In Spite of Myself: A Memoir

by Christopher Plummer

  Now these carpings may seem petty and hardly worthy of mention but to a young artist, impatient to crawl up the ladder, such obstacles were crucial. They meant the difference between discovery and obscurity, life and death. I confess it—I was bitter and jealous. Bravely donning the mask of nonchalance in front of Patsy and Carl, I chased down my inconsolable rye whiskey with a somewhat more encouraging ice-cold beer.

  CHAPTER TWELVE, PART TWO

  STRATFORD-ON-THE-GIN-’N’-TONIC

  The muddy Housatonic River lazily winds its way through southern Connecticut, settling momentarily in and around yet another Stratford—a harmless blue-collar town of little personality and less potential. In the late spring of ’55, the river gurgled and spluttered along in customary fashion, blissfully unaware of the proud new erection resembling London’s old Globe Theatre which loomed imposingly over its banks. Nor was it any less indifferent to the illustrious company that on a Saturday some months before had assembled there for the official “breaking of the ground,” and now, once again, stood in a tight little group staring up at the completed masterpiece of weathered wood that would call itself the American Shakespeare Theatre.

  There they all were: the founder of New York’s famed Theatre Guild, Lawrence Langner; his regally attractive wife, the gracious Armina Marshall; Theresa Helburn, a feisty, white-haired, little old lady (the Guild’s principal Queen Bee); and an assortment of other luminaries, Maurice Evans (Shakespearean actor), Lincoln Kirstein (patron of the arts) and the man who got me there in the first place, Raymond Massey. They had all gathered for the glory of God, New England and the Bard of Housatonic, gloating with satisfaction over the spanking new monument they were convinced was to top their already established rival—the two-year-old, much more modest but miraculously successful Canadian upstart.

  Whether it was the bizarre and hysterical opening night performances (Julius Caesar and The Tempest) a few weeks later that churned the perpetually sluggish river into a torrent of distemper and distaste, I am not at liberty to say, but obviously it had had quite enough and decided to boil over, contributing to the worst floods Connecticut had seen in many a decade. No matter how catastrophic the outcome, I was most thankful to be a part of this festival’s inception if for no other reason than to thumb my nose at my northern friends across the border who had so rudely ignored me.

  THE 10:07 for Connecticut was about to leave Grand Central on a warm spring day. I had just thought of boarding when a young man with a quick step and quizzical look, carrying more camera equipment than seemed possible for one so slight, came hurrying over in my direction.

  “Plummer?” queried a light, musical voice mixed with overtones of Aberystwyth and MGM. I nodded.

  “McDowall here.”

  “R—Roddy?” I gasped. “Roddy McDowall?!”

  I had instantly turned into the village idiot—my big mouth gaping wide in dumbfound stupidity. I somehow couldn’t fathom that standing before me was the grown-up version of that little boy, for whom I, as a child, had cried so often in tearjerkers like How Green Was My Valley, and, of course, Lassie Come Home. Yet here we were standing in the station staring at each other—and just about the same age. With more than one hundred films to his credit, Roddy was one of that rare breed of child star (Dean Stockwell, Elizabeth Taylor, Peggy Ann Garner were others) to have actually made the successful transition from infancy to maturity, becoming in the process a fine actor of both stage and screen.

  “Don’t tell me—I know,” he said. “You’re to be Mark Antony and Ferdinand and I’m Octavius (“Ricky-Ticky-Tavy”), Caesar and Ariel! God help us both—” and with a horrendous giggle that splattered like machine-gun fire, he shoved me onto the already moving train, scrambling up behind me, nearly losing in the process every expensive camera known to man. We spent the whole journey standing on the outside landing between the cars, the cool breeze swirling around us most agreeably. Like some crazed paparazzi, he began at once to photograph everything in sight—me, the conductor, the pistons and anything that flashed by—the tracks, buildings, trees, cows, all the while merrily chatting away. We hit it off instantly. Roddy was a very funny fellow—loved a joke and was passionately fond of limericks, particularly unsavory ones. It was he who that day taught me one of my favorites:

  From the depth of the crypt of Saint Giles

  Came a scream that was heard for miles

  Cried a brother, “Goodness gracious

  Doesn’t Father Ignatius, know that the Bishop has piles?!”

