The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey From Hollywood to Holy Vows

by Hart, Dolores

  Cyril was a hands-on director. He would virtually act out my part, with the precise line readings he wanted as well as every pause and reaction. One might expect an actress to be annoyed at being given every inflection and gesture to copy, but I was grateful.

  Privately, Ritchard remarked that Dolores had something he couldn’t teach her: “She had this quality of light. She shone from inside.”

  To create a real girl to inhabit, I began a diary as Jessica and filled a sizable volume. I got up enough courage to show the entries to Cyril, and he said he liked them! I think he liked more the fact that I bothered than what I wrote, but it looked as if he would put up with me after all.

  By the tenth day, it seemed as if I were spending all my time either rehearsing or sleeping. I couldn’t remember ever working as relentlessly in my life. I was always fearful that my lack of stage experience would be broadcast to the entire company if I slowed down even for a moment. I was really giving two performances, one as Jessica and one as Dolores Hart, actress.

  Jessica crept into Dolores almost nightly letters to me, too.

  The play has become so much a part of my life. I don’t think I’ve set foot outside the role since we started. It’s like I’m in a coma called Jessica Poole. Today was the first day I became myself again. All of a sudden I was terribly lonely, and that’s when I called you. It is pretty bad when you are lonely in your own company and can only remedy the situation by becoming someone else for a while. But maybe that’s why I like this business so much. Jessica can do all the things that I find so terribly difficult to do. Maybe I will learn something from her. She is so completely enraptured with everything in life. There is not a tiny thing that she lets go by unappreciated. She can live and laugh and love a great deal. Sometimes I wonder what I would do if I find this isn’t the business for me, or if I find that I am not any good. That I couldn’t stand. I think I would quit on the spot. I hate halfway houses. Oh, phooey, as Charlie would say, it’s getting on to the wee hours, and I am just writing down a lot of aimless thoughts. I am afraid my mood is quite similar to a few I had when I was with you on Flores Avenue—couldn’t make much sense then either.

  The “sense” Dolores yearned for concerned our personal relationship. Although what we felt for one another had not been diminished by our separation, it was coming in for more critical evaluation, and small craft warnings were posted.

  Shortly after arriving in New York, Dolores had searched for a church near the hotel where she could attend daily Mass. Saint Patrick’s, on Fifth Avenue, sufficed for a while until she found Saint Malachy’s Church on West Forty-Ninth Street. It was known as the Actors’ Chapel because it had a late-night Mass actors could attend after their final curtain. Announcements of auditions could be found near the entrance alongside the religious tracts and envelopes for donations.

  Because the Algonquin was within walking distance of the theater, Dolores continued to live there through the rehearsal period and the opening of the play. She had the hotel’s cheapest rate, $10.50 a night, which was still above what she could afford on her rehearsal salary, so she cut corners wherever she could to keep from dipping too often into her Hollywood reserve.

  —The hotel laundry charges were way too rich for me, so I smuggled mine out in paper bags and took it to the Chinese laundry down the street.

  I knew no one in Manhattan except Winnie and the actors in the play, who invited me out infrequently. Once in a while, I would have to attend some professional function, and on those occasions dear Ray Powers, my agent with Famous Artists in New York, would be my escort. But most nights, when everyone went home after rehearsal, I went back to the Algonquin and ate dinner alone in my room.

  New Haven was the first stop for the company’s out-of-town tryouts, and their first dress rehearsal at the Schubert Theater was also their first time in front of an audience. There were only four hundred invited guests, but that was enough to render Dolores a mass of nerves. That day she wrote me two letters, before and after the performance.

  [before] All day I’ve been waiting for the curtain to go up tonight. I feel like . . . every bone in my body, every corpuscle, every part of me has been put into a vat and bleached. And the sense of terror. Wanting to run so fast and so far. I think that I would if it wasn’t for the absolute duty to what I promised and the sense that this was a moment I have waited for since I can remember. Just before curtain, I went up to Cornelia backstage and told her how nervous I was and asked if there was a way to calm stage fright. She didn’t answer, just kind of stared at me. Then, suddenly, she snapped to and apologized, “I’m so sorry, dear, I didn’t hear a word you were saying. I’m too nervous.”

