In the Company of Legends

by Joan Kramer

  There was only one catch: our timetable was in conflict with hers; she couldn’t come to the United States when we needed to film her. So it was agreed that we’d go to Switzerland.

  DH I had some mixed feelings about her hosting our program. In theory, she fit the bill perfectly, but I’d seen her in the role of host recently and, while she looked beautiful and elegant, to me she came across as somewhat cool and distant. I certainly didn’t want that feel for our show.

  The solution came out of a conversation that Joan had with Leonard Gershe. He wrote the screenplay for Funny Face, the only film that Audrey made with Astaire.

  Joan told him of my concern. He said, “The problem is that every time she agrees to appear on television, producers ask her to wear a formal gown. They’re trying to make her look even more elegant than she already is. And it’s a big mistake because she then feels she has to play the part of ‘super-elegant’ and it doesn’t work. She doesn’t need any help being elegant. My advice, for what it’s worth, is to get her to wear a pair of slacks and a shirt or a sweater, and let her sit on a chair or in the corner of a sofa with her feet curled up under her. That’s the Audrey I know. She loves to dress casually, and while the elegance is still there, she’s completely down-to-earth.”

  JK We flew to Switzerland and stayed at the Hotel de la Paix, overlooking Lake Geneva. It was early November, and cold, but beautiful. Our first order of business was to survey the suite at the Intercontinental Hotel, which our UNICEF contact, Christa Roth, had suggested we use as a location for filming.

  It was my first time in Geneva, so after the survey, we walked over a bridge and into the old town, where we had a snack at a small café. By then we were tired and chilled, so we returned to our hotel – I stopping briefly to buy, of course, some Swiss chocolates and a small cuckoo clock.

  The next morning, Audrey and Robert Wolders arrived at the Intercontinental in their own car and I met them in front of the hotel. She was wearing a red coat and slacks and no jewelry. She was as beautiful as I had expected her to be, and I felt comfortable with her immediately. I led her and Rob up to the suite where David and the crew were setting up.

  DH She had brought several shirts and sweaters from which to choose. One was a simple blue and white striped blouse. Another was a pale pink sweater, which I thought suited her perfectly.

  She said, “I was surprised and so happy that you want me to dress casually.”

  I thought, “Thank you, Leonard Gershe.”

  And I had decided to take the rest of his advice too. I asked her to sit in the corner of the sofa. And she instinctively curled her legs under her. She looked as though she could have been relaxing in her own home.

  Our art department had made a prop for the shoot: a fake book with the title, The Fred Astaire Songbook. Audrey held it in her lap and occasionally turned a page, as though reading it. After the program aired, we received many requests from viewers wanting to know where they could buy a copy.

  JK During our phone conversations, I had asked Robert Wolders what to order for Audrey’s lunch.

  He said, “She likes pasta, tomato juice, bananas and chocolate. Believe it or not, she loves to eat.” It certainly didn’t show, because she was even thinner in person than she appeared in photos and on film.

  Later in the afternoon, I asked her to sign about twenty copies of a lobby card for Funny Face. She willingly agreed, and inscribed each one personally. Then, to allow the ink to dry, she spread them out on the bed—and every other available surface in the bedroom. She pointed out that the lobby card shows her wearing a blue scarf when it was actually yellow in the film itself.

  Rob had gone out to a business meeting. When he returned, there were autographed lobby cards everywhere and no place to sit!

  DH The shoot was very smooth. We had sent Audrey the script ahead of time, so there were no problems—until the last page. It had her saying, “If perfection is what we strive for, then certainly he succeeded.” And ended with, “… I was the object of that perfection.” She had crossed out the entire last paragraph, because she objected to that final phrase, feeling that it sounded as though she was putting herself in Astaire’s league. I knew that the end of the program would be lame without it, but understood her concern. After a brief discussion we both agreed to a subtle but significant change in the final sentence. Now she says, “And for one brief moment, in our world of film fantasy, I was allowed to be a part of that perfection.” She delivered the line with understated emotion that provided a perfect coda.

