It's All In the Playing

by Shirley Maclaine

I was beginning a new film, true. But, much more, for the first time, I was playing my own experience. The prospect of a relived reality overwhelmed me. I had no problem separating my own identity now from the person I had been ten years earlier. My problem lay in trying to figure out what really had gone on between Gerry and me and when it actually occurred. I guess we can all look back over relationships and ponder and reflect upon their meaning. But to reenact it was unsettling. So, that first night, I lay awake a lot, fretting at it. No world-shaking insights ensued.

  Charles and I took to rehearsing the scenes close to the environment of the actual locations. We would sit at a secluded table in a parkside restaurant having a screenplay argument, while the waiters saw that it was okay to serve us. We walked arm in arm among the trees, doing the scenes over and over. He was trying to grasp the part he was playing. I was trying to grasp the truth I had lived. Both of us discussed the knowledge that we were, in fact, acting every moment of our lives, which inspired Charles to question: “Why is that so difficult for us to admit?” He never asked the identity of Gerry.

  We were both gearing up to those first moments when the cameras roll and you know there is no more time for experimentation. You’re required to commit to film.

  The wardrobe, hair, and makeup help you to become someone else. In my case I had raided my own closets and in some cases chose to wear outfits I had actually worn during scenes I was depicting. I slowly became more aware of my personally idiosyncratic habits, expressions I could feel on my face, attitudes and reactions that must have driven Gerry crazy. The syntax of the phrasing was mine, not that of some “other” character. Usually the first aspect of a character I needed to understand was the way she walked and moved. Trained as a dancer, I worked from the outside in. I would picture the character moving across a room to meet a friend, sitting anxiously to hear bad news, racing to an airplane to greet a lover. As soon as I knew what she was wearing and how she moved in it, I was on my way to understanding the character I was playing. Not only was I dispensing with my usual mental preparation, but this time I was forced to “be” instead of to “act”—a new sensation.

  I had had long makeup and wardrobe tests with each behind-the-scenes department. Early into production I found myself referring to Shirley as “she.” “She” wouldn’t wear this. She is really upset here, so leave off the makeup. All the while remembering that she was me. But then an interesting twist in professional behavior began to happen within me. If I felt that something I had actually done or said did not play, or was dramatically wrong for the “character,” I changed it. I felt no allegiance to the truth if it didn’t convey what really happened. When Butler, Colin, and Stan saw that taking hold, I think they realized that I could look at myself and my life with a detached professional scrutiny that championed, as its higher priority, entertainment and identification. I surprised myself. It was then that I began to understand the nature of having acted my own life in the first place. I realized that each move I’d made, each decision I’d taken, had been a choice, that my life hadn’t just happened, sweeping “me” along with it. I had created the sweep; the sweep, the people, the events, the pitfalls, the triumphs. Every morning I got up, I had created my own reality for yet another day. I could alter the very fiber of my existence by knowing that I had the choice to do it. I could see that now. But ten years back “I” had been too embroiled.

  So, as I reenacted the conflict inherent in the relationship with Gerry, it was from a very different perspective. I had decided to experience it all in order to know myself better. Gerry had chosen it, too, probably for the same reasons. Maybe “chemistry” between two people simply accelerated lessons in human learning for us which would otherwise take years to understand. Perhaps falling in love with a married man had as much to do with learning about the wife as it did the husband. One thing was certain: the lessons pertaining to myself indicated that my learning needs were of paramount importance to me only. My behavior had appeared to others to be quite unreasonable. I had flown, at the drop of a hat, to distant and exotic regions of the world just to spend a few days with him, to the detriment of my work and sometimes other relationships. Then, it had been mandatory for me to do it; there was never a question in my mind. I remembered wondering why others couldn’t understand.

  Then, among the very few who knew his identity, there was the “What does she see in him?” point of view—that age-old comparative judgment we tend to make when we are lovingly prejudiced in favor of one person with no clue whatsoever as to the fundamental reasons for an unexplained attraction to an unsuitable other. We “involved” people certainly couldn’t explain it. I couldn’t. As though propelled by an unseen force that felt as monumentally irresistible as it did romantically compelling, I had listened to my inner drummer and acted on it. So had Gerry. Now that percussion heartbeat had evolved itself into a full-blown miniseries for television. The acts and the actors were one.

  The technological aspects of the first week of principal photography worked remarkably well. Brad May’s camera crew was English. He was unused to not having his own, but he and they were fast and artistic. I was working for the first time without klieg lights and powerful candlepower. Instead Brad used indirect lighting bounced off white panels. The result was natural, extremely flattering, and very “docudrama” real.

  But I had real trouble at first because I had grown up in the days of formal Hollywood lighting. I couldn’t even begin to feel the scene until the lights were on. In the power of the lights lay the permission to emote freely. Without the protective dome of light I felt my privacy was being invaded, and conversely I was bathed and safe and caressed only in the warmth and illumination of the lights. I knew they would magnify my innermost expression, playing on and sculpting my face and yet simultaneously protecting me from being exposed by the natural light of day. When the lights went out, my talent went back under my skin. I couldn’t act. I became anonymous, not wanting to be the center of attention or even take up anybody’s time.