  Together, we straightaway invented two greasy, grizzly goons, Max and Schultz, seedy Hollywood producer-moguls (nightmare images from Roddy’s West Coast youth) replete with bulbous noses, swollen lascivious lips, slovenly slurred speech—not just hair lipped, harebrained! I was Schultz; Roddy was Max. We represented the ultimate sleaze of our profession. Sweaty, obese, repulsive, both studio “heads” would scream at each other in rasping, cheap-shyster, showbiz diatribe, which invariably ended in Max whispering with nauseating intimacy down my ear, “Nether mind, Schultz—jutht kith me!” at the same time emitting a large wad of drool which slobbered and dribbled slowly and deliberately down his stubbled chin. Over the years, whenever we met, Roddy and I automatically went into this routine without even thinking. But the day of that train ride saw the birth of these two monstrous moguls.

  We were fast approaching our destination; there was one more stop. Roddy put down his cameras, commanded them to stand easy and, in a low, confidential tone, began to set me straight on what lay ahead. “Now don’t jump off the train—wait till you hear the cast of the century! Guess who’s playing Brutus and Prospero—none other than Ol’ Abe Lincoln himself—Ray Massey.” (Roddy here launched into an accurate stuttering imitation of dear Raymond.) “And the lean and hungry you-know-who? Yes! Jack Palance will be our Cassius. Fritz Weaver [best young classic actor around] will be Caesar, a newcomer stand-up comic, Jerry Stiller, and Rex Everhart will play the funny men and Hurd Hatfield [famous for the film The Picture of Dorian Gray], who looks just like his mother, will tackle Julius Caesar, and then Julius Caesar will look just like Hurd Hatfield’s mother! Well, that just about wraps up the main team! How about that gaggle of strange bedfellows? Would you say this promises to be an ensemble renowned for its cohesive style?! Vee are doomed, Schultz; vee are doomed!”

  Roddy, the welcome court jester!

  If I ever felt in need of some delicious gossip or some subtle information I couldn’t for the life of me find elsewhere, I called Roddy. He was a veritable font of potted knowledge. His theatre memorabilia and his phenomenal collection of old and obscure films are legendary. He had the memory of an elephant and had simply known everybody from Lauritz Melchoir to Noël Coward, Howard Hughes to Marie Dressler. If he knew the Gish sisters, then he knew Lugosi and Karloff, and he could give you the number of a man who once did the makeup for George Arliss and John Barrymore. Perennially youthful in appearance, he really was Old Hollywood to the marrow—he had rubbed shoulders with many a great star of the silent screen. He had a direct line to the past. If someone was to tell me that Donald Crisp or C. Aubrey Smith were his uncles or that his godmother was Mrs. Patrick Campbell, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Roddy knew where most of the bodies in our profession were buried, and he treated this sacred knowledge with affectionate discretion. He was the good serpent, Ka—guarding the treasures of our history.

  Someone yelled, “Stratford—watch yo’ step,” and gathering up his cameras, “Max” impatiently pushed me down the stairs. As the train pulled away, we stood alone on the empty platform, and I found myself wondering what exactly to expect of the long, hot summer ahead; but Roddy had set the stage like a true magician, and I knew, whatever happened, it was going to be one big howl.

  CONNECTICUT’S BRAND-NEW TEMPLE to Gloriana with insignia and flags flying looked mighty handsome from the outside. It was the interior that left mucho to be desired. The cast seemed to spend most of its time wading in and out of their new
basement dressing rooms ankle deep in mud. Our vast intelligence told us they had been built well below the water line. I had premonitions of eventually swimming from room to room in order to wish everyone “Merde” in a kind of choked gargle. Under such circumstances, “Merde” was the most suitable and floatable salutation. It was just a bit unnerving to round a corner in those dark passageways and bump into all seven feet of Jack Palance with that great mask of a face of his, hissing away like a cobra about to spring (actually he was only just going over his lines).

