by Cecil Beaton
We started preparations to go out to dinner with the Mendls, who will help with her citizenship papers. Greta put on a blue dress — an event — and a silk scarf of mushroom colour. It was dark when we started off on foot: a nice walk, and we arrived in high spirits for our first Hollywood party together. It was fascinating to watch her mesmeric appeal at work. She is like a magnet in attracting crowds, little children and all sorts, to herself. The vast cinema screen picks up this quality so that the enlarged picture is not just an expanse of emptiness (as is the case with most other actresses in close-up), but has something that draws all the audience to her. It is something she can summon at will, but can never entirely discard, so that when least she wants it she will be surrounded by admirers. It is something that cannot fade — that will always be with her. Tonight this magnetism was turned on at full strength: Greta much lauded as La Divina — a lot of pleasantries, flirtations, jokes and badinage. Greta assumed the role of great seductress, then said: ‘No, Sir Charles, I have no glands.’ Charles was horrified: a doctor present took her remarks seriously and gave her a talking-to. ‘You see yourself as a frigid woman — you’re not.’ They went into a long, serious huddle, but Greta laughed about it to me later. The food consisted of a thirty-two-year-old lobster and a chicken in its heyday — cooked by the French chef. Elsie Mendl cried: ‘We may live in California, but we eat every night in France!’ In spite of all the paeans of praise lavished on her, Greta never for a moment lost her realistic approach, or her sense of humour which is one always based on reality. With lowered eyelids she laughs and all the men and women become sycophants, but the Scandinavian peasant in her never loses touch.
The evening came to an end without anything helpful being said about the citizenship papers. We walked home and Greta said: ‘Oh, why did we waste our time like this? How senseless — where does it get you? It’s no credit that some people are born without certain social exuberance or curiosity, but somehow it just has never impressed me to meet the King and Queen of England or of Sweden: I’m interested in less material things — but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand people who aren’t. I’m sure Elsie Mendl has a full life, and as soon as she wakes in the morning says: “Well, now let’s make some contacts!”’
Tuesday
When I arrived this morning I found Greta’s ‘buggy’ had disappeared; I guessed she had gone out shopping for more fertilizer. Gertrude admitted me to the holy precincts, and in five minutes my surmise was proved right. Greta, in dirty blue shorts, with wild excitement had hurried off to buy six more sacks of manure. We carted the bags from the car and dragged them to a spot where I noticed the ivy was killing a nearby jasmine. I suggested that an orange tree should be planted in the hole left where another large ivy had recently been dug up. No, she did not accept the suggestion forthwith, and thought perhaps a fig tree would be more suitable. ‘Perhaps I love fig trees because they are so near to the Bible. But then they’re quite bare in winter.’ Later I found the orange tree idea had been accepted, and she spent the whole day cutting down all the neighbouring ivy.
By now my complete retreat from the world was over: I must continue to earn my living. First, I must go and visit my agent; Greta insisted on taking me in her ‘buggy’. Just as I was entering Lyon’s office building, I looked back to wave and saw that the engine of the car had stalled. Frantically she was pulling or stepping on every gadget, in a panic lest she should be discovered. Eventually, with much back-firing, a neck-breaking jerk of the head and terror in her eyes, she drove off.
When, after doing an uninspiring and uninspired job photographing with the local Condé Nast people, I returned to the white-walled garden, I found the occupant feeling very satisfied with her work: she had earned a rest and a ‘pipe’.[41] Once more she appeared to me quite different — less exotic, more vulnerable and human. I kept thing of her as a pathetic little waif, and she had something of the aquiline, birdlike, appealing quality of my dear Aunt Cada.
We did not know where to dine: all restaurants by this hour would be full. We took our chance on an English roadhouse. Hey presto! a table for two, and the most colossal portions of food you could ever imagine. Greta talked of a walk alone in Sweden: ‘The ground was shining with stones like diamonds. Suddenly I realized they were part of me: our bodies are all particles of a bigger unit. The sudden knowledge of it made me feel so happy, for I felt if we die we become part of the earth again: our ashes are thrown to the seas and they all come back — you can’t waste anything in nature. And I love nature, and it was good to realize that we’re all part of this entity of which nothing can be destroyed.’