  After the on-camera sequences, we set up for the voice-over recording. And that’s when we discovered her sense of humor. Realizing I was originally from Britain, she suggested that she do the narration with a Cockney accent, the way she spoke in My Fair Lady. And the first time I asked her to do another take, she said, “Willie Wyler; he thinks he’s Willie Wyler”—a reference to the director of her first film, Roman Holiday. Wyler was legendary for always wanting numerous takes.

  JK During one of our breaks, we had a conversation about her fan mail. She told me that most of it comes from women, requesting advice about fashion, makeup, etc. “And over the years, I’ve also received letters from people who were furious when I cut my hair in a film, such as in The Nun’s Story. And I also had a lot of people angry at me when it was announced that I’d play Eliza Doolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady. They accused me of stealing the part from Julie Andrews, who played the role on the stage. I was upset by those accusations, but the fact was that Julie Andrews hadn’t yet made a name for herself in the movies, and the producers weren’t going to give her the part even if I turned it down. It was a plum role, the script was terrific and so I accepted the offer. If I hadn’t, they’d have given someone else the part.”

  I then asked her about her work for UNICEF. “When you travel to third-world countries, do you take your own food and water?”

  She said, “UNICEF makes sure we have drinking water, but often there was not enough water for a bath.”

  I thought, “Here’s the meticulous, beautiful Audrey Hepburn. It’s hard to think of her not being able to bathe whenever she wants.”

  DH When we had finished, she and Rob asked us to spend the following day at her home in Tolochenaz, just outside Lausanne. Joan and I hated to turn down the invitation, but we had to catch a plane to return to New York, since our production schedule was very tight and we had a firm airdate.

  JK Even before we’d met her, Audrey had agreed to be the host of a series called Gardens of the World. It was scheduled to be broadcast around the same time as the premiere of our Fred Astaire Songbook3. So we spoke to the producers of the Gardens series, and our publicist and theirs agreed to cross-promote both shows. That meant that whenever she appeared on a program to talk about either one of them, she would try to mention the other. But we could hardly expect her to publicize ours without having seen it. So, once again, we broke our rule of not letting participants see a program before it airs, and sent a cassette to her in Switzerland.

  A few days later, David and I received a telegram:

  “Dearest Joan and David,

  Just saw your Fred Astaire Songbook and I cannot tell you how pleased and impressed I am. Congratulations to you all.

  Gratefully with love,

  Audrey.”

  JK and DH We saw her and Rob again the following year in New York when she was being honored by Cartier, and she made sure that we were invited. She seemed as happy to see us again as we were to see her. After that, we continued to stay in touch by phone.

  JK A side-story here: during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, news broadcasts were filled with statements by the Iraqi spokesman, Tariq Aziz, and we noticed that in some of them he was taped in the room at the Geneva Intercontinental Hotel that we had used for our shoot with Audrey. I called her to ask if she’d recognized it too. She said, “I’m so upset by the news, and how dare he sit in the exact same place that I sat…on our sofa?”

  JK and D
H In the fall of 1992, reports began to appear that she was ill. At first, everyone thought she had come down with a gastrointestinal infection after a UNICEF trip to Somalia. But as the months and weeks went by, the reports became more ominous.

  On January 20th, 1993, David and I were in our office, watching Bill Clinton’s Presidential Inauguration, when we heard a news bulletin that Audrey Hepburn had died. We felt as though we’d been punched in the stomach. And to this day, we can kick ourselves for not delaying our trip back from Switzerland so that we could have spent some time with her at her home.

  But we’re lucky to have known her and to have had the opportunity to work with her. And we’re still friends with Rob Wolders.

  David Heeley, Audrey Hepburn, and Joan Kramer.

  Geneva, Switzerland, 1990. Authors’ collection.

  Joan Kramer and Henry Fonda.

