In Spite of Myself: A Memoir

by Christopher Plummer

  The only other dramatic occurrence that night was the late arrival of my then girlfriend, Tammy Grimes. She had been at a grand party in faraway Long Island and had forgotten she was supposed to attend my opening. In a panic she remembered. Hard up for transportation to cover the long distance in time, she left the party and hired a private plane—a Cessna. Just she and the pilot. The plane had trouble coming down over the local airport, missed the runway and crashed in a nearby field. Tammy emerged without a scratch except that her exorbitantly expensive evening dress had a small tear in it. Outraged, she strode up to the cockpit and let the pilot have it with full barrels as the poor man sat speechless, crumpled in his seat with both arms and collar bone broken. She had missed the play, but she made the party.

  The press came out. As was expected, the building got all the notices. You might say that “Caesar” had suffered another assassination. Roddy, Fritz Weaver and I came out of it smelling of roses, but the headliners, Massey and Palance, fared not so well. The papers were icily polite to the distinguished Massey but devastatingly rude and cruel to Mr. Palance—how unnecessary and unthinking to an extraordinary actor who, though a stranger to the classics, had obviously worked so hard and cared so much.

  Second night—opening of The Tempest, which weathered its own storm admirably. Palance made a wonderfully sinister and touching Caliban (those hisses of his appropriately hitting their mark this time). Roddy—a glimmering firefly as Ariel. Massey a ducal, resonant Prospero. Myself—a miscast Ferdinand, but Jerry Stiller—a complete tonic as an endearingly funny and most original Trinculo. Ditto Everhart as Stephano.

  It was the third night and second opening of Caesar (this time before the magazine and television critics) where everything came apart at the seams, and we all took a giant leap into Grand Guignol! Well into act 1, I enter as Mark Antony, shake hands with each conspirator, as directed, pretending I was on their side all along—but where was Cassius? No Jack to be seen. Then I spot him in the distance near the very back of the set stage left. I walk the long walk up to him and offer him my hand. He stands there, a mad look in his eyes, breathing heavily, and does nothing for the longest time. He eventually takes it, but he flings it away from him in disgust and loathing—something he has never done before. I turn back to the dead body. Now it is time for the senators to mount the stairs and leave me alone with Caesar. They do so, like tortoises dragging their heavy shells behind them. I am just about to begin my soliloquy when I realize I am not alone. I hear the familiar hissing sound directly behind me. It is Jack. Beads of perspiration have begun to pour down my face for he seems perfectly content just to remain there at my back forever. Doesn’t he know that a soliloquy means one is alone? This is getting serious. The hissing becomes louder as he circles me like a hungry panther and when he arrives at Caesar’s corpse, he straddles it with both legs and stands there in triumph, his arms folded across his chest—those strange eyes boring into me!

  The prolonged silence was beyond endurance. The audience had begun to mumble and murmur among themselves. The pause was so long in fact that I had started to get hungry. Just when I thought I had no choice but to speak my piece—Jack left the stage. I held my breath. I could hear him mount the stairs. Everything was going to be all right. I even had the confidence for a second to turn and look. On the third step, he tripped on his robe and fell. Instead of recovering as if nothing had happened, he got to his feet, tore off his entire cloak including his doublet, rolled it all into a tight little ball and, with all his might, threw the whole cockamamie thing into the wings. Cassius, wearing only his 1955 T-shirt with a gaudy pair of suspenders holding up his tights, now stomped noisily up the rest of the long staircase—hissing all the way. I turned around to open my mouth, when I remembered that once he reached the summit, he had to go all the way down the other side. I decided to wait another agonizing few seconds, wisely as it turned out. I listened as he clanked his way down. Then his sword must have caught in something, for he ripped it from his belt, scabbard and all, and threw it full force down the remaining stairs. The noise it made as it bounced off each step could be heard in New Haven and, like the junk in Fibber McGee’s closet, it didn’t stop. The audience sat stunned, dangerously quiet. Any second the volcano might erupt, so I decided it was time to speak:

  O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,

  That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.