After our dinner we looked in the illuminated windows of antique shops. They were filled with clever, fashionable trash: in her present earthy mood Greta had no feeling for any of it. She behaved like a rustic urchin, and whistled and sang ‘That New Look, Like That New Looka Chicken’ in imitation of the comedian Nancy Walker. I felt rather remote from her, but the mood was extremely appealing to watch and admire. We went back to her house where, in the hall, she sat listing the number of her empty rooms. I told her that, with her short coat, tight trousers, lanky hair, and pathetic urchin face, she looked like Oliver Twist. It was a picture that I shall never forget — her eyes filled with sympathy and sadness, down-cornered mouth, sensitive nose, and parchment skin. (This last page written while fighting sleep in the train — very hot and claustrophobic. A pity — because I would like to try and describe this mood and appearance of Greta, one of the most appealing I had known: she became like a tired fifteen-year-old, and more seriously beautiful than I had ever known her.)
Wednesday
Greta telephoned early to say she wanted me to make a date with someone else this evening: she must go to bed with a tray at six o’clock and rest. ‘I feel so depleted — I don’t know what’s the matter with me.’
Arrangements had been made for me to go on a long day’s photographing for Vogue at Pallos Verdes. The expedition was slow in starting, and I telephoned later to tell her I’d just received a telegram from Korda. ‘Is it bad news?’ I read the message that he was unable to make The Eagle owing to previous commitments with Eileen Herlie.[42] But would Garbo like to do The Cherry Orchard in September? Greta sighed. ‘We’ll talk this evening when you return.’
I got back late. It had been an exasperating day, trying to make photographic masterpieces out of ordinary fashion-models in more than ordinary beach-clothes. Greta answered the front door wearing a white towel on her head, pyjamas, and a dressing-gown. She felt and looked ‘ver varlost’. I noticed her stockings had fallen around her ankles. ‘Well, it seems the Almighty doesn’t want me to do a picture: every time I think I’m going to start again, something goes wrong.’ If bad luck had not intervened, she would have come to England at the beginning of the war to film St Joan. She had been all set to travel on a Portuguese boat at the time of the bombing of London; but, at the last moment, Gabriel Pascal’s plans with Shaw fell through. ‘That was the first serious disappointment in my career — a hefty blow — after that nothing has happened. I really thought this time we would be doing Elizabeth. Oye veh! But somehow I’m never surprised by the most unexpected things; often people may be amazed — I’m never. Although I may never have imagined such things, when they happen they don’t seem strange. If they’re bad things, then I’m sad — but never surprised or disappointed. I’m sure I’m a reincarnation.’
‘But what do you think of the Chekov?’ I asked.
‘It’s not exciting — it’s not for me.’
‘Must I write that in a telegram?’
‘No, let’s wait. Don’t let’s discuss it any more.’
She then informed me that Harry Crocker had prevailed upon her to dine again this evening with the Mendls, in order to meet a Judge O’Connor who might help her with her naturalization papers. So, against her will, she was going — but in no mood to enjoy herself. She explained how she would be quite blunt and plain of speech throughout the eveni
ng. ‘It clears the air and people respect it, and it’s so much better than adding to the artificiality of a gathering.’ I left to dine with the Kanins — the only evening I was away from her during this whole full week with her.
Thursday
Greta was in a bad mood: she had been out too late. In spite of her desire to be home by 10.30, it had been after midnight before she was able to escape the judge, Sir Charles, Mary Pickford, and all the others who had made her evening exhausting. Today she was exasperated and her tonsils were hurting her: she was trying to ward off a cold. She hurried about the house and garden in a businesslike way. Her hair, hanging in straight folds, was parted at the nape of her neck. Her neck appeared long and thin, her eyes were lowered, her eyebrows twitched high; her hands looked thin, and her legs long and wiry, as she bent down to get things out of a cupboard or reached for something off a rack in the immaculate kitchen. I watched but spoke little: I knew I must use great tact and restraint not to annoy her. I did not offer to help in the preparation of the lunch (again Gertrude’s day out) as I knew she did not approve of that. As she hurried into the garden with the trays and plates and swept up leaves with a broom, it struck me again how unlike every other film star she is. Her tastes have remained essentially and irrevocably simple, and this domesticity is really what she cares for. What a true picture of Joan of Arc she would have given, and what a loss it was that that film was never made.