  Bel Air, CA, 1980. Authors’ collection.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Henry and Jane and Ted and Peter

  “Darling, why are you crying?” Ted Turner asked his fiancée, Jane Fonda. We were on the back patio of her house in Santa Monica, having lunch and discussing the final details of the next day’s shoot. It was for a program about her father, Henry Fonda, which we were producing for Ted’s network, TNT.

  JK and DH If you believe in Fate, you might say that our producing this program was pre-ordained. But Fate seldom chooses the easy route.

  We met Henry Fonda in 1980, not long after he’d finished what would be his last film, On Golden Pond, marking the first and only time he worked with Katharine Hepburn. We were making a profile of her for PBS and he’d agreed to be interviewed for it.

  His wife, Shirlee, didn’t want a film crew in their Bel Air home, so we set up outside near the pool. The background was a panoramic view of Los Angeles, which would have been breathtaking if it had not been for a residue of smog that smudged the famous city skyline.

  DH Fonda came out before we were quite ready. After shaking hands with him, I decided to read the list of about ten questions that Joan and I had prepared, thinking it would give him time to collect his thoughts. I began:

  “Mr. Fonda, when did you first meet Katharine Hepburn?” He was standing next to me with his head slightly bowed.

  “I really don’t have anything to say about that,” he said quietly.

  I didn’t expect that, but I pressed on.

  “Can you tell me if there is any difference in the way you each approached your roles in On Golden Pond?”

  “No. I don’t have any thoughts about that.”

  “What’s the first Hepburn film you saw?”

  “I have no idea.”

  JK I was about two feet away as this scene played out and even though it was a cool, brisk morning, I started to feel really hot. We were about to do an interview with a big star who had nothing to talk about.

  DH He listened patiently to all the questions, and sparked to none of them. I thought, “Why did he agree to this? He just worked with Hepburn and can’t think of anything to say? What are we doing here?”

  Henry Fonda and David Heeley prior to interview.

  Bel Air, CA, 1980. Authors’ collection.

  By then, the crew was ready and I asked him to sit in front of the camera while I sat alongside it, facing him and holding my list of useless questions.

  I realized that we might be wasting film, but since I had no other choice, I said, “Mr. Fonda, I’m going to ask you the same questions. Don’t worry if you can’t answer some of them, but let’s give it a try.” He nodded.

  “Can you tell me when you first met Katharine Hepburn?”

  There was a brief pause, which seemed like an eternity. Then suddenly the quiet, diffident man was transformed; in front of our camera was Henry Fonda, the actor.

  “Strangely, we had never met during the last forty-five years that we’ve both been here. I’d known Spencer, but I never had met Katharine. And she walked straight up to me and she said, ‘Well, it’s about time!’”

  His voice was strong, and he was full of energy. It was as though he’d suddenly had a shot of adrenaline.

  He had tears in his eyes when he recalled their first day of filming. Right before the cameras rolled she gave him Tracy’s favorite hat.

  “And I collapsed. This beautiful, crushable brown felt hat. I wore it in the first scene of the picture, and when we’d finished that scene, I gave it back to her, since I thought she meant for me to just use it as wardrobe. But she said, ‘No it’s yours. I want you to have it.’ And I have it.”

  JK When the interview was over, I asked if we could see the hat. He went into the house and a few minutes later came out carrying it. We propped it on the edge of a bench and shot footage and still photographs of it.

  Spencer Tracy’s hat.

  Bel Air, CA, 1980. Authors’ collection.

  JK and DH Soon after Starring Katharine Hepburn was broadcast in March, 1981, we received another of those phone calls from PBS: “So who are you going to do next?” At the top of our list was Henry Fonda. We wrote him a letter asking for his co-operation and he agreed. But we didn’t know that he was seriously ill. He had been nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in On Golden Pond, but was too weak to attend the ceremony. That evening, he won his only Oscar as Best Actor, and his daughter, Jane, accepted it on his behalf.

