Hollywood (11 page)

Goldwyn remained impassive.

I took a chance, and said, “A hundred thousand dollars.”

He turned to look at me so sharply that I could hear the sound of a crick in his neck.

“Who told you?” he asked, glaring.

“Just a guess,” I said.

“I don’t believe you. You can be very sneaky at times, Talboig.”

I lost my temper, rose, moved to his desk and shouted, “Look here, Mr. Goldwyn! The fact that you pay me a salary doesn’t give you the right to insult me or impugn my integrity!”

“Impugn?” he echoed quietly.

“What the hell do
I
care how much Paramount asked or how much you pay? It’s no skin off mine, but you get us in here to play these silly goddamn guessing games—”

“Watch your language,” said Goldwyn.

“—and then you whack it to anybody who happens to say what you don’t want to hear. What’s so mysterious? I guessed a hundred thousand because you call Paramount ‘dirty bastards,’ and I figured that to earn that it had to be six figures. Anything lower they’d have been just plain ‘bastards.’ ”

Goldwyn turned to the room. “This is a smart kid,” he said. Then to me, “Sit down.”

I sat down.

Goldwyn said, “I’m not going to pay a hundred thousand dollars for this title. I only paid McCarey fifty for the whole story, f’Chrissake. So why should I pay a hundred for a title to a story that cost me fifty? Now I tell you what we’re going to do. We are going to come up with
another
title for this story. A different one. For this picture. And we’re going to come up with a
great
title for this
great
picture and you want to know something? It’s going to be
better
than
The Cowboy and the Lady
.
The Cowboy and the
Lady
,” he continued scornfully. “F’Chrissake, it’s old-fashioned. It
stinks
! Look when it was copyright. Nineteen-
fifteen
. This is going to be a
modern
picture. This is not a period. So let’s get going, gentlemen, and come up with a better title. Whoever comes up with it, believe me, it’s going to be worth their whiles. Thank you, gentlemen.”

“Worth their whiles” was hardly a powerful incentive, but at that point we were all sympathetic. Goldwyn had been unfairly treated. Everyone went to work on the problem.

Goldwyn enlisted the aid of every writer on the lot. Titles began to come in by the dozen, none satisfactory. Three or four days went by. The situation grew more grim by the hour.

One morning, I went into Sam Marx’s office and said, “Sam, I’ve got an idea about a title for
The Cowboy and the Lady
. See, the thing is—that’s the title Goldwyn likes and he’s never going to like any other. The idea is to give him the same title but with different words. See what I mean? So here’s my notion. Let’s make a list of every possible word that suggests ‘cowboy’ and every word for ‘lady’ and put them on cards and see if we can’t come up with a combination.”

Marx, a glum-looking man to begin with, looked even glummer. “This could take a long time,” he said. “It took Dr. Ehrlich six hundred and six.”

“Come on, Sam,” I urged. “What the hell. We’re getting paid.”

We began: rancher, ranch hand, cowpoke (why not?), Westerner, Texan, farmer, cattleman, horseman, cowpuncher, broncobuster, cowman. We then moved into symbols: saddle, cactus, spurs, and so on. We moved on to “lady”: debutante, heiress, co-ed, schoolgirl, princess, duchess, countess. Then to the symbols: perfume, diamonds, orchids.

“Orchids!”

It struck us together.

As Marx yelled “Orchids and Cactus!” I was yelling “Cactus and Orchids!”

He typed it out.

I took a large calendar from the wall, turned it over, and improvised a three-sheet. “Samuel Goldwyn presents,” I scrawled, “Gary Cooper and Merle Oberon in
Cactus and
Orchids
by Leo McCarey, directed by William Wyler.”

“Cactus and Orchids.” Of course. The man comes first.

Marx worked over my three sheet, making it more presentable. We were sure we were home free. We called his secretary in and tried it out on her. She was most enthusiastic (probably because she was sick of the whole damn thing and anxious to see it come to an end).

Marx got Mr. Goldwyn on the intercom and asked, “Can we see you for a minute, Mr. Goldwyn? Kanin and I.”

“Who?” said Goldwyn.

“Garson,” said Marx.

“I don’t get you,” said Goldwyn.