  [after] When I made my first entrance I found the sight of those people in the dark absolutely breathtaking. Throughout the whole performance it was amazing to realize that you don’t lose yourself completely in the part because you are constantly aware of the audience too. It was an education to know those lovely moments when you have those people in the palm of your hand as well as the panic whenever you’ve let them slip away. . . . It was great to discover I could be funny. I have this witty line about my fiancé who raises prize bulls—“He sends his semen all over the world.” I got a big laugh.

  Opening night in New Haven was spectacular in more ways than one. During a scene between Dolores and Cornelia Otis Skinner, an overloaded electrical switchboard blew out with a heavy report and a brilliant flash. The stage went black. In the audience there was not a sound, and no one moved. Elliot Norton, in the Boston Herald-American, reported it was because the two actresses went on with the scene, “missing not one syllable, much less a line.”

  —Not entirely true. When the lights went out, I immediately froze. And then I felt Cornelia’s hand on mine. She whispered, “Stay right where you are”, and began improvising lines about the San Francisco power failure and the beauty of mother and daughter sharing moments in the dark. She knew the characters inside and out, so she wasn’t in any danger of running out of ideas. The one thing she didn’t do was pose a question, out of fear that this novice might attempt an answer. When the lights were restored, she just picked up the scene as if nothing had happened.

  Out-of-town tryouts give companies the advantage of audience reaction and insight from local critics. It is the period when last-minute—and often major—changes in the production are made and, as a result, the most exhausting time the players face. During the New Haven and Boston tryouts, The Pleasure of His Company went from a three-act to a two-act play. This necessitated long daily rehearsals to take out and put in dialogue Samuel Taylor had written late the night before. The changes would be performed before the audience that night. Then more discussions occurred after the show, and additional changes were made. Her nightly letters continued:

  George and I would hear Cyril, Cornelia and Walter speak about their “crust” and the fear of losing it. We had no idea what they meant. Cyril later explained that they were on guard to falling prey to becoming too involved on an emotional level. If that happened, he said, “the souffle wouldn’t rise, and if the crust crumbles, there will be no edge to the performance.” That sophisticated “crust” apparently is what makes the show funny. George and I aren’t as worried as they. Maybe we aren’t old enough to have a crust.

  Last night, when the play still had three acts, Cyril and I had just started a scene in the second act when I realized that he was doing a scene from Act III. Or at least I thought he was. He was so confident that I assumed I must be mistaken and continued along. When we were backstage he realized what had happened and oh, the relief I felt. He was human after all. I asked him what we would do in Act III and he said, “The Act II scene—they won’t notice.” And they didn’t.

  Oh, remember the “semen” laugh? I thought it was my delivery that was responsible for it. Wrong. It’s Cyril’s reaction.

  I planned to go to New York for the opening, and as the date grew near we were on the phone nightly making plans. Luckily, t
he three-hour time difference worked in my favor. She was the night owl. I was the one who retired early. She told me that she was getting last-featured billing in the ads and on the placards. I was not happy. I don’t think it’s too much to expect that billing be appropriate. Dolores’ role was a major one and warranted commensurate billing. But the decision had been made, and she felt it was too late to ask for a change. I begged her to ask that her name be the last in the lineup—“and Dolores Hart”—as even big stars were getting in movie ads—“and James Mason as Rupert of Hentzau”. I stressed that she also ask for a box around her name and larger type than Peppard’s and Fujikawa’s.

  I had been to New York City only twice before, but I knew a handful of places that I wanted to share with Dolores: Charles à la Pomme Soufflée, courtesy of Carol Burnett, where the pommes exploded in your mouth in tiny puffs; Frankie and Johnnie’s, where you entered through the kitchen; a tiny club called The Baq Room, thanks to Tony Perkins and Gwen Davis, to hear the wonderful Janice Mars.

