Hollywood (27 page)

“Not just yet.”

“One more here!” Then to me. “Korda was furious, of course, but I told him I had to chuck it for a bit. ‘You’re a great star now,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to build on that.’ I said, ‘I’m not
interested
in being a great star. I want to be an
actor
. I haven’t learned anything about my craft for too long.’ He asked me what I was going to do and when I told him, he bloody almost died. I told him I’d called up Lilian Baylis at the Old Vic and said to her that I would like to come and do a season there. Twenty pounds a week, you know, is what they paid then. A hundred dollars. I said to Lilian Baylis, that extraordinary woman, ‘I’ll come if I can choose the plays.’ She gave in at once because the Old Vic was on its uppers and she knew that with a film star, she would have at least one profitable season. I decided after a long time to do
Henry the Eighth
. Shakespeare’s, of course. And
The Tempest
and
The Importance of Being Earnest
and
Macbeth
. I threw in
Uncle
Vanya
, too, for good measure. We opened with
Henry the Eighth
and it went off well enough, I suppose, but it was a disappointment. I was foolish to do it. They compared it with the film, don’t you see? And we followed it with
Macbeth
. I’d been told that that was the Jonah part of all time, that it was ill-fated, that hardly anybody ever succeeded in it. There’s a curse on that damned play and on that part. But my ego had been so overblown by that time that I thought I could do anything. I could, too, without the audience. That’s been the bane of my existence. That damned thousand-headed monster sitting out there waiting to devour one. Rehearsals of
Macbeth
were electrifying. Even the dress rehearsal. You remember at the Old Vic, they only give you
one
. But it wasn’t what they said. It was the looks on their faces. I knew I had that damned part down. The whole production was stupendous. Then came that opening night. We never made the slightest connection. At the end, I came off and there’s this great long stone passage that leads out to the dressing rooms. I was numb. But even
so, hoping for some little word of encouragement, and there stood Lilian, and she looked at me and said, ‘Well, Charles, you were a nice little Macbeth.’”

He laughed and added, “I think that was the most damning thing ever said to me. The rest of the season was all right. We even gave a few good performances of
Macbeth
. That was a fine year for me, playing every night, rehearsing, throwing up. I felt I was getting control of my instrument, don’t you see? Oh, I did other things. At the Old Vic.
The Tempest
and
Measure for Measure
. I suppose if one does enough films, one can learn about film acting but I don’t think it’s possible to learn about acting. Acting is communication, don’t you see? Communication of emotion. And you’ve got to have a human element to communicate
with
, damn it all. Shall we have another drink?”

“I don’t think so, Charles. I think it’s probably time for some food.”

“No, no. No food. I’ll have an apple later on. You know, you’re not such a bad sport.”

“Thank you, Charles.”

I took him home. He talked all the way, loosely, happily.

The next morning, I walked up to him on the set, said, “Good morning, old fellow,” cheerfully, and put my hand on his shoulder. He recoiled as though he had been touched by an electric prod. I moved away feeling precisely like Charlie Chaplin in
City
Lights
. Befriended by the drunk every night, thrown out into the street every morning.

The Old Vic had the most loyal, enthusiastic, and loving audience in the history of the British theatre, especially the gallery gods. There was a custom at the end of the season to send gifts backstage to the favorites in the company. At the final call, these were presented on stage. All sorts of things. Little baskets of strawberries or knitted neckties, drawings and sketches, socks, jewelry, family heirlooms.

It became a matter of pride to see how many presents each one would get. Fourteen for this one. Thirty-five for that one. Seventy-five for the old character woman who had been there for years and years.

As the closing night of Laughton’s season approached, his wife, Elsa Lanchester, began to fret. She worried about the embarrassment of the final call. She knew that everyone was bound to get more presents than Charles. Charles had not endeared himself to the audience. He never stopped to chat at the stage door. He never gave an autograph or a photograph. He never smiled at the curtain call. He never looked up into the gallery.