“Thalberg,” said Marx. “
Thalboig
.”

“Come on in,” said Goldwyn.

We walked down the hall, flushed with the anticipation of victory. On the way, we stopped in every single office and tried our title out. We were a smash wherever we went.

Goldwyn’s office. We stood in front of his desk.

“It’s about the title, Mr. Goldwyn,” said Marx.

“For
The Cowboy and the Lady
,” I added.

“We’ve got it,” said Marx.

“It’s
better
than
The Cowboy and the Lady
,” I said.

“It’s about time,” said Goldwyn crossly. “Go ahead.”

“Say it, Sam,” I said, hedging a bit. If it failed, I preferred that Marx take the blow.

“No,” said Marx. “You.”

I looked at Goldwyn, took a deep breath and said, “Samuel Goldwyn presents Gary Cooper and—’ ”

“I know all that, f’Chrissake,” said Goldwyn. “Tell me the goddamn title!”

“ ‘Cactus and Orchids!’ ” I shouted.

Goldwyn blinked and asked, “What?”

I leaned forward and said quietly but impressively, “Gary Cooper and Merle Oberon in ‘Cactus and Orchids.’ ”

A long pause.

“I like it,” said Goldwyn.

We unfurled our makeshift three sheet and held it up.

“I
love
it!” said Goldwyn, smiling broadly.

“And it’ll look even better in print,” I said. “It’s sensational. It’s got class. I mean it goes with ‘Goldwyn.’ ”

Goldwyn buzzed for his secretary. Jack Hutchins came in.

“What do you think of ‘Cactus and Orchids’?” asked Goldwyn.

Jack was understandably confused.

“The title,” I said. “The new title for
The Cowboy and the Lady
. ‘Cactus and Orchids’.”

“Good,” said Jack. “Very good.”

Within fifteen minutes the staff had been assembled. The reaction was predominantly affirmative. Marx and I were the heroes of the hour and there was a champagne atmosphere in the room.

It ended abruptly.

On important matters, Goldwyn was always his own man.

While the subject was being discussed, Goldwyn stared at the three sheet mock-up which, by now, we had Scotch-taped to the wall.

All at once, Goldwyn said, “No. It’s no good. No.”

“You liked it, Mr. Goldwyn,” I said. “Your first impression was good. Why don’t you stick with your first impression?”

“First impressions,” he said, “don’t mean a goddamn thing. This is something we’re going to have to live with for a long time.”

“Sleep on it?” asked Sam Marx.

“I don’t have to sleep on it,” said Goldwyn. “It’s no good. ‘Cactus and Orchids’ is
no
goddamn good
.”

“But why not, Mr. Goldwyn?” I asked desperately.

“I’ll tell you why not,” he said slowly and carefully. “It’s because people who know what orchids are don’t know what cactus is and people who know what cactus is don’t know what orchids are.
That’s
why.
That’s
why not.”

The meeting was over. Goldwyn bought the title,
The Cowboy and the Lady
, from Paramount for an undisclosed sum and the picture was made, finally, with a screenplay by S.N. Behrman and Sonya Levien, directed by H.C. Potter (Wyler having quit shortly before shooting began), and failed badly.

Traditionally, everyone connected with the picture blamed its failure on everyone else. When a film succeeds, there is always sufficient credit to distribute and even the assistant location manager’s wife takes her bows. In failure, however, there are never enough people to take the blame.

In the case of
The Cowboy and the Lady
, Goldwyn blamed the stars.

“The audience didn’t take it serious,” he complained to Cooper’s agent, Bill Hawks, during a gin rummy game. “The way it came out, I didn’t believe a goddamn word of it. He didn’t love her. She didn’t love him. In fact, they didn’t each love one another. That’s why they went on their ass.”

“Listen, Sam,” said Hawks, “the script was lousy, that’s why Willie walked away from it and you threw Potter in before he was ready so it had no concept and the technical side stunk. Those doubles fooled nobody and the process stuff was the worst I’ve ever seen. It was supposed to be funny but it wasn’t. Gin.”

“Four,” said Goldwyn. “The audience didn’t take it serious. The way it came out, I didn’t believe a goddamn word of it. He didn’t love her. She didn’t love him. In fact, they didn’t each love one another. That’s why they went on their ass.”