  So I had a monumental adjustment to make in the lighting style. From the first projection-room screen test, I loved how it made me look. It was how it made me feel that was the problem.

  Along with adjusting to playing myself, not being brightly lit, and just the advent of what I knew would be a five-month shoot in which I was in every scene, I found that I could not sleep. I had my sound machine up full blast. (The hotel maids thought a hurricane was swirling from the North.) But it didn’t help. I really couldn’t pinpoint what it was. I tossed and turned. I counted sheep. I did ballet exercises in my head. I chanted mantras I had learned. I even had a sleep tape sent over air-express from San Francisco. It was channeled by Lazaris. His voice was soothing as it gently reminded me: “You will feel rested if you believe you are. For every hour of sleep you will have four hours of rest.” The effect was designed to influence the subconscious.

  Instead of allowing that to happen I had a nattering dialogue with myself that I was being brainwashed. Of course I was—that was the point. No, it wasn’t brainwashing; it was “motivational suggestion.”

  As the first week pressed on, I was sleeping only two hours a night. Then the real fear that I would never sleep set in. I tried to construct dreams for myself. I did yoga and meditation in the middle of the night.

  I began to get sick and very depressed. After useless attempts at sleep, I’d turn on the television news and register what seemed like nothing but disaster in the world. Northern Ireland just wouldn’t quit. A socialized-medical report said there were twelve stroke victims every hour. I wondered why anybody would choose that for a learning experience. Families in the East End of London were hiring “minders” (bodyguards) to protect them from racial crime. I had a “minder” to mind me on the set, too. I’d never had a bodyguard in my life. Why did I need one now? What I needed was a sleepguard. I watched the effects of a Chilean volcano on mud-caked children as they lay, still surviving, for four days. Twenty-five thousand people died.
I sat and sobbed on the floor in front of the television set.

  The Geneva Summit with Reagan and Gorbachev was a dim hope in the world going mad.

  As I cried to myself I thought: This must be a release. It’s a good thing. After the depression and sadness is spent I’ll be able to sleep and feel more balanced. But what was causing it?

  Finally, after one and a half weeks of sleeplessness and depression, I made a decision. I called Gerry. The real Gerry. We had not spoken for some time. I assumed he had seen the papers and knew what I was doing.

  “Hello,” he said in that breathless, enthusiastic way of his. “Yes. I saw that you were here.”

  I pictured his tousled hair and the belt around his waist which was never secured in the loops. I could see him turning impatiently in his chair, his private secretary somewhere hovering about.

  “How are you, Gerry?” I asked, making a conscious choice to sound gentle and feminine.

  “Well,” he answered. “I’m very well, but we have these damn budget cuts to contend with. The world does seem to be economically defunct, doesn’t it?”

  His old priorities were still intact. I wondered if he had changed much in other respects, and what, or whether, he thought of Out on a Limb. I avoided what was on my mind.

  “Well, maybe the world isn’t on the brink of disaster,” I said. “Maybe it’s on the brink of transition.”

  “Yes,” said Gerry. “Well, it’d better be quick.”

  I sat up on my bed. As though he heard me do it, he hesitated. I hesitated. Then I thought I’d plunge ahead with what had been on my mind.

  “Gerry,” I said, “I’ve wanted to talk to you for some time now, but haven’t known how to do it.”

  I could feel him melt into a smile.

  “So have I,” he said.

  “Have you been getting any flak about us?” I asked.

  He laughed good-naturedly. He was not a petty accusatory man.

  “Ahh. No, not really,” he said with an intake of breath. “Only I have had to learn to eat an apple differently. The way you described it in your book was more than a tip-off. The right-wing faction thought they had me there, but they were too stupid to do anything with it.”

  “So you didn’t really suffer slings and arrows as a result?”

  “Ah. No, not really,” he said, with a twinge of self-pity manufactured to stimulate guilt in me. I wanted to mention the two women I had heard he had affairs with after me, but I decided to employ class for a little longer. We talked on about the world situation, about Reagan. He said all the American President felt comfortable discussing was his tenure as SAG president and his grade B movies. He talked of Margaret Thatcher’s trip to Moscow (“What a superb marching band they have there”). He talked of welfare and its attendant problems. AU the while I could see the fire in his eyes through his voice. I could feel myself attracted to the very same qualities in him that had been impossible for me to resist in the first place. Had I not progressed in my own growth at all? On top of it all, I wanted to see him. But I said nothing.

  “How is your family?” I asked directly.

  “Ah. They are doing well. Just as long-suffering as ever. I would like to see you.”

  His rhythm was as unpredictable as always.

  “Would you?” I asked redundantly.

  “Yes, I would,” he replied. “Would you?”

  “Yes, I would,” I replied.

  “What are your hours?”

  I slumped over on my bed.

  “We start at six in the morning and go till eleven at night sometimes.”

  “Well, perhaps we could have dinner,” he said.

  “And how would we arrange that without heralding the third world war?”

  He thought a moment.

  “Let me call you later in the week.”

  “Okay, but I’m leaving on the weekend.”

  There was a pause.

  “Where will you be going?”

