James Dean
Page 29
The difference in the quality of his third reading from that of the reading he had flubbed was amazing. Even Gordon admitted that Jimmy read the lines this time with deep understanding and perception. When it was over, Gordon told him, “the part is yours.”
Rehearsals were scheduled to begin on October 20th, 1952. Back at his apartment, he told Bast, “I’ve got it! I’ll dazzle Broadway! I’ll be a star at the age of twenty-one.”
Bast later confessed that he was jealous of Jimmy, since he, too, had wanted to be a bigtime actor until deciding that he had a better chance at writing scripts than performing in them.
Alec Wilder had been commissioned to compose See the Jaguar’s musical score, and he met with Jimmy to teach him the lyrics of his big musical number, “Green Briar, Blue Fire.”
“The kid was tone deaf. Imagine Jimmy auditioning for the role of Curly in Oklahoma! We rehearsed and rehearsed. He finally got it half right. But Frank Sinatra need not fear any competition.”
Wilder also wasn’t impressed when he saw Jimmy coming under the spell of Arthur Kennedy. [Arthur Kennedy had originally billed himself as “John Kennedy,” changing it after perceiving too many comparisons to the then-on-the-rise politician with the same name.]
A competent but average-looking actor, Kennedy’s career had been built on a widely diverse cluster of roles, some of them trivial and forgettable, that had included villainous portrayals in both Westerns and police dramas. Like Jimmy, he studied at Actors Studio.
His big film break had occurred when James Cagney discovered him and cast him as his younger brother in City for Conquest (1940). What especially impressed Jimmy was that he’d been in the original casts of some of Arthur Miller’s great Broadway dramas, most visibly as Biff Lomon in Death of a Salesman (1949). He’d gone on to play Chris Keller in Miller’s All My Sons (1947), and there was talk that Miller wanted him as a key player in his upcoming drama, The Crucible (1953).
The New York Film Critics had designated him as Best Actor for his role in Bright Victory (1951), in which he played a soldier facing an uncertain future after being blinded. That year, he was also nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, but lost to Humphrey Bogart’s performance in The African Queen.]
“I stood by and watched Jimmy hero-worship Kennedy and all that Method crap,” Wilder said. “Kennedy brainwashed Jimmy into believing that no one in the production was of any consequence except the actor. That simply is not true. What about the director and the playwright, not to mention the composer? I’ve always felt that this attitude instilled in Jimmy accounted to a great extent for his shocking behavior when he hit the big time in Hollywood.”
Arthur Kennedy, cast as a school teacher in See the Jaguar, talks with his pregnant partner (Constance Ford) about seventeen-year-old Willy Wilkins (James Dean), who has been locked up by his paranoid mother since childhood.
Kennedy had a very different impression of Jimmy. “I liked the kid a lot. He was uniquely talented. He didn’t suffer all the posturing, mannerisms, and mumbling of Brando. He delivered his lines pure and clear, and had one of the most sensitive faces of any young man in the theater. But I must add a caveat. He was the most peculiar actor I’ve ever worked with, and he tried to murder the director.”
For the most part, Jimmy took Gordon’s direction without protests. However, there was major disagreement over the interpretation of one scene that Jimmy was to perform with Kennedy. “Gordon insisted that Jimmy play the scene one way, but he protested that such an act would ruin his own interpretation of the role,” Kennedy said. “Things got out of hand. Finally, in disgust, Gordon called Jimmy ‘a little punk.’ That set Jimmy on fire.”
“He pulled out this knife he’d recently bought and lunged toward Gordon. I did something either dumb or smart. I positioned myself between them, thereby preventing Jimmy’s execution on the electric chair for murder. That was the smart thing I did. The stupid thing I did was that I might have had the knife plunged into my gut.”
Cast as Kennedy’s pregnant girlfriend, Bronx-born Constance Ford had little personal contact with Jimmy in See the Jaguar. Later, they’d co-star together in a teleplay with Ronald (then an actor) Reagan.