  I learned only afterwards that during my long-awaited solo moment, the drama offstage was by no means over. For as Palance came fuming down the backstage stairs, kicking his sword with each step, an intense young Englishman by name of Roger Hamilton (Cinna the Poet) stood watching, horrified, in the wings. As stormy Jack came nearer, Roger, summoning all the ire and British indignation he could muster, spoke out loud and clear:

  “I say, have you ever been on a professional stage in your life?”

  “S-S-S-S-what did you s-s-s-say?” hissed Jack in white heat.

  With no change of inflection, the challenge was repeated.

  “I say, have you ever been on a professional stage in your life?”

  There is, I swear, a definite imprint to this day in the upstage left wall of the body of Cinna the Poet as it was hurled with superhuman force into the still-damp concrete.

  The night of the long velvet robes was now at an end for the new curtain, looking much older and wearier than when it went up, came crashing down. During the pathetic curtain call, Roddy, his chin moist with slobber, turned to me and whispered, “Get the movie rights for dis turkey; vat you vaiting for, Schultz? Dis gonna be beeg hit!”

  Either there is a civil strife in heaven,

  Or else the world too saucy with the gods

  Incenses them to send destruction.

  Ah oui, bien sûr—et après tout-ça—le déluge! Having patiently waited for the climax of the opening weeks, the troubled local Tiber “chafing with her shores” decided to reek revenge upon us. All across the peaceful Laurel State the rains came! With no mercy the swollen rivers overflowed the countryside, families evacuated their homes, houses stood half submerged in water—everything turned to liquid chaos:

  I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds

  Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen

  The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam

  To be exalted with the threatening clouds.

  The content of Shakespeare’s play juxtaposed with the long, wet summer was too coincidental, too close for comfort. Nothing this bad had been written about us.

  Have you not made an universal shout,

  That Tiber trembled underneath her banks

  To hear the replication of your sounds?

  To get to our basement dressing rooms we now were almost obliged to swim (“Help me, Cassius, or I sink!”). The costume department wasted most of their time keeping those dreadful robes from getting soaked (save the clothes; drown the actors). At every performance when Ray Massey with heavy but poignant deliberation spoke Brutus’s lines:

  There is a tide in the affairs of men

  Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune.

  we nodded together in little groups, sage men deep in accord. There were so many references to climate in the text that the play became a nightly weather report, and we were its anchormen.

  Dars’t thou … Leap in with me into this angry flood

  And swim to yonder point?

  The good news was that everyone in our brave little company rallied pretty well—Jack Palance, above all, coming up absolute trumps. Not only did his performances become richer by leaps and bounds but he exhibited a side of which we hitherto had been ignorant—namely a deliciously macabre sense of humour. Also hugely generous, he threw us parties, showed us his current movies (Panic in the Streets, The Big Knife) and generally behaved in such a manner that no one could help but warm to him. One night after the show, we were recruited to appear in some distant town on a TV “save the flood victims” marathon. While waiting, w
e all got pretty well swacked. Who could blame us? We didn’t go on the air till about 3 a.m.! What we said once on I shudder to remember, but I do recall that the drive back in the limousine was so endless we ran out of gas. The driver pulled up at the only gas station we’d seen for miles. Everything was, of course, dark as pitch but the desperate driver nevertheless banged loudly on the door and woke the enraged owner who, throwing a coat over his pajamas, walked straight up to the limo and screamed at us: “You know what time it is, you bastards? You woke me up—get the hell out-a-here—we’re closed!!” Just as he was about to indignantly turn on his heel, a back window of the limo rolled down and a terrifying white face appeared, glowing like phosphorescence out of the dark. The face said nothing but the expression on it was so frightening that it stopped the man cold in his tracks. His own face was only inches away from the face in the car, which now leaned forward ever closer and in the low hiss of an anaconda issued forth one stinging command:

  “Gassss-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s.” Just that one word, no more. I’ve never seen anyone move so fast. Lights were immediately switched on—everything went into warp speed—pumps began to pump, petrol flowed like Niagara herself, and before one could say “Caesar” we were filled up and ready to go. God bless Jack! As we drove off in the limo, I caught a glimpse of the gas station owner from the rear window. He was still bowing, scraping and genuflecting like a wound-up mechanical toy.