  The place Dolores was eager to show me was the Cloisters, a museum devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. Overlooking the Hudson River, the building incorporates portions of monastic chapels dating from the twelfth century. There are thousands of pieces of art, but the most famous are the seven Unicorn Tapestries.

  I had been drawn to the unicorn since Sister Dolores Marie told me the legend of a princess who brings a unicorn into her garden. She leaves it alone, and hunters kill it; but she plants a tree where the unicorn dies, and the animal comes back to life. Then the princess binds the unicorn to the tree with a golden chain.

  The Unicorn Tapestries depict scenes from the hunt for this elusive, magical being, its death and its resurrection. I responded instinctively to the purity of the unicorn’s image and wanted to share the experience with Dick.

  The seventh tapestry, The Unicorn in Captivity, is the most famous. In this tapestry the unicorn is miraculously alive again, and I had been told that the risen unicorn is symbolic of the risen Christ. Dick didn’t buy that because the animal, though resurrected, is chained. I tried to reason that the unicorn, like Jesus Christ, is forever tied to life everlasting, but Dick insisted upon being literal.

  Mostly we walked around the city, which Dolores preferred to taking taxis because it was good exercise and so my ego wouldn’t be subjected to her superior cab-catching skills. My polite, rather timid raised arm was no match for that piercing whistle of hers.

  At the theater I got my first glimpse of the placards in the lobby, with major stars Ritchard, Skinner and Ruggles above the title; below it, the top-billed costar, Abel; and featured players Peppard and Fujikawa followed by—in letters no larger and unboxed—“and Dolores Hart”. It looked ridiculous considering that on the corner of Forty-Eighth and Broadway, half a block away from the Longacre Theatre, a giant billboard trumpeted four stars in huge print above the title of Lonelyhearts. Dolores Hart was one of them.

  —And you were surprised that I was unhappy.

  But, Dick, I got the “and”.

  The Pleasure of His Company opened at the Longacre Theatre on October 22, 1958, just two days after Dolores’ twentieth birthday. It rained on opening night, but inside the Longacre it could not have been sunnier.

  It was buoyant—like moving through space—crowned by the triumphant moment when we knew we had won our audience. Whatever the critics might say, there was no doubt when the curtain came down that The Pleasure of His Company was an audience-pleaser.

  It is traditional for Broadway companies to party on opening night to give them something to do while waiting for the newspaper reviews, which in those days always appeared in the next morning’s early editions. The opening night party was held at Cornelia Otis Skinner’s townhouse. I got my first taste of the tension that lies beneath conviviality as the cast dined and drank and laughed while keeping an eye on the front door. When it finally burst open, someone was waving a copy of the New York Times with not only the first review of the night but also the most important one, that of Brooks Atkinson, the dean of theater critics.

  As the youngest member of the cast, Dolores was called to read the Times review. She took off her shoes, and I helped her onto a chair in the middle of the now silent room. She read the notice, which was an unqualified rave for everyone involved. With each superlative mention—“Mr. Ritchard is in great form”, “Miss Skinner gives her best performance”, “Charlie Ruggles is wonderfully droll”—the room exploded. Perhaps the biggest ovation came when she read, “Dolores Hart, a fresh young actress with a magnetic personality, is excellent as the mercurial Jessica.”

  As I helped her off her perch, my slightly dazed girl leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Who is Brooks Atkinson?”

  For her Broadway debut, Dolores could not have wished for a warmer welcome. Douglas Watt, in the New York Daily News, anointed Dolores “a superior ingenue in all respects”. John McClain, in the New York Journal-American, called her “a most entrancing lady”. Walter Winchell, in the New York Mirror, said she was “one of the most believable actresses” he had “ever seen”. The New York World-Telegram’s Frank Aston simply called her “a sugar plum”.

  The Herald-American’s Elliott Norton again tipped his hat: “Dolores Hart has had a good deal of success in pictures. That is no guarantee that she can act on the stage for the theater demands a different kind of performance. But she is just as much at home and as convincing in her way as is Charlie Ruggles, the comic veteran.”