After our lunch, when lying under the fur rug in the garden, we discussed The Cherry Orchard. Apart from my own selfish wish to have Greta come to England, and to work with her (for I would insist upon designing her costumes and settings), this is without a doubt my most loved play, and I would give almost anything to see Greta as Madame Ranevska — a part that in many aspects resembles her. (The indecision, the incapability to face facts now.) But Greta felt it would not be a public success and that people would put her in another category — as a less important star. In some ways she has the urge to do more interesting plays, to be experimental in production, and yet she harks back to the safety of old-time directors and her former cameraman. By degrees, like Madame Ranevska she arrived at no decision, changed the subject and talked about last night’s party.
‘I was sitting next to a young actress, and I suddenly saw myself reflected in a mirror and looking lined and wrinkled. I appeared so old, and I realized how quickly youth has gone — it has gone in a flash.’ She then talked of death, and of the terror that old people must feel when they knew of its approach. Even for someone as ebullient as Elsie Mendl, who now must be nearing the ninety mark and suffers a great deal of pain with a dislocated spine, it must be terrible to know that her bodily existence would soon be taken from her. That knowledge was one of Christ’s torments in the garden: He did not wish to die and, like everyone else human, had a terror of the nails and the tomb. It was, too, a frightful prospect for the old to have to face the unknown — to start life again on a new plane — when perhaps they would wish to revert to childhood. She wondered if life would not be easier if we started as old, wise people, and gradually lived to attain an innocent happiness.
Then, apropos of nothing, Greta, relaxing under the sun-umbrella and smoking her ‘pipe’, reminisced about her days at the Theatre School in Stockholm when she demoralized all the pupils by being inattentive and never learning anything, so that the others too did not bother to make an effort; how she had a friend who was rich, and told of her house in the country and of life in the big cities abroad, and the two often would sit up late at night smoking — and it was all thrilling, enchanting! Now she never more could feel that exuberance.
I persuaded Greta to go into Beverly Hills to buy The Cherry Orchard, so that we could read the play together. Yes — and more important still — she wanted to buy some more sacks of manure. This is really the one thing that thrills her, and she works frenetically, getting out of bed at screech of dawn to spread the stuff over the front lawn before the neighbours are awake to watch her.
On the way back from the bookshop, I insisted that she should go to the local Museum of Modern Art recently opened here. ‘Why?’ ‘Because you’re interested in contemporary painting, and it’s up to you to be a supporter.’ ‘Oh, shucks!’ Once there, she waxed enthusiastic — in fact, her earlier mood disappeared into one of gaiety and happiness. But unfortunately, as we left, two idiotic girls on the sidewalk stared at her like dunces. I could not help but be amused at Greta’s expression of pained sadness as she drove past them — her eyebrows so high, her mouth turned down super-sullen, the tilt of her nose and the contrast with the line of her forehead providing the most impertinent profile since Till Eulenspiegel.
We were to dine with dear old Winifred (Clemence) Dane, the English novelist and playwright, at the suggestion of Constance Collier who, with the saintlike Phillis at the wheel of her car, would lead the way to the faraway Palisades. I enjoyed the adventure of motoring through the darkness with Greta, who was somewhat alarmed at having to follow the leading car at such speed. ‘It’s only thirty-four miles an hour, but at night it seems so fast.’ At one point she recklessly waggled the wheel of the car, which created a very funny ‘dodgem’ effect, and a bit later a sexily-dressed police officer appeared alongside on a motor bike and bawled out: ‘You’re going pretty fast, young lady!’ Greta’s eyes popped, and she clutched her heart.