I was to hear this set piece dozens of times. In fact, whenever the subject of
The
Cowboy and the Lady
came up, it was Goldwyn’s official explanation to Goldwyn.

Garbo.

No.

Garbo!

Better.

I saw her first in
Flesh and the Devil
with John Gilbert. She made an indelible impression on me and I saw her for countless days and nights afterward. I was fourteen, beginning to be aware of the place of the female in the scheme of things and of my possible relationship to this overwhelming phenomenon.

I saw her not long ago on Madison Avenue in New York, walking along under an umbrella, stopping from time to time to look aimlessly into a shop window.

Can it be that after almost fifty years she has lost not one jot of her magical beauty? As a figure, as a presence, as a screen personality, she was and is so arresting that it is hard to believe she has not made a film since 1941. Can it be?
Thirty-three years
?

She always worked with dedication: felt, thought, projected, communicated, listened, and talked.

Greta Garbo saved her personality for her work. She was never a scintillating dinner companion or an avid partygoer.

I recall a Sunday luncheon at George Cukor’s in honor of an unmarried British couple, recently arrived in Hollywood. The girl was to play Scarlett in
Gone With the
Wind
; the man to play Maxim de Winter in
Rebecca
. Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. Among the guests was Greta Garbo. I had never met her and disgraced myself by staring at her for three and a half hours.

Shortly after lunch, Greta Garbo and Laurence Olivier strolled away into Cukor’s beautiful gardens. Up, up a long flight of stairs, around the esplanade, and down another flight. Aristocracy, I thought, true aristocracy. They were deep in serious conversation.

From afar, we could see him talking and her listening. Then
she
talked and
he
listened. She laughed soundlessly. They stopped. He gesticulated. She looked
surprised, asked another question. He replied, underlining the reply with expansive gestures. In the fading light of the cloudy afternoon, it all began to seem like a scene from a silent film.

I found it entertaining but the beauty at my side had a distinctly different reaction. Vivien Leigh was smoldering in the flames of irritation, anger, and jealousy. She was hardly accustomed to being anything less than the most beautiful creature in any assemblage. Thus, the presence of Garbo unnerved her, and the idea of Garbo in deep, intimate conversation with her husband-to-be was a further annoyance.

“Look at him,” she said tightly. “He’s behaving like a ninny.”

“What’s a ninny?” I asked.

“Him,” she replied logically. “Look at him. Stumbling all over himself.”

“Well, I would be too, in his position,” I said.

“Oh,
would
you?” she said, using five musical tones.

“You have to admit,” I said, “she’s a pretty spectacular number.”

“I don’t have to admit anything of the sort,” said Vivien. “She’s too large for a start. And why he’s sucking up to her, I simply can’t fathom. She once had him sacked.”

“You mean out of
Queen Christina
?”

“Of course.”

“But how do you know
she
was the one? I understand it was Thalberg, or the director, or—”

“It was her,” said Vivien firmly.

Her tight little face suddenly changed expression. Her beautiful smile illuminated her visage as she said, “Ah,
there
you are!
Bonne promenade
?”

I turned and saw that Garbo and Olivier had returned.

Less than five minutes later, we were in my car, Vivien, Larry, and I, and I was driving them home. Our departure had been so swiftly and gracefully engineered by Vivien that I could remember none of its details. Had I said good-by to everyone? To Garbo? Had I thanked George, our host? I could not remember.

At my side, the most romantic couple in the world was having a spat.

“—the last time I
ever
go to lunch with
you
!” said Vivien. “Do you hear? The last. I’d rather
starve
.”

“Now be reasonable, Puss—”

“Why should I be? Are you?”

“Of course.”

“Hah!” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“What does what mean?”

“What does ‘hah’ mean?”

“It means,” said Vivien, “that I’m fed up with that David Copperfield performance.”

“Oh my God,” said Larry. “Will you give it a rest?”

“Floating around the garden like some moonstruck ninny.”

“She asked me if I would like to walk a few steps,” said Larry. “What was I to say?”

“Did you try ‘no’?” asked Vivien.

“Of course not.”