  Each notice was met with her surprised smile, but there was a question in her eyes. She finally asked what I thought. I was able to tell her, in all honesty, that her Jessica Poole was everything she was meant to be: lovely, bright and altogether enchanting. In truth, she was even better than I expected she would be. When I left New York a few days later, I knew that night had been one of the happiest of my life. Fifty-five years have passed, and it still is.

  Harriett was also at the opening and the party and was one happy—and well-behaved—mother, nursing a single glass of wine the entire night. She came to New York bearing a birthday gift—a pure white, pedigreed toy French poodle, which Dolores immediately christened Pogo, after Cyril Ritchard’s character in the play.

  I had never seen such a belligerent, determined animal in all my life. In spite of his size, barely six inches long, he would challenge every dog in Central Park. Each order I gave became a fight. I was sure that making him mind would be a full-time job.

  But Pogo surprised me: he would soon be my obedient companion and a welcome guest at the Algonquin. He accompanied me wherever I went, even to the theater, where he stayed absolutely quiet in the dressing room while the show was on. Pogo was my unseen date at Manhattan restaurants and galleries and other no-pets-allowed venues. I had a large pocket sewed inside a coat into which Pogo easily fit. Pocket time meant sleep time.

  Dolores got another surprise a few nights after the opening. Her father sent a note that he was in the audience and wanted to come backstage. It had been almost two years since she had laid eyes on him. The two went to supper after the show, a father and daughter reunion, which was coincidentally the theme of the play. But Dolores noted with some irony that Bert was no Pogo Poole. He now seemed quite seedy, and a blowhard. He told her he had come back to collaborate on her career. He wanted to be her manager.

  I thought the Lord must have a black sense of humor. It made me sad, but no way did I want him in my professional life. I just reminded him that the people responsible for my career had contracts that I couldn’t break and gave him an out.

  At the end of the evening, Bert found he couldn’t pay the check and asked if she would, insisting he would pay her back.

  Apartment hunting became a number-one priority for Dolores and Winnie. By virtue of her freer schedule, Winnie took responsibility for finding a flat. They settled on a place on West Forty-Fifth Street, a large apartment whose two rooms were separated by glass french doors, giving the appearance of being
one huge room—with a bathroom, of course, but no kitchen or closet and not a stick of furniture. The rent was $150 a month, which they split. At that time Winnie was making more money as a stewardess than Dolores was as a Broadway actress. Upkeep was not fifty-fifty. Dolores didn’t like cooking or cleaning; Winnie did. So the actress chipped in a little more for food and such, and the stewardess took on the household chores.

  The immediate problem of a kitchen was solved by laying a wooden board on top of the bathtub for an electric hot plate, toaster, and coffee maker. When we wanted to bathe, we had to remove the so-called kitchen to fill the tub. Instead of a closet, we had nails in the wall. For the longest time we slept on mattresses on the floor.

  We felt like a couple of college girls in our first apartment, and together we set out to clean and redecorate. I suspected that the previous tenants were color blind—the rooms were painted pink and black. Beneath the paint we discovered a rather nice marble fireplace, so we both got down to scraping the pink away.

  Furniture was added gradually. They did some bargain hunting at the Third Street Auction House. Cooking utensils and tables came from Cornelia Otis Skinner and Charlie Ruggles. Hal Wallis’ New York-based partner, Joseph Hazen, supplied lamps, and an older gentleman named Irving Sachs gave them chairs.

  Winnie had met Irving Sachs, who was a regular passenger on a shuttle flight from Roanoke to New York City. Mr. Sachs was somewhere in his seventies and brought a bag of berries to eat on the plane. Winnie insisted upon washing the berries, and when she brought them back in a bowl on a tray with a white linen cloth, Mr. Sachs was impressed. He was the owner of a big clothing store in Roanoke and traveled to New York on buying trips. By the time the plane had landed, Mr. Sachs and Winnie were friends. That friendship soon included me.