  New Haven was close to Stratford, so one day Ray Massey drove me up to meet Noël Coward (godfather to Ray’s son Daniel), who was rehearsing Tammy in Look After Lulu. Ray introduced me to the fabled Master, who at once made me feel I was a long-lost friend. “Your gal is going to be a star, dear boy; she has the same spark Gertie had when I first knew her.” He was referring, of course, to Gertrude Lawrence, whom he discovered and had groomed for her special place in history. It struck me at once how secure in himself Mr. Coward was, how he wore fame as comfortably and as elegantly as one of his familiar dressing gowns and how easily his generosity became him. I was instantly jealous of Tammy. I would gladly have changed places with her just to be around that sunny, witty “old pro.” I thanked Ray for thinking of me—he was full of little kindnesses like that.

  There is no question that even the smallest disasters invariably bring people closer together. In that funny, sad, soggy summer of ’55, we became a tight little family and I have nothing but the warmest memories of them all. My regret is that I never again performed with Fritz Weaver, one of America’s finest, nor with Jerry Stiller, that jolly good fellow and expert comic. I am forever grateful for the lifelong friendships I was lucky enough to have made with Raymond Massey and, of course, that wise and witty imp—dear Roderick “Max” McDowall.

  I magnanimously forgave the season everything. After all, let’s face it, it had been pretty good to me. Cheers to Armina and Lawrence Langner and good Ol’ Ray for thinking of me—I owed them a lot. I even forgave my northern friends. The same press that had praised them were now praising me—the hatchet was buried. Basking in the tiny pinpoint spot of temporary glory, I must have seemed utterly obnoxious; but I was sure having the time of my life. My Mark Antony oration was the top spot on the Ed Sullivan show—I was getting attention from all quarters—offers of work as well as “play.” Female companionship was hardly wanting; even a couple of Ty Power’s ex-courtesans turned up to pay their respects (for this relief, much thanks!), and now that the summer was over and Stratford-on-the-Gin-’n’-Tonic was no longer a festival but just a good old-fashioned drink, I was free once more.

  The Langners, founders of the Theatre Guild and for a while my stage parents

  Two tempting engagements beckoned from the horizon: José Ferrer’s Cyrano de Bergerac for television in which I would play Christian opposite the beauteous Claire Bloom, and for Broadway The Lark, Anouilh’s play about Joan of Arc, which was to star Julie Harris (I would be cast as the rugged, romantic Earl of Warwick)—neither exactly chopped liver! For an old man of twenty-five, my career wasn’t doing too badly. All at once everything seemed to fall into place when, quite by accident—my number came up.

  There on the front table of my digs sat the fatal envelope. My heart in my mouth, my hands trembling, I tore it open. Had I dreamed it once? Perhaps once, but I’d put it aside. Now in the glaring light of day—here it was, staring me in the face. It seemed the United States Army could not carry on any longer without my services. The Korean occupational forces would tarry no more. Can you imagine my bile? A peacetime army at that! There wasn’t even a proper bloody war going on! Yes, you guessed it—I’d been drafted! My second in the sun was eclipsed. I was on my way to the scaffold.

  GOVERNORS ISLAND is not in the least exotic. It is not a winter playground for the rich. It is what it is—a cold, forbidding island just offshore from Gotham’s concrete city somewhere between two other such unpreposing islands—Rikers and gloomy Ellis. During my detention, it felt more like Alcatraz!

  All draftees with recorded previous illnesses were bundled off there to be checked on—examined. We would be classified A1 or 4F. I was banking heavily on 4F. Ever since I’d received the initial call-up, jolt or kick in the arse, whatever, I’d been frantically analyzing my status which was quite simply—“Situation Intolerable.” Even though I was not a citizen but a mere resident “alien” (I love that term), in other circumstances I would have served the country with a clear sense of duty and adventure. I was no conchee—not on your Nelly! But a peacetime army with nothing in it for me but six long years of boredom and disillusionment was to waste my precious youth—literally finish me off! Besides, I was only one year under the cutoff age. What a catastrophe—I had to get out of it somehow.