Elsa went out and bought seventeen little presents. Pots of jam, neckties, a hat, a funny little doll, a book, a map of old London, and so on. She prepared little messages for each one. “Oh, Charles, we love you.” “Algie sends affection.” “You are my favorite, Charles”—and so on.

The closing night came. Twenty-one for Roger Livesey, twenty-three for Ursula Jeans, fifteen for So-And-So, twenty-nine for So-And-So, and for Charles Laughton, seventeen.

Laughton resented Carole Lombard. Perhaps it was because she worked so easily. She stayed relaxed, and had not only facility but joy in her work. For him, acting was torture.

He had difficulty learning lines. He was unable to absorb a change unless given ample time. The slightest adjustment in the text would throw him completely, and even
the original text was something he seemed never to master. Carole, on the other hand, would look over the text once or twice; sometimes would have an assistant director read it aloud to her while she brushed her hair, and by the time she came before the camera, knew it perfectly.

Throughout the film, I do not recall that a single take was ever spoiled on her account. She did not make mistakes. Whatever she was asked to do, she was able to do.

Conversely, giving a direction to Charles was like offering him a cup of hemlock. He could not bear to accept it. He would agonize. He would frustrate himself and me. He would attempt to argue his way out of doing what I wanted him to do. He would analyze and rationalize and intellectualize until the air about us was thick with ideas.

He could not believe that Carole was good. How could she be? She did not seem to suffer. He began to patronize her. The crew resented him for that, as did I.

Under the circumstances, it is remarkable that the work went as smoothly as it did. There were several unfortunate explosions, each one caused by my inability to be unendingly patient.

Laughton would pretend to misunderstand any direction he did not like. When it had been repeated several times, he would say, “I don’t understand what you mean.”

I would explain it again.

“But what do you want me to do?” he would ask. “Just tell me what you want me to do. Show me.”

I would tell him, show him. He would do it. Of course it was absolutely worthless. An actor must not do what he is told literally. He is meant to take a direction as not more than a stimulus. He is meant to make the idea his own, to put it through the crucible of his individual imagination and talent. But Laughton would always make a fool of the director momentarily, by trapping him with nonsense questions. “Well, what do you want me to do?” Or, “Tell me. Show me.”

I have known a good many amateur actors who thought of themselves as professionals. Charles Laughton is the only professional I ever encountered who thought of himself as an amateur. He had a little set speech in which he proclaimed himself an amateur, said he was proud of it and never wanted to be anything else. There followed a discourse on the etymology of the word “amateur”: one who loves; who does something for the love of it.

“A professional,” he said, “is a whore.”

Various players have various styles. The great permanent acting companies, such as the Comédie Française, the Moscow Art Theatre, the National Theatre of Great Britain, develop, in time, a uniform style. The difficulty of American acting companies, particularly in films, is that the director is faced on the first day with a motley group of players, each one of whom brings an individual approach, training, and style.

There are players who have to be cosseted. Others who must be bullied. There are some who thrive on praise. Others require the abrasiveness of criticism to bring out what is best in them.

With some stars, it is necessary to use what is sometimes called the Charvet Method. This derives from the practice of the great Parisian haberdashery of sending merchandise to its customers on approval. Charvet will send over, say, a dozen neckties. You may choose one or two or none and return the rest. Thus, with some
stars, the director submits on approval six or seven suggestions. The star then accepts one or two and returns the rest.

Other stars require the complex Boomerang Method. This calls for considerable skill since it involves discussion, hinting, obfuscating, until the star comes up with the idea that the director thought of in the first place. Whereupon the director says (or shouts), “Great! That’s terrific. Let’s do it that way.
Your
way.”

Then there are the privy players. Charles Laughton was the King of this category.

The privy player is one who goes home at night, closets himself, and figures out precisely how he is going to play what is planned for the following day. Having done so, he then does it, regardless of what the director says or what any of the other players do.

An important scene in
They Knew What They Wanted
had to do with the arrival of Amy, the mail-order bride. Tony, fearful that she might not come if he sent her his own photograph, sends instead a photograph of his handsome foreman. Amy arrives. A great feast has been prepared. She confronts Tony, who must now reveal the deception.

