In Spite of Myself

by Christopher Plummer

  Sometimes Leslie, Evie, Rex, Rachel, Trish and I would turn right out of the port and boat it to San Fruttuoso, which was two or three cliff distances away. We would look for the great bronze statue of Christ of the Abyss, saint protector of divers, which in 1954 had been set in the Mediterranean at a depth of sixty feet. We would anchor and dive down to get closer looks, a daunting and amazing sight. Two rocky jutting-out points formed a narrow and treacherous harbour by which to reach the shore. The old monastery and fortress of San Fruttuoso had stood there for hundreds of years. The only way to reach it was by sea or donkey. It was the sole building on those slopes for miles, and the monks had turned the lower floor nearest the sea into a restaurant of five-star caliber. We vowed we’d pay it a visit for supper one night. The narrow harbour entry to San Fruttuoso had always been considered impassable—the winds and strong currents there were unpredictably cruel and made navigation nigh impossible. Throughout the ages, so many ships had come to grief on those rocks. So Radzio lent Rex one of his young workers, a boy of about thirteen, an expert sailor who knew those waters and would be able to get us there in the dark without mishap.

  It was fairly calm when we set out, but as we entered the little harbour, the sudden powerful swells caught us completely unawares, making it most difficult to maneuver our way in. Somehow, the youngster, cool as a cucumber, managed it expertly, moored the boat and waited with it as we made tracks for the monastery. The food and local wines were superb—unforgettable. Monks had prepared it and other monks served it. After dinner as we quaffed down liqueurs of the region an elderly monk told us that before we left we must make the descent into the bowels of the old building and visit the room of the kings. Many of the ancient kings of Italy were buried below the level of the sea, their effigies lying on slabs in those thick stone walls. The monk continued in his impeccable English, “I must warn you that you will hear a thousand voices echoing through the room. Don’t be afraid, it’s only the ocean playing tricks as it crashes against the walls.” He was right. In that vast subterranean hall the sound of human voices, some wailing, some threatening, enveloped and overwhelmed us with such tremendous volume, we had to stop our ears. Even Rex, who was pretending to be ever so nonchalant, was visibly shaken. “I think it’s time to fuck off,” he squeaked in a voice more high pitched than usual. “Well, you’re a bloody coward,” cried Rachel in her strong Welsh lilt. “But what d’you expect from the son of a friggin’ Baptist minister!” She had a slight edge on the rest of us boozewise, so we helped her up the steep staircase.

  When we got outside, all hell had broken loose. An electric storm of unusual magnitude had lit up the sky; the thunder was deafening and the winds were tossing the Henry Higgins back and forth against the rocks. The child was beckoning us to get out of there as fast as possible, and the trip back with Rex and the boy both steering as best they could with the rest of us under the hood lying on the bottom drenched was one of the scariest rides I can ever remember. The night was black as pitch and it took forever to get back as we bounced up and down on the huge waves—I was quite positive that any second we’d be introduced to Davy Jones.

  Never was a sight more welcome than the wind-swept quay and the warm friendly lights of Radzio’s bar. We bundled ourselves in and attacked the barleycorn. Our confidence restored with each glass, we made ready for the trip up the hill. But Rachel was having too good a time and was celebrating her escape from death with some of the locals. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, she began howling like a wolf. It was a most convincing sound. I was to learn that these wolf howls were accustomed behaviour for Rachel whenever she’d had too much and turned the proverbial corner. “Oh, leave her here for Chrissakes,” said an irritated Rex. “I’ll never bloody well get her home.” And Radzio, promising to look after her, drove us up in his own car. We got out at the point where no vehicle could proceed further. The rain had stopped and Rex insisted we walk the rest of the way. As we started to climb, an enormous sheet of forked lightning sizzled its way down the mountain; there was a loud crack and everything went dark. We looked down at Portofino and across to Rapallo—there were no lights anywhere. “It’s another blackout,” mumbled an inconvenienced Rex. For several moments, we stood still and watched the late-summer lightning illuminate the whole Mediterranean—it was a magnificent show. And after each clap of thunder, we could hear, echoing against the cliffs from somewhere in the distance far below us the piercing, agonized sound of a wolf howling. We were laughing so hard we could hardly get to the top.