  Then I remembered I’d had hepatitis, and hepatitis then was a definite no-no in the army. I’d been supposedly cured of it but the disease still stays in the blood, and its symptoms can, with a little effort and the proper neglect, be drastically revived. So I had put down my shameful confession on the medical form and proceeded with profound dedication and deep commitment to enjoy a monthlong binge. José Ferrer had promised to wait at least a few weeks more. I had warned my nearest and dearest ones that I wouldn’t see them again for a long stretch; that I had something of great importance to attend to—I bade them a tearful farewell, and turning my face toward Soho, I left for the Crusades. Malt, plonk, pocheen, vodka and brandy were my only companions—my only sustenance. “If that doesn’t stir up the liver, poison the blood, discolor the urine, bring back the yellow jaundice,” I said to myself, “then I’m a Chinaman!”

  I had just come out of the showers where, the past couple of repulsive days, I had spent a good part of the time in the buff—rubbing buttocks with at least a hundred other such naked, smelly youths. We’d been told to line up. There we stood, our wet, shiny bodies shivering in the cold, waiting for some uncouth military goon to squeeze our testicles till we winced and then screech in our ears the only word he knew in the English language: “Cough.”

  Now it was time for the blood tests. “Git ya head down between ya legs,” growled another animal who began blindly jabbing me with a needle so old, dirty and blunt it refused to penetrate. This jabbing continued repeatedly—my veins and arteries by now black, blue and swollen, till the good soldier Sweik at last found some he hadn’t yet mutilated, and with several brutal final thrusts made his triumphant connection. I just about collapsed in an unconscious heap at his feet.

  Now the long wait. Climbing into my shroud that resembled death-camp prison gear, I sat myself down in a sort of solarium and began to read the only book I managed to smuggle in—Budd Schulberg’s latest hit, ironically titled The Disenchanted. Now and then I would look up and through filthy, smeared windows catch a glimpse of the distant Statue of Liberty. “Liberty?” I thought—“that’s a laugh.” Every young punk around me seemed happy as a clam—probably the happiest they’d ever been in their lives. They couldn’t wait to be accepted by the army! They couldn’t wait to be shipped forth
with to sultry, glamorous Korea! Poor and unschooled, they had at last a purpose to their lives, whereas mine had just been taken away. So eager were they to be soldiers they were already practicing forming fours, doing drills, marching goose-step fashion up and down the halls, playing war games and generally behaving like little gangsters. I overheard one say, as he nearly knocked me off my chair, “Who’s the old guy?” Jesus! I guess he was right. I was old. I was a decrepit twenty-five and they were all an obnoxious seventeen or eighteen—and these were to be the majority of the inspiring young comrades with whom I would be forced to keep company for six long years! What a suicidal thought!

  I began to hallucinate. I fantasized that the beauteous Claire Bloom (whom I had never met) was at this very moment languishing in some sad, empty hotel room, all alone with her embroidery, pining after me, waiting breathlessly for my return. I had just reached the point in Schulberg’s book where F. Scott Fitzgerald, alias Manley Halliday, is suffering from delirium tremens when the little posse arrived and told me to get dressed. “Where are you taking me?” I stammered as they one-armed me down the long Kafka-like corridors. “Ouda-here,” they snarled, and I realized I was on my way back to Manhattan, back to my four walls in the Hudson where I was to await my fate. I turned the key in the door of my “suite” and was just about to open the window and throw myself out when the phone rang. A dry, disgruntled voice at the other end told me in the manner of one who is dismissing a leper that I was 4F. Yeee-aow! It had worked! My liver had destructed! I waited till I’d caught my breath and then feverishly dialed a number: Mr. F-F-F-Ferrer?” I stuttered. I’m f-f-fine, I’m f-f-f-four F, and I’m f-f-f-Free!”