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One night we had a particularly unresponsive benefit audience. Rex murmured quietly, “Bunch of
twats
.”

I’d never heard the word “twat” before, and assumed it meant “twit” or “fool.” I echoed him gaily, “Yes. Twats, twats, twats! You’re absolutely right.”

The two men looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

Later I asked Tony about it and he tactfully said, “No, no, darling, that’s not the same word at all…,” and he explained.

Not long into the run, I became aware that Rex had a rather windy stomach. I expected that much of his balletic “dancing” stemmed from attempts to clench through gaseous moments.

One night his timing was impeccable.

In the penultimate scene of the show, Eliza runs away to Higgins’s mother’s house. Higgins barges in and confronts Eliza, and she launches into a long speech about the difference between a lady and a guttersnipe;
i.e., it is not how she
behaves
but how she is
treated
. All Rex had to do at this point was pace up and down at the back of the scene. He didn’t have to say a word.

On this particular evening, as I finished my speech, Rex released a veritable machine-gun volley of pent-up wind. Members of the orchestra heard it—every musician looked up to the stage in bewilderment; even the first few rows of the audience heard it. There was a shocked silence, and at that precise moment Cathleen Nesbitt, as Mrs. Higgins, had the line “Henry, dear,
please
don’t grind your teeth.”

It was outrageously funny. The orchestra roared with laughter. I could not look at Rex, and every single line I uttered in the scene after that had a double meaning.

 

HIGGINS
: Eliza, you ungrateful wretch, you talk about me as if I were a motor bus.

ELIZA
: So you
are
a motor bus; all
bounce
and
go
and
no
consideration for anyone!

 

By now Rex had a devilish look on his face. Cathleen was trying to disguise her mirth, and as usual, I was a basket case of giggles.

Eliza’s song “Without You” follows this dialogue, and I could see the lyrics coming at me before I sang them: “
No
, my
reverberating
friend, you are
not
the beginning and the end!”

I took so many pauses in that scene trying to contain myself that the show ran over by about ten minutes.

I found myself punching Rex during the curtain calls.

“How could you
do
such a thing?”

He pulled at his tie and straightened it. “I’m sorry,
I’m sorry
! I was always a windy boy—even when I was young.”

Another night Rex lost one of his capped teeth. I was suddenly faced with this gap-toothed actor, trying to work the object into the side of his mouth for later retrieval.

It’s very hard to keep a straight face when things like that are going on.

There is a moment in the show when Eliza hurls Higgins’s slippers at him. I have never been able to hurl
anything
. I don’t have the appropri
ate flick of the wrist or the elbow or whatever it takes. If I try to throw a tennis ball, I somehow manage to end up on my backside. So the slippers would hit Rex on the head, or smack him on his bum, or worse, they’d disappear completely into the horn of the megaphone that was part of the scenery—all of which Rex used to full advantage. He would turn and look at me with total outrage—especially if I hit him on the head—and the giggles would rise in my throat all over again.

I learned to sing and perform through every kind of difficulty: rain, shine, air-conditioning breakdown, leading man having problems, my having a sore throat, giggles, headaches, disasters backstage.

Alan Lerner once said that a long run in one very good role is probably better training for an actor than performing repertory week after week. One can really hone one’s craft and find out what works, what doesn’t, and why.

I
N OCTOBER OF
that first year of
My Fair Lady,
I celebrated my twenty-first birthday. Charlie Tucker flew over for it, as did my mother and also my girlfriend Susan Barker.

Charlie hosted an after-theater birthday supper upstairs at the famous 21 Club. Lou Wilson was there, and Rex and Kay, “Cooter,” and Cathleen. Stanley and his wife were invited, of course, as it was his birthday, too.

There was a large U-shaped table so that we all sat facing each other. I was next to my mother. It was her second visit to the States, and for some reason, she was in a foul mood. I do not know what caused it. She certainly drank a lot that night, and single-handedly, she made my twenty-first birthday an absolute misery. All through supper she scowled and barely spoke. It was embarrassing and sad to see her so disturbed.

Trying to engage her in conversation, I whispered, “Doesn’t Cathleen look beautiful tonight?”

“Yes,” she replied in an icy tone, “and she’s
such
a lady, with
such
good manners,” implying that I had none.

When we finally returned to the Hotel Park Chambers, Tony felt moved to say something. As he said good night, he added, “Please, Barbara, try not to hurt Julie any more.”

It was the first time I had ever heard him speak to her that way. It was a brave thing to do because he was not in her good books—nobody was.