Winifred is a huge, ebullient, adorable human being, bursting with heart and talent, always good company, intelligent and kind, and habitually surrounded by delightful devotees. Tonight there were many writers and painters, enormous platters of Biblical-looking food and, of course, the evening was sympathetic and entertaining. No one tells a story better than Charlie Chaplin; tonight he described his fascination for Elinor Glyn, the scarlet-haired, white-faced, romantic novelist who wrote Three Weeks and looked like one of her own heroines. Reputedly Mrs Glyn brought good taste as well as sex to Hollywood. One day Chaplin saw her watching a scene from one of her pictures being played on the movie set. The lights in the early silent days were incandescent and made everyone appear as if dead. Elinor Glyn, powdered with thick paint, became bright green while her teeth, which were false, seemed mauve. Elinor Glyn was amused by the scene she was witnessing and laughed widely, the mauve enamel teeth fully exposed. Suddenly she spied Chaplin scrutinizing her, and at once she tried to assume her usual expression of enigmatic mystery, but the lips, stretched wide, would not readily close over the large, dry expanse of ratelier. At last, with an all-out determined twitch, she finally managed to cover the dentures and resume her role as sphinx.
Chaplin told another somewhat macabre tale of an eleven-year-old boy who, when taken out to lunch in a restaurant by his aunt, was obsessed watching opposite him a man eating alone who periodically went off into hysterical facial jerks and giggles. The boy was told not to stare as the poor man had some paralysis. Chaplin gave generously of his large repertoire of imitations, including a wry, but excruciatingly funny, ballet of Christian Scientists who, overcoming the fact that they were the lame and the halt, leapt into the air with terrible limps and in the most grotesque, but dreadfully comic, manner, performed their arabesques and fouettées. Greta also did imitations with an ease of manner that took me by surprise: I sometimes forget how professional an artist she is.
One particularly funny vignette she improvised was of how ridiculous Michael Duff and I had appeared when one day we took her out to luncheon in New York. I had put on some weight, and my suit was so tight for me that it revealed ‘la forma divina’: I wore a sombrero. Michael Duff, in equally old and tight clothes, wore a small green pea as a hat. Blissfully ignorant of the spectacle we created, we spluttered and stuttered about the British Empire as we waited for the street lights to turn green. Then, stiff as ninepins, we strode very quickly in formation, saluting acquaintances on our way down Fifty-Seventh Street. To me, Greta’s would-be English accents were not recognizable as such, but the pantomime was brilliant and received the applause it deserved.
When, in her hall, I tenderly bade her goodnight she said: ‘I haven’t been very nice to you today. If I’d felt well, I would have been much more loving.’ This warmed and comforted me, and made me love her more dearly. We waved in the lantern light, and by the time I had walked to Sunset Boulevard she had reached her bedroom window and was silhouetted against the light, and again we waved at each other. Later she told me all she could recognize was my shadow in the lights of passing cars. Each evening this pantomime takes place; it is a delightful ritual and sends me to bed feeling content.
Friday
Greta had, of course, been up early to distribute the sacks of fertilizer over the lawns: she was still hard at work. I had an elaborate schedule of business dates that would occupy me until after lunchtime, but I would then call for her to go with my agent, Carlton Allsop, who had arranged for me to see Greta’s old picture, Anna Karenina, in a private room at MGM Studios. It would be almost an uncanny experience to watch this great epic in the presence of ‘La Divina’. I had told Allsop that I would like to bring a friend to join us. ‘Fine — I’ll call for you.’ When Greta, with scarves flying, came rushing out and I introduced her, Allsop’s face went scarlet with astonishment. Greta at once became inevitably, irrevocably, so easily and honestly the seductress that Allsop was completely bewitched.
‘Well, well, it takes Beaton to get me to the studios for the first time in six years!’ As we approached Metro-Goldwyn, she became quite a bit flustered. It was an emotional experience for her. The studios, which one might almost say she had partly created, had been also for so long her prison: she had been unhappy there, but she owed them a lot too, and to return after such an interval made her feel self-conscious. She did not know the men at the gate any more: none of the faces were familiar: nobody moving along corridors and alleyways recognized her and, as usual, she was adept at concealing herself.