  “Sweden,” I said. “Just like the book.”

  There was another pause.

  “Yes,” he said. “I remember very well…. Oh, my …

  I melted again. He continued.

  “Is Mr. Dance anything like me?”

  I could feel my throat ache.

  “No, Gerry. Nobody is like you—not even you.”

  He laughed again.

  “Yes,” he said. “I see you are still just as persevering.”

  “Yes,” I answered. “I am.”

  “I will get back to you and we’ll arrange something.”

  We hung up without arranging code names with each other. He was so accomplished with world issues, but with details that derail, he was hopeless.

  Nevertheless, I slept that night.

  I slept the night after that. Maybe Gerry had been the subconscious problem all along.

  The shooting proceeded royally. I began to have fun. I even began to understand Bob Butler’s directorial language. When Charles and I weren’t sure which way the scene was going, Bob would say, “You’re shopping. That’s fair enough. I don’t see the glitches.”

  When Charles asked a question, he’d say, “Go with your own tummy.” Charles would straighten up, pat his stomach, and come to me for translation.

  Once, during dialogue in a love scene, Bob said, “It sounds like it’s in the cracks.”

  I checked the location of the microphone and there was no imminent danger.

  Bob would say he was “well” and advise Charles to use “occasional inarticulate enthusiasm.”

  In between shots downtown, I shopped and reacquainted myself with King’s Road. I saw old friends when I had the time and waited for Gerry to call. It occurred to me that even if he had, he wouldn’t have used his real name. I felt hurled back in time, with the same clandestine problems we had had during our love affair.

  Colin and I had dinner with John Cleese (of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers). He announced that he was totally opposed to sentimentality in films because it kept the public in the throes of believing that romanticism was reality. “Imagine,” he said. “I’d love to do a love story about two people after they finally get together. The story is about who takes out the garbage.” He went on to say that he cried when his cat died until he realized that he was being romantic about it. At that point he said, “I blocked the sentimentality and quit crying.”

  When was love romanticism and when was it love? Did you not grow until after you took out the garbage?

  Saturday morning rolled around. Charles and I had just finished rehearsing some scenes for Sweden. He left my suite for an appointment. The hotel operator rang me.

  “We have a Mister Vancouver on the telephone. Shall I put it through?”

  Gerry and I had spent one of our beautiful stolen weeks in Vancouver.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Ah. There you are finally,” he said.

  “What do you mean, finally?”

  “I’ve been calling you all week.”

  “But you didn’t leave a message.”

  “Yes. That’s right,” he said. “Then I had the bright idea of Vancouver.”

  “Oh, Gerry,” I said. “And I’ve been expecting you and missing you. Where are you now? You sound far away.”

  “I’m in the country. I have a private apartment of a friend. I wanted you to meet me here.”

  I was flabbergasted.

  “How was I supposed to know?”

  “Yes, well,” he said, “that’s been a bit of a problem. Well, can you come here?”

  “Now?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. “It’s lovely out here. I could have my aide come and collect you.”

  “Gerry,” I said, “I’m working. And we’re leaving tomorrow for Stockholm. I can’t.”

  “Yes,” said Gerry. “I understand. I can be at my office in two hours. I’ll send my car and aide to collect you. I have a budget meeting in the afternoon, but I long to see you.”

  Two hours later I was picke
d up by a young man, highly discreet, who spoke only of the weather and the news of the day. I eluded the press by exiting a little known side door. He dropped me off at Gerry’s private office. Since it was Saturday, nobody much was around. I looked at his door. I had never been here before. This was the place where he had taken my phone calls and sat until early morning solitarily reflecting on our relationship. I walked up to the door. It was open. I walked in. Then I saw him. His magnetism charged the entire room and he smiled with such happiness that the London fog seemed to lift. I crossed the room toward him. We shook hands and then we embraced. He felt familiarly solid in my arms. We didn’t hold each other long. We both needed to look at each other, register the facial expressions. Gerry held me out from him and then, while pleasurably perusing me, he circled me and talked.

  “My goodness,” he said. “You certainly have become successful over the past few years. You’re looking wonderful.”

  I scrutinized every flicker, every movement he made as I turned and took him in. The tie was askew (it was a tie I remembered). The belt was dangling as usual, his socks crept down over his shoes, and as he gestured and laughed I felt transported back in time, the same old feelings I had had for him a few years ago sweeping over me again.

  “Thanks, Gerry,” I said. “You haven’t changed much with the hard work. You seem so full of energy and enthusiasm.”

  He hung forward, his gaze falling on my lips. I remembered it was this habit of his that had arrested me so thoroughly the first night I met him. That and the blazingly intelligent dancing eyes. I wanted to embrace him again, but I held back. I looked around his private office.

  “So this is it, eh?” I asked. “This is where it’s all happened for you.” Marvelous how banalities help us over uneasy moments.

  Gerry took a few grand sweeping steps in front of a long bookshelf. He moved with graceful abandon, completely unaware of how he looked or what picture he was presenting; not even a taste of self-consciousness was evident, whereas I stood there wondering if my mascara had flecked on my cheek and if my flat shoes looked all right with the long skirt.