As she and Charlie were preparing to depart for Britain, he said, “Julie, your contract with me has expired. I’d like to renew it.”

I was miserable that my mother was leaving with so much unresolved. I knew she was probably miserable, too. I replied, absently, “That’s fine.”

“No need to look at it. It’s the same as it’s always been,” he said. “Just sign.”

Later, when I went over the document with Lou Wilson, I discovered that Charlie had raised his already large commission by a considerable amount. Lou was appalled, and I felt betrayed. I had signed the paper, so the damage was done, but unfortunately that incident changed forever the tenor of Charlie’s and my relationship.

After they departed, Tony and I settled into a quieter way of life. Technically, he wasn’t allowed to work since he had to wait to take the United Scenic Artists of America exam in order to join the union, and that exam was offered just once a year. He began looking for a job anyway.

His passion was the theater, and Oliver Smith, our brilliant set designer, was exceedingly kind to him. Impressed by Tony’s portfolio, he invited him to his house in Brooklyn Heights and counseled him regarding the theater, the union, and how to proceed.

The same was true of our lighting designer, Abe Feder. He was a short, stocky fellow, built like a tank. He nearly always walked around with a good Cuban cigar clenched between his teeth. He, too, was a legend on Broadway, a larger-than-life personality, wonderfully charismatic, chockfull of ideas and good humor. In addition to his theatrical experience, Abe was a renowned architectural lighting designer and had illuminated vast projects like the World’s Fair, Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, and the United Nations, among others.

Abe provided Tony with introductions to several major magazines, including
Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar,
and
Playbill.
Tony’s very first assignment in the U.S. was to design caricatures for
Long Day’s Journey into Night
starring Fredric March and Florence Eldridge.

TONY AND I
attended some wonderful parties.

Moss and Kitty Hart were the best hosts in New York. Their evenings were charming and sophisticated, their guests extraordinary, the dialogue sparkling. There were trays heaped with food and the champagne flowed. At the height of the festivities, someone played the piano and Moss and
Kitty would entertain us, singing witty duets. They were marvelous together, and seemed really to enjoy the fun.

Stephen Sondheim was a young, up-and-coming talent. His lyrics for
Candide
and
West Side Story
had earned him instant recognition. I met him for the first time at a luncheon party. Despite his celebrity, he was sitting alone at one side of the room—terribly shy, but innately intelligent and charismatic. We struck up a conversation and my heart instantly went out to him.

Just around the block from the Mark Hellinger was the Alvin Theater, and a play called
No Time for Sergeants
was playing there. A group of us were coming out of our theater one day, and we stopped to chat with members of the play’s cast. Someone said to me, “Do you know Roddy McDowall?,” indicating one of the actors.

My knees practically buckled. Here was my fantasy hero from
My Friend Flicka
! I had never imagined that one day I might meet him.

“You don’t know it,” I said to him, “but we’re
sort
of married.”

He looked at me, puzzled, and I explained my girlhood fantasies about him, the ranches, and the horses. He loved my story. I told him that if I could find one of the original deeds that I had made, I would send it to him. I
did
find one—and he kept it in a beautiful lacquered box on his desk.

Roddy was a devoted friend to a great many people, and he was loyal to a fault. I always hoped he would write a book about his life and the people he knew. When asked why he didn’t, Roddy replied, “I have too many friends. I know too much. I couldn’t.”

Tony and I began to entertain a little. We had moved out of the Park Chambers, and Lou had found for us a tiny ground-floor apartment on East 65th Street. We thought it must once have belonged to a high-class call girl, because we kept getting phone calls at all hours of the night asking for this particular woman. The flat certainly had all the trappings: purple and gold curtains, speckled mirrors, comfortable but over-decorated furnishings.

We sometimes made weekend trips to a lovely little inn by a lake on the west side of the Hudson River. It got us out of the city, and I was grateful for the rest and relaxation. We’d walk in the woods or take a boat on the lake.

EVERY YEAR, EACH
show on Broadway gives one extra performance for the Actors’ Fund of America. This benefit is usually done on the actors’ day off. When it is your company’s turn, you perform seventeen performances in two weeks without a break. Every actor, every gypsy on Broadway comes to see the show, especially if it is a hit, since it is the one night that working colleagues can catch up with what is currently playing. These are simply electric evenings, the kind one never forgets.

Our Actors’ Benefit was a knockout success. We could not progress smoothly through the show because of the constant ovations. Our entrances were greeted with roars and applause, screams, whistles, shouts. Practically every number stopped the show. It was phenomenal.