  Upstairs onstage, things were a little drier, but by no means better! Lawrence Langner, the “Godfather,” never stopped telling us to speak up—he couldn’t hear a goddamn thing! He was, of course, quite right to do this except he’d forgotten his architect had neglected to consult a proper acoustics expert, so the whole place was cursed with “dead spots.” He had also forgotten he was hard of hearing.

  The Julius Caesar set was nothing but a huge ponderous staircase reaching the heavens, massive in structure. Stretching the entire width of the stage, it was solid, permanent and unbelievably cumbersome. It gave the impression it had once been used in the D. W. Griffith film Intolerance and was rejected as being too heavy. Its designer, who had put the theatre back at least a hundred years, left us only the meanest margin of flat surface down front upon which to perform. His general design had also forced him to build a replica of the massive staircase behind the existing one so that we could all descend the other side and disappear out of sight. To make matters worse, all the Roman cloaks were made of the heaviest velvet stretching out in a long train, so if anyone turned left or right, the cloak simply stayed where it was as if anchored to the ground. One could have concealed several dwarfs inside to help maneuver the damn things. (Follow the actor, munchkins; follow the actor!) Of course, we all complained bitterly amongst ourselves, swearing eternal revenge, but no one actually spoke out.

  The proud new building

  Once, during a mournful lull, I pulled Raymond Massey aside. Raymond had known my father at school so there was an unspoken bond between us. I pleaded with him, as he was the top headliner, that he should speak up for us all. “We can’t move in them, Ray; you know that; we simply can’t move!” Iago-like, I began to slowly stir him up into some sort of appropriate rage. Now Ray was a gentleman of impeccable manners, never complained, never swore, so at first he was reticent: “Oh—uh—they’ll be—uh—all right I’m sure—uh—we’ll get used to them—uh—they just need working in—uh—that’s all—and—uh—;” then suddenly, releasing all his pent-up indignation, he boomed out to the power committee seated in the darkened auditorium, “Now—uh—just—uh—look here, all of you—uh—Judas Priest! Let’s—uh—try—uh—using the brains the good Lord gave us and—uh—git these gol-darn costumes together and—uh—uh—make ’em spell ‘mother’!” I collapsed onto the not-too-solid stage in helpless silent laughter, rolling about in my cloak till I got caught up in the frigging thing and almost suffocated to death.

  Mr. Massey’s outburst had done some good. Our trains were briefly trimmed and everyone was looking a bit better already—Hurd Hatfield—splendid as Caesar (as long as he didn’t try to move). Hurd actually did have his mother in tow—she never left his side—and Roddy took reams of snapshots of her together with Hurd in his costume. “You see, you really can’t tell which one is Caesar, can you?” he whispered in an evil aside. Then someone came onstage and said, “You’ve all forgotten to wear your hats,” and handed us these huge, floppy velvet things that made everyone suddenly look like Rembrandt!

  In fact, there was now so much velvet being worn that you couldn’t see the actors at all. Roddy stomped off the stage, breezed past me and said, “They’re not going to come near me in The Tempest—those horrible people from wardrobe. I tell you Schultz—they’re not going to touch Ariel! I’m designing and making my very own costume and that’s final!” Which he proceeded to do and superbly. He painted his entire body, which was clad only in a skullcap and loincloth, an azure blue and covered everything including his face in thousands of multicoloured sequins stuck together, and when he had added several delicate fishlike quills to his arms, hands and head, the effect was extraordinary—he looked like a psychedelic seahorse! But we still had to get Caesar off the ground, and anticipating physical disaster, I rid myself of my cloak altogether and played the whole thing in open shirt and tights, trying to look as sexy as Brando in the Mankiewicz film.

  I loved Mark Antony and I loved playing him. I was glad too that he was a lone shark, independent of other characters in the play—his big moments being the soliloquy and the familiar oration and that was the extent of it. He could come on with his own style, do his own thing and be gone. The British director Denis Carey, who had both talent and sensitivity, could not—no matter how he tried—control the two big guns, Massey and Palance, whose chemistries were so diametrically opposed. So he left them to their own devices. Except for a few shining talents, all the way down the line to the smallest extra there was this same unevenness of style—different accents and backgrounds all sharing a glaring inexperience in the classics. So having to make do with what he had, poor Carey could only present a very stolid and conventional production.