She was friendly with Kennedy, however, having previously appeared with him in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Later, she became known for her portrayal of Ada Hobson on the long-running daytime soap opera, Another World.
[As a fashion model during World War II, Ford’s image had been closely associated with a massive ad campaign by Elizabeth Arden hawking lipstick in a shade of scarlet marketed as “Victory Red.” All of the big-name female stars of World War II—Betty Grable, Lana Turner, and Veronica Lake—wore it. Even Tallulah Bankhead added to public perceptions of its desirability with public statements that included: “I wouldn’t walk out the door without a coat of it on, Dah-lings.”]
Jimmy shared a dressing room with Philip Pine, an actor who played “Hilltop,” a character with an obsessive lust for Kennedy’s pregnant girlfriend, as played by Ford. “Jimmy plastered the wall with bullfight posters,” Pine recalled. “I think he wanted to be a matador more than an actor.”
Eleven years older than Jimmy, the California-born Pine would develop a career that spanned seven decades in television and film. He was also a writer, director, and producer. He often appeared in TV Westerns, portraying legends who included Kit Carson.
He would forever remember Jimmy: “He was a real pain in the ass, a sentiment echoed by many other actors, including Rock Hudson, although Hudson may have meant that literally.”
“His lack of discipline created tension. Once, he thought the director was treating me like an adult and him like a kid. He believes only in himself and to hell with everybody else.”
In a sensitive scene with Arthur Kennedy (left), a barefoot James Dean, looking years younger than his actual age, gives a brilliant performance as a bewildered lad who, after years of being locked away, is coming upon both the beauty and brutality of the real world.
“In spite of my resentment, we became friends and often would go out drinking together and chat for hours—real personal stuff—about our hopes and dreams.”
“He didn’t have a good pair of shoes, so I arranged through Actors Equity to get him a new pair. We would rehearse a scene, and without any warning, he would play it completely different from the way we’d rehearsed. Even though he pissed me off, I had a soft spot for him. He was undisciplined. He didn’t have an understanding that a theater company needs to work together like a harmonious family. But I knew he was deeply insecure. Without saying a word—his face said it all—he seemed to be crying out, ‘Love me. Why won’t someone love me?’”
“Jimmy and I both knew hurt,” Pine said. “We grew up without fathers. We bonded over that. I wanted to let him know that an actor can use pain and hurt he’d suffered to enhance a performance.”
Released at last from his confinement, and on his own, coping with new realizations about the world and its inhabitants, the character interpreted by James Dean in See the Jaguar fights back.
“I knew Jimmy before he became a legend. I even replaced him in a role on Broadway. Yes, there was some envy and jealousy on my part, not uncommon among actors. God damn it, why didn’t Elia Kazan discover me instead of Jimmy?”
Tryouts had originally been slated for Boston, but blue nose city fathers, who were still censoring the art and entertainment industries back then [BANNED IN BOSTON! eventually became an activist slogan in the battle for weakening the grip of censorship in America.] read the script and rejected it as “indecent.” In reaction, Lemuel Ayers selected Hartford and Philadelphia as the sites for trial runs instead.
During its first performance in Hartford, because of technical difficulties, the curtain rose half an hour late. Jimmy upstaged Pine. He was supposed to be submissive when he is dragged offstage by Pine, but instead, he put up a fight and fiercely resisted. Furious, Pine managed to subdue him and somehow managed to drag him into the wings.
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Each of the local papers criticized Nash’s play, but gave special accolades to Jimmy. The Hartford Courant described his performance as “tender and touching.”
The trial run then moved on to Philadelphia, where it opened on November 8 at the Forrest Theatre. Pine recalled that Nash was up every night, hysterically rewriting the script, desperate to plug the “loopholes in my play.”
As in Hartford, the Philadelphia papers, despite his rewrites, were not kind to Nash. Once again, however, Jimmy was hailed for his stage debut. The Philadelphia Bulletin praised his “excellent character portrait” of the innocent kid, and his acting was also lauded by The Philadelphia Inquirer, its review suggesting that the theater had a new star shining.