I discovered that on important nights such as these, my nerves would take over and my heart would beat as if it were about to jump out of my chest. I would also feel somewhat light-headed.

Many years later, I discovered that I suffered from very low blood sugar—thus, when under stress, the only thing supporting me was adrenaline. I was eventually able to compensate for this by having high-protein meals and occasionally sipping liquid protein during the show. It made all the difference to my stability and energy, and I wish I had known more about it in those early days.

Tony and I went to see the Actors’ Fund Benefit of
West Side Story
, which was our closest and biggest rival. It was a miracle of a show, from the first downbeat of the overture to the last note of the evening. As
My Fair Lady
was to song and book,
West Side Story
was to song and
dance
. The two shows were equal titans. I became friends with Chita Rivera, who played Anita, and her boyfriend, Tony Mordente (who later became her husband), as well as with Carol Lawrence, who played Maria.

REX’S CONTRACT WAS
up at the end of November, and Edward Mulhare (who had subbed when Rex took vacation time earlier in the year) was brought in to take over the role of Higgins. Mulhare was almost the spitting image of Leslie Howard, who had played the role in the film version of
Pygmalion.

In spite of the difficulties I’d had with Rex, he was so charismatic, such a brilliantly faceted diamond, and so fascinating to watch, that when he left the company, I missed him very much.

He lived his life in the grand manner; he oozed style. I missed his power, his presence, and of course, he always kept me on my toes. I can’t remember who said this, but someone made a cogent remark: “No matter how big a shit Rex was, the truth is he cut the mustard—and for that, one forgave him everything.”

Suddenly, though, there was a new dynamic. Once Rex departed, the weight of the show seemed to fall on me.

Mulhare certainly looked the part, and he did a good job playing Henry Higgins, but I don’t think I ever really got to know him. Rex had been so flamboyant; Mulhare was more guarded and private.

TONY PASSED HIS
union exam and got a job designing the sets and costumes for Noël Coward’s
Conversation Piece.
He came home with hilarious tales about Noël and the auditions.

Two Noël Coward productions were being prepared simultaneously, and auditions for both were held in the same theater at the same time. The great master would sit in the center of the auditorium, one production company on the left of him, the other on the right. The manager for the auditions would come onstage and say, “This gentleman is auditioning for…”

One day a man rushed onto the stage and said, “I understand that there’s a gigolo in your play, Mr. Coward,” and before anyone could reply, he continued, “so I thought I’d show you my physique.” He stripped naked, except for his bright red socks, and just stood there. Both production teams were stunned. There were a few stifled giggles but otherwise total silence, and the stage manager hesitated, wondering what to do. Everyone glanced at Coward for his reaction.

Suddenly his immaculate English voice called from the auditorium, “Er…turn a little to the
left
please!”

I LEARNED SO
much about the theater from Tony. I would complain about the enormous hats Beaton had designed, and the forced perspec
tive of the sets that made it difficult to pass through doorways and narrow spaces. Tony would gently point out that there is only so much room on a stage, and that false perspective is utterly essential, indeed part of almost every theatrical design. Stages are often raked, couches and beds are foreshortened, doorways and rooftops have proportions much smaller than audiences might imagine watching from the auditorium. As I observed Tony at work through the years, I learned to respect very much the designer’s craft.

I said to him one day, “I wish my nose wasn’t so big. I’d like a small, retroussé nose like, say, Vivien Leigh.”

“Nonsense,” he replied. “You have a lovely nose. It doesn’t disappear into the scenery. Gertrude Lawrence had a large nose—and look what it did for her!”

I never complained about it again.

As I have mentioned, Tony often watched our show, and he helped me resolve something that had been puzzling me. There were times when I felt that I had given a pretty good performance, yet Tony would indicate that it was merely average.

There were nights when I didn’t think I was good at all, but Tony felt I had done a terrific show. What made it more difficult to understand were the special nights when I “threaded the needle,” so to speak: I
felt
good, I
was
good, and the audience hung on every word.

When I spoke to Tony about this, he said, “I think in the first instance you are sometimes too busy watching yourself and saying ‘Aren’t I doing this well?’ Your focus is turned inward. In the second instance, when you don’t feel up to par, you are concentrating so much on getting through to your audience that you lose the awareness of self and your focus is on sending it out to them instead. That’s the night when you think you’re bad, but in fact you’re very good. The third case is when you have found the exact level of health, generosity, and technique.”

Is it ever perfect? Hardly. But that rare magical performance, when one “threads the needle,” is nourishment for the soul. It is the reason, ultimately, why one strives over and over to capture the feeling again.