“Why not?”

“I was being polite. It’s as simple as that.”

“
Simple
, all right,” she said.

I laughed, hoping it might prove to be contagious and that the whole small contretemps would dissolve in gaiety. I was wrong. They both turned on me.

“Shut up!” said Larry as Vivien said, “What’s so funny?”

They turned to each other again and continued the set-to.

“What was so enthralling?” asked Vivien.

“Enthralling?”

“That conversation. What was it about?”

“All right!” Larry shouted. “If you insist. I’m about to
tell
you what it was about.”

“Thank you,” said Vivien. “And do not dissemble, if you please. You know what a rotten liar you are and how I always know when you’re lying.”

“I have no intention of lying this time,” said Larry. “There’s no need.”

“Ah!” said Vivien. “Then you admit that sometimes you
do
lie?”

“Jesus, Puss!” he said, pained. “How many battles do you expect me to fight at once?”

“Go on about your enthralling little tête-à-tête with your new enthusiasm, Miss Greeta Garbo.”

“One: it was
not
enthralling. Two: it was
not
a tête-à-tête. Three: she is
not
my enthusiasm. And four: it is
not
Greeta. It’s
Greta
.”

“It’s
Greeta
,” said Vivien, “and I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

“Good,” said Larry. “I’m glad
that’s
over.”

He lit a cigarette.

“I meant,” said Vivien, “about the pronunciation of her name. Who cares? I
do
want to know about the subject or subjects of your
enthralling
little tête-à-tête.”

“Here it is!” cried Larry, with the air of a man broken down by the third degree and about to confess all. “We began to walk and she said, ‘This is a nice garden.’ ”

“ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It is a nice garden.’ ”

His imitation of her voice and accent was uncanny. Since I was keeping my eyes on the road, it was easy for me to get the impression that the account which followed was a replay of the conversation. It was almost as though Miss Garbo had joined us on the front seat. Now and then I had to turn my head to the right to convince myself that both parts of the conversation were coming from a single being.

“ ‘We have gardens in Sweden.’

“ ‘Yes, you must have.’

“ ‘Do you have nice gardens in England?’

“ ‘Yes, we have
many
nice gardens in England.’

“ ‘In some of our Swedish gardens, we grow fruit. Apples.’

“ ‘We have apples in England, too.’

“ ‘And strawberries?’

“ ‘Yes. Very good strawberries.’

“ ‘Do you have oranges?’

“ ‘No. No oranges. But we have peaches.’

“ ‘We have peaches in Sweden.’

“ ‘Oh, I’m
so
glad! And do you have nectarines?’

“ ‘No. No nectarines…Cabbages.’

“ ‘Yes. We have cabbages, too, but not in our gardens, unless, of course, you’d call a kitchen garden a garden.’

“ ‘Yes. I think I would.’

“ ‘Gooseberries?’

“ ‘What are gooseberries?’

“ ‘Gooseberries. You know. To make a gooseberry jam with. Or a pie. Or a gooseberry fool.’

“ ‘What
is
a gooseberry fool?’

“ ‘Well, it’s the same as a
raspberry
fool or a
damson
fool, except that it’s made with gooseberries.’

“ ‘Do you have artichoke?’

“ ‘We have them but I don’t think we grow them. We import them. However, we do have asparagus.’

“ ‘We have asparagus, too. But no Cranshaw melon.’

“ ‘Nor do we.’

“ ‘Cranshaw melon is good.’

“ ‘Watermelon is good.’

“ ‘And cantaloupe?’

“ ‘I don’t like cantaloupe.’

“ ‘I like this garden. It’s a nice garden.’

“ ‘Yes, it is. A very nice garden.’

“And that was it until
you
said, ‘Ah, there you are. Let’s go home.’ ”

Nothing more was said until I swung off into the driveway of their house on Camden Drive.

We all sat quietly until Vivien said, “I don’t believe one bloody word of all that.”

“No,” said Larry. “I didn’t think you would.”

It was not my place to say anything, but I
did
believe it. Every bloody word.

What it indicated to me was that inventing conversation, making charming small talk, and forming opinions was not generally her mode of expression. Greta Garbo’s art was akin to music, in which the expression vented goes beyond words.