Lem Ayers was a friend of Tennessee Williams, and he invited the playwright to Philadelphia to see his bound-for-Broadway discovery.
Later, Ayers threw a party for the cast and crew at Philadelphia’s Variety Club. A slightly drunken Tennessee arrived. The actor and the playwright would later develop a relationship, but, as Jimmy later reported, “On that night in Philly, Tennessee only flirted with me. Outrageously so.”
“Not since I first saw Brando as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire have I had such a thrilling night at the theater. I found your acting and male beauty startling,” Tennessee claimed.
Jimmy knew he was exaggerating, but he appreciated the flattery.
Tennessee gave him a card with his name and New York City address on it. He also threw out a tantalizing tidbit. “We have a mutual friend, David Swift. He’s invited both of us to his Christmas party.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Jimmy said.
“As soon as I get to New York, I’ll start working on a play that includes you as its star.”
“I’m sure you will,” Jimmy said. “You wouldn’t be trying to hoodwink a farm boy from Indiana, would you?”
“Me? Never!” Tennessee answered “Unlike a character I’m creating, Big Daddy, I have never believed in mendacity.”
“Until Christmas,” Jimmy said, kissing Tennessee on the lips.
“I hope you’re my present under the tree.”
***
See the Jaguar opened in December at the Cort Theater. Lemuel Ayers invited several friends, including Mildred Dunnock, the distinguished actress who was part of the Actors Studio. “I want you to get a look at James Dean,” he told her. “My new discovery. I think he’ll be sensational.”
[Dunnock, in the autumn of 1954, would be co-starring with Jimmy in a teleplay for CBS.]
Later, after sitting through See the Jaguar, she delivered her own review: “Poor Dean. He was trying to breathe reality into a heavy plot that was far too loaded with portentious symbolic references. It was an uphill struggle for him, but he tried valiantly to cope with the impossible lines. Nash should have been kicked in the pants. Dean could tell his lines weren’t real. They rang a false note. Something an enfant sauvage wouldn’t say. Even so, he brought some faux Method magic to this clunker.”
Nash, of course, had a very different view from that expressed by Dunnock: “Jimmy was the only one in the cast who truly caught the spirit of what I was trying to convey. He had from the beginning.”
After its opening on Broadway, the cast convened at Sardi’s to await the reviews in the morning papers. Jimmy invited Bast and Dizzy to the dinner party, assigning them to a table in a far corner. He didn’t spend much time with them.
To the jealous Bast, “Jimmy’s feet were never on the ground. Like Peter Pan, he flew from table to table, accepting congratulations from his adoring public. I truly felt he was on the road to stardom, even before the newspaper reviews arrived. There was adulation in the restaurant. Broadway had a new prince, or at least that was what Jimmy thought. Personally, I had my doubts. I thought the play stunk.”
At long last, the morning papers arrived, and Jimmy devoured the reviews. His acting received raves, but Nash’s playwrighting skills were attacked as “murky and at times, silly,” One described the play as pretentious, claiming that it “was a contrivance of jejune symbolism.”
Richard Watts, Jr., in The New York Post, claimed, “James Dean achieves the feat of making the childish young fugitive believable and not embarrassing.” Although praising Jimmy, the critic went on to define the play itself as “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
In The New York Herald Tribune, Walter Kerr wrote: “James Dean adds to an extraordinary performance in an almost impossible role.” One of the most sensitive comments was made by George Freedley in The Morning Telegraph: “James Dean acted the mentally retarded boy with sweetness and naïveté that made his torture singularly poignant.”
Actress Margaret Baker, who played Jimmy’s deranged mother, was also at Sardi’s that night. As regards the opening night of See the Jaguar, she pronounced it, “the nicest funeral I have ever attended.”
After those bad reviews, except for Jimmy’s performance, See the Jaguar played to dwindling audiences. Lemuel closed it after four more performances.