  But the Ides of March had come. There were to be no more excuses—the great Caesar was to be assassinated in full view of a real paying public—the dreaded “first night” was upon us. America’s latest new cultural institution was to be unveiled. The occasion was both solemn and grave. Besides all the critics, there was to be a glittering array of stiff-shirted, black-tied, jewel-encrusted, overfed, overboozed penguins, rich and impenetrable—who would, as sure as pie, sit on their hands. The hierarchy of the theatre would be there, of course, as well as beaucoup de socialites and sitting in the front row dead center, as was her custom at every opening, that blinding apparition—Hope Hampton—clothed in white samite, peroxide hair to match and simply smothered in diamonds. There was a saying among us actors that should your lighting designer be overly fond of the back-lit dim romantic look and it is a trifle tough to be seen, all you have to do is walk down stage center, stand directly in front of Hope Hampton and you’ll get all the light you need!

  It was one hour before “curtain up.” I walked onto the stage to go through my silent paces alone as would be my custom for the rest of my life, but there was already someone there. It was Jerry Stiller, bless his heart, trying out new routines for his Trinculo in The Tempest scheduled to open the next night. Jerry was a workaholic—he never stopped—a fact that paid off very soon thereafter when he was to become a star comedian with his wife, Anne Meara. Even then, Anne was always at his side, inventing new sketches, new routines, a devoted audience and a staunch partner. She was there now, somewhere in the dark theatre, invisible as always, watching over him. I stood quietly on the side till he finally noticed. “Okay. Anyone in J. Caesar has priority—Mazel Tov,” he shouted and relinquished his space.

  “BEGINNERS—PLACES, PLEASE!”

  Moments later in full costume, the scent of battle in my nostrils, I stood on wooden slats in my cubbyhole to keep dry, listening to the Tannoy. Ready? I should think so—this was the fattest role as yet in my cheeky little repertoire! But why did we not begin? Oh, that’s right, the speeches; I’d forgotten—my God—the speeches. They’d already begun. Outside my door I heard a strange noise like escaping gas. I opened it a crack and peeked out. It was Jack Palance hissing away, pacing up and down the corridors, furious at the delay. I didn’t blame him. The Bard must have been thinking of Jack when he described Cassius:

  Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort

  As if he mock’d himself and scorn’d his spirit

  That could be mov’d to smile at any thing.

  Every dignitary present up there in front of the curtain felt impelled to give his two cents’ worth—first—Lawrence Langner, who deservedly was given a standing ovation for his new toy. (I felt like shouting, “Speak up, Mr. Langner, speak up. We
can’t hear you.”) Then, one after another—on and on, the rhetoric spewed out into the night. Everyone seemed to have forgotten that there was a play being presented. It was the monument, the temple, the crucible of culture they had come to worship. The poor little rich audience, not too good at listening in the best of times, were by now, I imagined, half asleep—in fact I swore I could hear snoring over the Tannoy system. How in hell were we ever going to wake ’em up?!

  The great new curtain, with one gigantic sigh of relief, finally rose, but it rose on a company drained of feeling who had simply waited too long. We went through our paces like so many sleepwalkers, except that Caesar, or his mother, I can’t recall which, gave us a spectacular death rolling down the huge flight of stairs. The evening limped on, nothing particularly eventful occurring till Brutus, on the eve of the battle of Philippi, called for a taper and a stool to be brought to his tent.

  Now sit we close about this taper here

  And call in question our necessities.

  The stool forthwith being brought, Brutus missed it completely and his butt hit the hard stage floor with a sickening thud. One snide local critic later suggested that perhaps the venerable Mr. Massey had had a few too many before the performance—that the camp near Sardis was more like the bar at Sardi’s. But the truth was that Jean Rosenthal’s lighting was so minimal, so “artistic,” that if you held your hand out in front of your face, you couldn’t see it—you couldn’t even see Hope Hampton in the front row—no hope from Hope.