyn Monroe Collection (20% Off Entire Stock).” Among the items on sale were an “All About Eve Leopard Print Underwire Bra” at $25, with “Coordinating Bikini” for $12 more. Other undergarment choices included the “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Molded Foam Slip” and a “Niagara Bra and Lace Skirt with Thong.” Smart shoppers were also offered the opportunity to “join Foley’s Bra and Panty Clubs.” Those who did so were promised one free bra after purchasing six, or one free pair of panties after buying twelve.

Moving from underwear to formal wear, we come to the nineteen-inch hand-painted porcelain doll from the Franklin Mint in Pennsylvania. The full-page ad shows a small picture of Marilyn (cropped at the waist) in evening-gown costume from
Eve
. Beside her is the full-length doll in “shimmering white jacquard and softest faux fur. The waist of her gown is accented with silken roses, and she holds a satin evening purse in one hand. Elbow length sculptured white gloves, hand-painted shoes, and sparkling crystal drop earrings complete this memorable costume.” At the top of the page, above the images, we read: “The movie was called
All About Eve
but in the end it was all about Marilyn.” Which isn’t true at all, but it sounds good when you’re marketing dolls at $195 each, “payable in convenient monthly installments.”

Margo Channing dolls, created so far by hobbyists rather than manufacturers, appear regularly in such publications as
Barbie Bazaar
and
Fashion Doll Makeovers
. Bradford Samuel, creator of a recent one, adheres to painstaking craftsmanship. For his Bette-Davis-as-Margo-Channing doll, he attached to her tiny cigarette an even tinier puff of smoke.

Although Celeste Holm appeared in some stills from
All About Eve
that helped sell Sortilège perfume, she wasn’t called upon to endorse other products via her
Eve
connection.

In later years two members of the cast reached such legendary heights that contests were held to find persons resembling them. In New York, in the 1980s, there were Marilyn Monroe look-alike contests. In 1994 two plays about Bette Davis opened off-Broadway:
P. S. Bette Davis
, by Randy Allen, and
Me and Jezebel
, by Elizabeth Fuller. As a promotional gimmick for the latter, a Bette Davis look-alike contest was held in New York. The winner was James Beaman, who “seemed to know
All About Eve
by heart,” according to
The New York Times
.

Woody Allen’s
Bullets Over Broadway
also came out in 1994, with Dianne Wiest as an over-the-hill and over-the-top actress who deftly bypasses Margo Channing. Playing hard-boiled Helen Sinclair, she’s half Norma Desmond and half Eve Harrington. Wiest even looks like an overripe middle-aged version of Eve. The resemblance is perhaps intentional, for
All About Eve
seems to loiter on the outskirts of this picture.
Eve
’s presence is veiled, however, except for one visual-and-aural quotation. That’s when Helen Sinclair throws a cocktail party. Her house is full of people, the atmosphere is vivacious, and the pianist is shot from the same angle as Claude Stroud, Margo’s piano player. Like Stroud, this one also plays a few bars of “Thou Swell.” Allen, as director and co-writer, gives an ironic final nod to
Eve
: The understudy goes on when the star, a gangster moll, gets bumped off by a hit man because she’s a lousy actress.