In the center of the large ranch room, a table had been set. Following the suggestion of the property man, who coincidentally came from the Napa Valley, the table held a large wooden bowl with a mound of freshly churned butter.

We rehearsed the scene and it was going beautifully until all at once Laughton, acting the nervous Tony, sat—right into the butter.

A difficult moment. Not only was the bowl of butter ruined, but wardrobe had to supply another pair of trousers. By the time all this had been rearranged, we were running late and I decided to attempt a take.

“All right to try one?” I asked.

Laughton nodded, briefly.

“Shit, yes,” said Carole.

A bell rang.

“Settle down,” from the assistant.

“Roll ’em.”

“Speed,” from the operator.

“Anytime,” from me.

The scene began. It was even better than the rehearsal and was charged with the energy of drama. Then Laughton sat down into the butter again.

“Cut!”

A problem, since wardrobe was running out of trousers.

I approached the star. “Charles,” I said, “you seem to be sitting down into the butter all the time.”

“Yes,” he said. “Why don’t you move it?”

“I would,” I said, “but I have a feeling you’d sit it in anyway.”

“Why would I do that?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe you like to sit in butter.”

He ignored the thrust.

“Don't you realize
yet
, my dear boy,” he said, “that I have prepared this scene and that
that
is where I sit?”

I moved the butter.

We made the scene. Laughton sat where the butter had been.

I told the butter story to a good many people, including our friend Tony Sanford. He was not at all surprised and told me of the time Laughton came to New York to do a radio broadcast for him. Tony was then the leading figure in radio drama and had prepared a program in which Laughton was to read a long poem called “The Hudson” by Carl Carmer.

“I went over to the Gotham,” said Tony, “where Charles was staying. He’d been studying the poem. I don’t think anyone in the world ever read verse better than Charles and up there in his suite, he sprawled in a big armchair, threw his leg over the arm, and read that damned thing so movingly that I was choked up. I timed it and said, ‘That’s all, Charles. Let’s not spoil it by drilling it. It’s going to be marvelous.’ But the next day, at the studio, at the rehearsal, it was anything
but
marvelous. He seemed tight and tense and mechanical. And
he
must have known it, too, because he kept stopping and starting again. I could see him working himself up into an immobilizing rigidity and so I did what I could to calm him down. No luck. He got more and more tied into knots. I said to him, ‘But Charles, you did it so beautifully yesterday. Just sitting there sprawled in that chair at the Gotham.’

“‘Yes,’ he said, ‘could we do it from there, do you suppose? I’d feel much better there.’

“Of course this was impossible and I told him so and then someone—I can’t remember who, probably Elsa, although I’d like to think it was me—said, ‘Let’s get that chair from the Gotham.’ This wasn’t as simple as it sounds because we had to explain the whole thing to the management of the hotel and send an NBC truck over there and the guys had to load the chair on and bring it to the studio, and there were union problems. But they did it, finally, and we got the chair from the Gotham into Studio 8H and lowered the mike and got Charles into the chair and he sprawled and threw his leg over the arm and gave the most beautiful reading of that poem, of
any
poem, that I have ever heard.”

Norman Corwin recalls: “I was doing a program in the series called
26 by Corwin
, over CBS, and Charles appeared in a trilogy based on three American writers— Sandburg, Whitman and Wolfe. This was the Whitman show. I went out to Santa Monica to rehearse Charles’s performance, and I found him busy copying the entire script in longhand. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked him. He told me. ‘Why do you want to do that?’ I pressed him. ‘It seems like such a lot of work, and your longhand is of inferior legibility, compared to the crispness of L.C. Smith.’ Charles then went into a quasi-occult explanation of his theory that, by
copying
a text as special as Whitman’s language, the very transmission of the words from his eyes to his arm to his hand to his fingers and thence to the paper, would so deeply instill the material, that it would become a part of his
subconscious
, and hence would enable him to master the material. He had already done so much work, and was so earnest about his theory, that I did not try to disabuse him of it. I waited until he had finished transcribing thirty-six pages of script, and then we got to work.”