  The next day Evie and Leslie went back to London much satisfied, and there were four of us left in our little party. Trish and I spent every remaining night with the Harrisons. I would play the piano, and Rex would try out all the Doolittle numbers. Both of us had learned most of it by heart, and R.H. was enjoying himself thoroughly. But the weather turned sour and we were forced to stay a few extra days. I had by now run out of cash. Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s meager allowance for British residents abroad (fifty pounds only) had become a very bad joke, so I asked Rex to lend us some money. He did so at once and with no fuss, so I challenge anyone who says he wasn’t generous when he wanted to be. Rex had been at his warmest and had proved an exemplary host. He’d given us a terrific time. And of course we adored that enchanting, funny and bubbling Rachel. It was sad to leave the gorgeous coastline paradise, but back in New York, John Dexter was champing at the bit, and that crusty old soldier Pizarro, equally impatient, was waiting for someone to fill his shoes. So before I knew it I found myself Manhattan-bound.

  PIZARRO: We’re coming for you, Atahuallpa. Show me the toppest peak-top you can pile—show me the lid of the world—I’ll stand tiptoe on it and pull you out of the sky.

  I parked myself at the old Algonquin. It didn’t take any time at all before Betty Bacall Robards was on the other end of the phone smoldering huskily, “Where’s Jason?” “Too busy to look for him just now,” I said, wriggling out of the room. As I passed the hotel newsstand, every paper was announcing Rex as Dr. Doolittle. I quickened my step and went off to work. The rehearsals were thrilling in spite of being interrupted every so often by loud shouting matches between Dexter and the author. Nevertheless, working with Dexter was very special. He had succeeded in stretching me to the limit as he threatened he would. “Your Pizarro is proficient as in professional. I want you to be terrible as in terror!” I took the game to one more level—I think it worked. The first night went splendidly and all of us earned ourselves some exceptional reviews and young David Carradine, with his marvellous characterization of Atahuallpa, the Inca emperor, placed both feet firmly on his ladder to stardom. For Peter Shaffer, it was a triumph. One critic wrote, “No Englishman in this century save Shaw and Christopher Fry has achieved such sensible beauty with words.”

  We had barely opened when the front desk called my room to say that some gentlemen were in the lobby waiting to see me most urgently and that my agent, Kurt Frings, was with them. “Send them up,” I replied, none the wiser. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The exact same cast of characters from Italy—Apjack, without Laurie Evans, Leslie and Evie Bricusse—were standing in my doorway, along with Frings. “Am I back in Portofino?” I blinked. Leslie spoke first. “Rex walked! Paramount is furious with him. We’ve come to persuade you to do Dr. Doolittle. We can buy you out of the play. There’s a great cast lined up to support you—Samantha Eggar, Laurence Olivier, Richard Attenborough, Tony Newley, of course, and as Bumpo Sammy Davis, Junior. Please say yes?!” My heart started to beat very fast. This was unreal! To say it was déjà vu would be a gross understatement. I looked out the window—it was snowing. No, this was not Portofino. Kurt, with another conspiratorial wink, motioned me into the hallway. “I’ll make sure you’ll get paid in full no matter what.” “What do you mean?” “I don’t know. I smell a rat, but then I always smell rats.” I spent the next few days between performances walking on air. But Kurt was right, the moment Rex heard I was going to play his part he was back o
n the job. Paramount had forgiven him. It wasn’t the same magnificent supporting cast we’d all expected and the film did not do too well at the box office, but I was paid my full salary for doing nothing. Not bad for a long Italian weekend!