***
After Sardi’s, Jimmy invited Dizzy to the Royalton Hotel, where Lem had, as an opening night gift, offered him a single night’s lodging in a suite, complete with room service. Jimmy ordered dinner for the two of them, choosing a juicy big steak for himself.
Midway through the meal, the manager telephoned, suggesting that “the young lady will have to leave after her dinner. It is hotel policy. We have a house detective.”
When their meal had ended, he accompanied her out onto the sidewalk and hailed her a taxi. Then he kissed her goodbye.
She later claimed, “I knew our love affair was over.”
[Billing herself years later as “Elizabeth Sheridan,” she would go on greater glory, her face becoming known in thousands of homes across America when she played Jerry Seinfeld’s mother in the hit TV sitcom, Seinfeld, whose much-awarded 180 episodes were originally released between 1989 and 1998.]
The next morning, Jimmy returned to his shared apartment uptown to find Dizzy gone, but Bast was there. He packed his meager belongings and announced that he was moving out. He made a point of noting that he was going back to the Iroquois, where both of them had lived. “But this time, I’m renting only a single room. Like Greta Garbo, I want to be alone.”
Later, when Dizzy was apprised of the news, she wrote: “I knew that our romance no longer burned with the intensity we once felt. Our love had already moved into the comfortable stage, its brilliant colors gently diminishing like a rainbow too long in the sky.”
With Jimmy gone, Tina, Bast, and Dizzy could no longer afford their apartment, and each of them moved out to go their separate ways.
From the Iroquois, Jimmy called his agent, Jane Deacy, who was lining up teleplays for him. “Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world,” he said. “You’re all alone with your imagination, and that’s all you have.”
During the week that followed, he visited the apartment of Stanley Haggart, this time, alone. He told his older friend that he had been going through affairs with both men and women at an unprecedented rate. “I run a bed-and-breakfast,” he claimed. “In my bed at night, breakfast the next morning, and then adieu. In the last week, I’ve had at least ten conquests, six women and four men. All were my own age, often much younger. No more god damn aging producers and directors for me… unless.”
He didn’t complete his sentence.
When Haggart asked why he felt compelled to take on so many different sexual partners, Jimmy answered, “I’m a tumbling tumbleweed. My favorite song—in spite of the fact that that shithead, Roy Rogers, sings it—is ‘Don’t Fence Me In.’”
He also revealed that Deacy was getting lots of job offers for him. “MGM wants me to fly to Hollywood for a screen test. She turned them down. She wants me to become more seasoned, and she’s lining up more TV dramas for me. Frankly, I’m impatient to become a movie star, but before that, I want to study with the Actors Studio,” he said.
Although many new lovers loomed on his horizon, Jimmy rarely, if ever, lived with anyone again. “I want my lovers to pass through my life like ships in the night. Pardon the fucking cliché.”
***
To his aunt and uncle in Fairmount, Jimmy wrote about how proud he was to be a part of the Actors Studio—“and it’s free. Very few get in. It’s the best thing that can happen to an actor. I’m one of the youngest to belong. If I can keep up and nothing interferes with my progress, one of these days I might be able to contribute something to the world.”
On his first day at the studio, Jimmy met Frank Corsaro, who was to have an important impact on his life.
[A native New Yorker, born in the Bronx, Corsaro eventually became known as one of the country’s foremost stage directors of opera and television. One of his best-received and most famous productions was the original Broadway version of Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana (1961), starring Miss Bette Davis. In 1988, after a hugely successful career with the New York City Opera, and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, he was designated as Artistic Director of the Actors Studio.]
When Jimmy first became friends with Corsaro, he was known for his cultural background, his wit, and his keen intelligence. Jimmy found him intellectually stimulating, and Corsaro expanded his knowledge, introducing him to literature (especially the novels of Aldous Huxley) and the music of Arnold Schönberg and Johann Sebastian Bach.
According to Bast, “Jimmy fell completely under Corsaro’s influence. He was a slight little man, a bundle of nervous energy that kept him plugged into some electric current both night and day.”