Once, quite by accident, I learned an astonishing thing about Garbo.

My wife, Ruth Gordon, had acted with her in that fateful, final picture,
Two-Faced
Woman
. They met one morning on Fifth Avenue—Garbo was out walking with Cecil Beaton—and stopped to chat. The meeting culminated in a date for dinner at our house a few nights later. There were to be no other guests.

There was, however, a long series of phone calls during which the menu was discussed (Garbo is a food nut); what to wear (Garbo seldom goes out); what time (Garbo prefers 6:00 P.M.). And so on. The evening arrived and was passed beautifully. She seemed relaxed and content and the conversation ranged over a large number of subjects.

We had recently returned from Paris and, for a time, the talk was of the current Paris theatrical season. I described the remarkable scene in a play called
Sud
, written by Julien Green: A very young girl, played by Annie Fargue, is describing to her girl friend the adventure of receiving her first love letter, and says, in effect, “I read it and then read it again and read it again and again until I knew it by heart, then I went upstairs to
my room and I took off all my clothes and I rubbed the letter all over myself—
all over
— and then—I
ate
it!”

I described the effect that this recital had had on the French audience. A gasp, a laugh, applause.

A moment passed, then Greta Garbo said, “Isn’t it strange? I’m no longer young. I’ve had a long life. And in all my life I have
never
received a love letter.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “But that’s not possible.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I assure you that it is.” A rueful smile came over her face as she added, “I supposed mine were not the sort who wrote love letters. It’s very sad. I think it must be so
comforting
to have a love letter.”

Garbo was one of the figures who brought to the screen an idealization of womanhood so overpowering that it captured the imagination of the moviegoing public the world over. At Metro, it was common knowledge that Garbo pictures were never significantly successful at the box office in the United States, but they did so well in Europe that they were worth making. Very few Garbo pictures lost money.

The story of
Camille
has always strained credibility, but when Garbo played it, it became believable.

After
Flesh and the Devil
, she made
Love
,
The Divine Woman
, and
The Kiss
. This was to be her last silent film. Sound came. The talkies. A revolution. Careers collapsed.

At Metro, someone came up with an inspired idea. Eugene O’Neill’s
Anna Christie
for Garbo. “Garbo Talks!” read the streamer on the billboards and ads.

The effect of her first line, spoken in that husky, sensuous and thrilling voice—“Gif me a whisky!”—was immense. She became, with that film, a greater star than she had ever been in the silent.

The odd thing was that she had never had any stage experience. It did not seem to matter. Rules do not apply to Garbo.

Unlike many of her contemporaries, she did not become preoccupied with the mechanics of the new blimp-covered cameras, with the microphones hanging overhead and hidden in the furniture. Her concern, as it always had been, was with the character, the scene, the feeling, and the interrelationships with the other players.

There were times in the major studio days when even the most important players were handled carelessly. But Garbo inspired everyone, even the most crass businessman in the front office, to do his best for her.

In
Anna Christie
, she was given a remarkable supporting company. Charles Bickford as Matt Burke, George F. Marion (who had scored decisively in the stage production) as Chris Christopherson. And in the comparatively small, first act only, role of Marty, the incomparable Marie Dressler.

Garbo’s career now moved from strength to strength.
Romance
,
Susan Lenox
,
Mata
Hari
, Pirandello’s
As You Desire Me
,
Grand Hotel
,
Queen Christina
,
The Painted Veil
,
Anna Karenina
,
Camille
,
Conquest
,
Ninotchka
. Then, in 1941, came a mechanical, incomprehensible film finally titled
Two-Faced Woman
.

There were many difficulties on this production. Shooting was stopped several times. Garbo thought, long before it was finished, that the film would be a disaster.

When her fears were realized, she took it badly and decided not to work for a time, perhaps to renew herself. The sabbatical lengthened and lengthened, projects came up
but failed to materialize for one reason or another. After a long and difficult career, she had lost the drive and energy necessary to sustain it and we have not seen her in a new film on the screen since. A tragedy.

In 1941, when Garbo ended her career, she was thirty-six years old. In a well-ordered professional life, her greatest triumphs would have lain before her.