  DH On August 12th, 1982, I received another call from PBS, but this time it was to deliver bad news: they had decided to turn down our proposal. That afternoon came even more bad news: Henry Fonda had passed away. We felt as though he’d died twice on the same day.

  JK When a reasonable amount of time had passed, we wrote a letter to Jane, saying that since her father had agreed to a documentary, we’d still like to do one (perhaps for another network), and asked if she’d be the host. We received a reply signed by both her and Shirlee Fonda, Henry’s widow. In it, they explained that while they very much wanted a program done about him, it was important for the family to produce it themselves. They never did.

  Some eight years later, in 1990, we were on location in Atlanta co-producing the television movie, The Perfect Tribute, when our office in New York called to let us know that someone from TNT was trying to reach us.

  DH Ted Turner was then engaged to Jane and he suggested doing a program about her father. The network had already produced a number of movie star profiles, and we were pleased when they offered us the opportunity to do one about Henry Fonda. The fact is that by this time we had a track record for making this kind of show, working with big name stars, and winning a number of prestigious awards. Where the boss’s fiancée was concerned, TNT wanted to be on safe ground.

  Since Turner’s empire was based in Atlanta, Joan and I went to CNN Center there to meet one of the TNT executives. We were told that Jane and her brother, Peter, would co-host the program. We both felt that two hosts might be awkward, but we kept those thoughts to ourselves for the moment.

  JK and DH A few weeks later, TNT invited us to LA for meetings with Scott Sassa, the head of Turner Networks, and then with Jane Fonda. Sassa, himself, drove us in the company’s SUV to her Santa Monica office. Several other high-level colleagues of his came along too. When we arrived, she looked rather startled to see a large group of people walk in.

  She said, “Oh, I thought just Joan and David were coming.”

  For about an hour, we talked with her about her father, their relationship, his movies, etc. Sassa and the others sat in the room and listened, but had nothing to contribute to the conversation. The hour we spent there must have seemed like four hours to them. We could sense their discomfort at having no role to play. But they obviously felt they had to show up. Perhaps they also wanted to see how we and Jane would relate to each other.

  At some point, we said, “We’ve been told that you and your brother will host the program.”

  To our relief, she interrupted. “No. That would be rather clumsy. I’ll host it and I’ll ask Peter and our stepmoth
er, Shirlee, to co-operate.”

  We asked Jane if we could meet with her again after we’d done more research, and would have more specific questions.

  JK Peter was enthusiastic and touchingly candid when I called him at his home in Montana. He told me that he used to open his father’s dresser drawers to touch his pajamas, just to feel closer to him. He also said he was in the process of writing a book called Don’t Tell Dad, which years later was finally published. I came away from that conversation feeling that he was still a young boy in a man’s body, still looking for approval and love from his father. At the same time, I was flattered that he was willing to speak so intimately about their relationship.

  Shirlee Fonda was in New York when we first met her over lunch. She was polite, but a bit cool. We felt a reluctance on her part to commit to the project and we didn’t know why.

  Yet, by the end of the lunch, she said, “Let’s talk more when I get back to California.”

  DH Weeks later, Joan and I spent an entire day in the Fonda Bel Air home, where Shirlee still lives. She has an extensive collection of home movies, photographs, letters, etc., much of which was in the basement. So she and I made many trips up and down the stairs. We’d started in the early afternoon and were still there as the sun went down. We ordered pizza for dinner and didn’t leave until 11 pm. Early the next morning, she called and told us she hadn’t slept all night. She’d continued searching long after we’d left and asked us to come back to see if anything she’d found in the early hours of the morning would be useful.

  That’s when she admitted that this was very emotional for her. She hadn’t looked at any of these things since Henry had died over eight years earlier, and she apologized for appearing reserved at our initial meeting in New York. When she first heard from Jane about the production, she didn’t know if she could handle it. She’d given it a great deal of thought since then and decided she had to help in any way she could. As a result, the project was serving as a catharsis for her.