  I SUPPOSE one has to pay in some way for such good fortune. Well, I did. I had a nasty accident onstage several weeks into the run. In actuality, Pizarro was a victim of some form of epilepsy, and the play demanded he fall to the ground in a semifit on at least three occasions. I took pride in knowing how to fall convincingly without getting hurt, so I purposely landed on my right knee and then quickly rolled over and I did this at each performance in the same manner on the same identical spot, night after night. Stupidly, I refused to wear knee pads, so one evening after the first act I felt a throbbing sensation in my leg. My dresser removed my boot, lifted my breeches, and there was this huge swelling the size of a tennis ball just below the knee. I finished the performance, but now the pain was so acute I couldn’t put any weight on my foot whatsoever and had to be carried into a cab and then up to my hotel room. In order to sleep I killed a bottle of Scotch. The next day my right leg had swollen to twice its size and the pain, which had traveled to my chest, was unbearable. I couldn’t stand up. I was bent over double. A doctor came, examined me and proceeded to shoot me full of morphine. The relief was tremendous. “You have a serious blood clot in your leg which has turned into a pulmonary embolism. It travelled straight to your left lung, just missing your heart! It’s the hospital for you!” Oh God! I could have cried. There would be no more Royal Hunt—no more Pizarro.

  I lay in my hospital bed and relived the play’s entire run. Even before my accident, strange things had occurred—uneasy forebodings, portents of dark things ahead. During one performance a drunk in the audience kept shouting at the top of his considerable voice insulting, vicious assertions and criticisms of the play and the audience, but they were mostly aimed at me. The customers tried to shut him up, to no avail. After the first-act curtain came down, I had him removed from the theatre. Imagine our shock and horror upon learning that the drunk was none other than that distinguished and excellent actor Gary Merrill, who at the time was married to Bette Davis. It is an unspoken code that no one from our profession, no matter how drugged or inebriated, interrupts a fellow actor when he is busy performing. It is simply not done. Not even that mad libertine, the great Edmund Kean, would have managed to get away with it. Such boorish behavior is inconceivable—unforgivable. Days later I received the most painful and devastating letter of apology—almost suicidal in its remorse—from Mr. Merrill. I felt deeply affected by it. What an incredibly sad state he must have been in, a man of such intelligence and talent. At the time he had been running to be a congressman in Maine, where both he and Bette lived, a position, needless to say, this tormented man was not able to fill.

  This was not the only incident that was sent to plague me, for every night for at least three weeks’ duration, a middle-aged woman wearing bright red colours sat in the front row dead center and ogled me. No matter how dim the lighting, you couldn’t miss her. Whenever I left the stage she would stand up and wave to me and when I returned she would do the same, this time blowing me kisses. She wasn’t a good-looking woman in any way at all; her hair was shiny jet-black and she had mad eyes. And what the devil did she see in me—with my shaved head, long beard and stooped shoulders—an old wreck if there ever was one? At first it was bizarrely funny; the company would tease me rotten—“Your girlfriend’s here again”—as they took turns peering through a hole in the curtain. But after a while, her continuous presence at such close quarters began to distract every member of the cast and started slowly to drive me out of my mind. Presents began to arrive at the stage door, beautifully wrapped from expensive shops. I opened one from Tiffany—it was an exquisite set of Baccarat wineglasses. Every couple of days more would come from Cartier, Hermès, Bergdorf Goodman but mostly from Tiffany. Good old Andy at the stage door warned me, “Don’ open any more of dem. You’ll be playin’ her game. I’ll keep ’em here in my cubbyhole. As soon as we gets an address I’ll return ’em.” I started having nightmares about her. She was like a deranged fan who at any moment could change with the wind, reach into her purse and pull out a pistol.

  One night I arrived at the theatre after my usual dinner at La Scala two doors away filled with Dutch courage and determination. I went straight to the stage manager. “If she’s there again tonight, I’m not going on. It’s either her or me!” He went to the peephole to check. “She’s there,” he said. “That’s it!” I barked. “Finito la commedia!” The ANTA management called the police and she was removed. I felt like a cad, but it had to be done. I watched through the curtain. She did not go quietly—screaming horrid abuse as she was literally dragged out. The whole audience watched in shock—it was most upsetting. The next day she called the New York Post and told them how shamefully I’d behaved, that I had no right to eject her. She was a member of the public—she’d paid for her seat. In fact, she had ordered that same front row seat for a whole month. This was not good press for me or the play. But Leonard Lyons, the major columnist for the Post, suspecting some sort of foul play, took my side and refused to print any of it, proving once again how staunchly he defended our profession as the actor’s Good Samaritan.

  By now I couldn’t get into Andy’s stage-door hole—neither could Andy. Presents were piled up floor to ceiling! “Hey, Chris,” said Andy. “I found an address and a number. I got dis dame’s sister on the line. She’s comin’ over tomorrow to take ’em all back. At last I’ll be able to park my ass.”

  As usual, Andy got all the dope. It seems the unfortunate woman (according to the sister) had been in a near fatal plane crash and had suffered a massive concussion. She had sued the airline and won a huge settlement. With all this money to burn, she began having fixations about certain people and no one knew what on earth she would do next. As I lay supine in my hospital bed, my leg wrapped in ice hardly able to move, I am ashamed to say I couldn’t help thinking I was safer where I was.

  Leroy Hospital in the East Sixties (a haven for the ailing rich, it seemed) was so liberal it hardly imposed any rules at all. I was allowed to order my meals from anywhere I chose. Waiters from my favourite La Scala on West Fifty-second would stagger across town carrying pastas and salads with every known hot pepper I was forbidden to eat, plus bottles of their best Chianti. I even had dinners sent up from the posh Colony restaurant downstairs nearby. Vince Sardi sent gifts, messages and bottles of wine from Sardi’s. As did the “boys” at P.J. Clarke’s. Good old Andy would come over once a week with my mail. The nurses were great—they would do anything for me. Visitors were allowed to pop in regularly at all hours. Vince Sardi, Jane Broder—very con-cerned—“This is costing you, honey; take it easy.” Jason would drop in with some of his drinking buddies. All the girls I’d dated at Arthurs, New York’s hottest disco, would show up. It really was a never-ending party in my room. I was having myself a ball. Dexter was back in London as was Trish, but Peter Shaffer graciously came to visit and though he was sympathetic, I don’t think he quite forgave me for deserting his play.

  The Royal Hunt of the Sun staggered on for a while, but its producers refused to pay for a “name” actor to replace me and with just my understudy valiantly carrying on night after night, good as he was, there was no “draw” to keep it running, so in a matter of weeks this gorgeous production closed. With the play’s demise, I recovered, as if a penitent Pizarro had been forgiven his crimes and released from his prison. The Royal Hunt had most certainly sent out strange vibrations, but by now the air had cleared. And there was a job to go to, a film in France—a good thing as I had gone through my entire salary. “You’ve only got about fifteen bucks left out of all that,” worried good old Jane. Pampering myself as usual, I booked first-class passage on the France, the most beautiful liner on the seas at the time with the best stabilizers in the world. Jane, bless her, came to see me off. None of my you
ng friends bothered, but she managed it without any trouble. She looked about my lavish stateroom, and instead of chastising me for my extravagance, she said, “You deserve this, honey.” As I leaned over the railings and waved good-bye, she called up from the dock and repeated her reassurance, “Don’t worry about the car. I’ll take care of everything, and good luck, honey.”

  As Pizarro in The Royal Hunt of the Sun, New York

  The France boasted one of the finest restaurants on land or water. On the first day out, black tie was insisted upon for supper. After that we could dress as we pleased but always jacket and tie. The ship, which had everything on board—Cartier, Hermès, all the elegant shops—was run with great style and took special pride in its attractive little crush bar, which was all glass with a spectacular view of the ocean. It opened at 2 a.m. after the dance floor was closed and served mouth-watering breakfasts accompanied by champagne right through the early hours. The night before landing at Southampton black tie was once more required for supper and this time, apart from the exquisite menu, the guests were asked to order anything in the world they desired; the kitchen would oblige. Of course, all us amateur gourmets would put our heads together and ask the impossible, the most difficult thing imaginable to stump the chef. Lark’s tongues, ortolans and other culinary rarities—there they were before us as if by magic. Nothing daunted the maestro. Those kitchens must have been stocked with every choice ingredient known to man.

  My stateroom was on the so-called top deck, but there actually was one more deck above me—the very roof of the ship where all the pet animals (mostly dogs) were kept. Every night with my porthole open I would hear them barking against the gale-force winds. I worried about them up there on their own without their owners, but eventually the salt air sent me to sleep. Once, I was sharply awakened by a sound coming from above. It was different from the usual barking sounds and very much resembled the howlings of a wolf. In my hazy state caused by champagne overkill, I had convinced myself it was Rachel on that windswept deck with all the animals about her, letting the crashing waves know that she had just had one too many.