by Jerry Pinto
‘You are an actress,’ said the round little man. The tight-lipped woman continued to look tight-lipped.
This was not the first time I had been told who I was or would be. Mulk Raj Anand, who was also a friend of my father, had told me that I would be an actress. I remember being a bit appalled at the thought. It seemed like a limiting definition when there was so much that I thought I could be. But the round little man had an engaging way with him and I was older so I explained that I was not an actress. I added that I had done some amateur theatre at school in Geneva, but he simply shrugged.
‘You are an actress,’ he repeated.
That was when Ingrid suddenly saw fit to introduce all of us.
‘This is Leela from India,’ she said. ‘And this is Jean Renoir and his wife Dido.’
This was the Renoir whom the hot heads of the New Wave cinema acknowledged as the maestro. This was the Renoir who had come to India to make The River, a film I had seen and loved, the film on which Satyajit Ray had assisted Renoir and come into contact with the practice of Neo-realism.
Renoir was working on a play with Bergman, a French version of Robert Anderson’s Tea and Sympathy. a retrospective of his films had been organised by the Cinémathèque de Paris and he insisted I come with him and his wife, Dido, the imposing woman who had until then sat looking at me without any expression. She turned out to be a warm and wonderful person who took me under her wing a bit.
Dr Samoil’s treatment consisted of injections of hormones from live chickens and a strict diet. I was allowed only watercress, cheese and Ryvita crackers. I didn’t really mind too much although it could get a little boring so I made up for it by getting myself a table by the window and watching the parade of life swinging by me in the dining room of the Hotel Meurice. Not that I was being unduly curious. Oh never mind, I was being unduly curious, but if you have ever lived for weeks on a certain limited diet, you will find that you need distraction too.
France is one of the few countries where they allow you to bring your pet into a restaurant with you. This meant that many of the ladies who lunched there, lunched with their pet pooches. Did they, I wonder, choose their dogs for the resemblance? Or did they simply grow to resemble the beings they loved most? For these ladies were devoted to their dogs. One would come in, every Thursday, and bring her dog with her. They would dine together and the dog would drink his soup out of a silver bowl. One day, Fido did not want his nice potage.
The woman went berserk. She called for the waiter. She demanded to see the manager. She ordered the chef into her presence. ‘My dog is not eating his soup,’ she shrieked. ‘Something must be wrong with it.’
The chef drew himself up to his full height. ‘Perhaps,’ he said with a huge dose of Gallic contempt, ‘perhaps it would be best for him to eat at some other establishment.’
A chill fell over the dining room. The woman swept out, her dog by her side. I thought Fido looked a little embarrassed. Whoever she was, the woman must have been accustomed to throwing her name around and getting things done. I could never bear that kind of person.
I must have been around thirteen at the time when I visited Eden Rock at Cap d’Antibes. It was an awfully elegant place, and it kept the hoi polloi out not just with its high gates but also by an almost indefinable air of privilege that it exuded. Perhaps it was because every one of the wait staff wore impeccable white gloves or because of the guest book which seemed like a roll call of the rich, the famous and the bejewelled.
Maman and I were there at the invitation of my ‘fairy queen’, the beautiful Princess Niloufer of Hyderabad, who had a lovely lazy voice and gorgeous red hair. She was married to the euphoniously named Mufakkam Jha. He once asked me to kiss him but even as a little girl, I was having none of that.
‘I have indigestion,’ I squeaked, ‘You will get it too.’ Under cover of the laughter, I made my escape.
At Eden Rock, they produced the Guest Book. ‘Perhaps her highness would like to sign it?’ The manager cooed.
Her highness? I noticed a naughty glint in the eye of Princess Niloufer. She had obviously told them that I was also royalty. So in my best copperplate, I inscribed a suitable remark and signed myself as Leela, the Princess of Kuchh-Nahin!
But I could see why the world was fascinated with royalty. When the King of Spain was having lunch at the restaurant of the Meurice, I watched with fascination as eight large rainbow trout were taken to the table. By then I was fairly well acquainted with the staff and so I allowed myself the luxury of a little vulgar curiosity.
‘Eight trout?’ I asked Monsieur Jacques, the maître d’, a stately presence.
‘He only eats the cheeks,’ he said.
It seemed a little wasteful, I thought, as I addressed myself once again to my watercress and hard cheese.
But it would have been all hard cheese for me, had I not been adopted by the Renoirs. He asked me to select a play so that we could read a scene together. I chose Anouilh’s La Sauvage, which dealt with Thérèse, a young gypsy girl who could play the violin beautifully. She falls in love with Florent, a rich young man, whom anouilh refers to as l’enfant doré, the golden young man. In the end, when she is about to be dressed to wed this man, she takes off the dress and walks away. It was this scene that I had chosen to read.
I arrived at his home right on time. I was let into the house by his housekeeper who told me to go into his study. A fire hissed in the fireplace and before it sat Jean Renoir and Paul Meurisse, an actor of the Comédie Française, whom I knew by reputation and by his work in Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques. I reminded myself that I knew nervousness was simply a waste of energy. I reminded myself that these were human beings like me. I reminded myself that I was only an amateur actress who was being given the unique opportunity to work with two of the great talents of French performing arts. I reminded myself of all that, but underneath it ran: Meurisse-Renoir, Renoir-Meurisse, Meurisse-Renoir.
The only thing to do then was to step into La Sauvage’s shoes and ignore Leela Naidu and her fear of failure. And so it began, a delightful reading of a single scene. For a while Meurisse read Florent, leading me beautifully, opening up spaces for me, allowing me to feel my way into the scene. Some actors want to diminish you; but the truly great ones are generous enough to enhance you. Meurisse was like that. He had to leave eventually for a rehearsal and Renoir and I continued. He led me through a series of exercises in what he described as the ‘ifness’ of the play. If Thérèse were only a competent violinist and not a superb one, how would she react? If Thérèse were not a gypsy but a middle-class girl, how would she react? What would her reasons be for leaving Florent then? What if her parents had behaved themselves? Each time, I modified my performance and each time I was pushed a little further in my understanding of acting. How would her body language change if she had been beaten by Florent? What if her leaving was an act of inverted snobbery? Let us introduce here, ma petite Leela, a note of hubris. Let us say, her walking away from Florent, through those French windows, is an act of the ego. Now, let us assume your set has no French windows. How does she leave?
It was exhausting and it was exhilarating but at the end of it, Renoir looked as if he were ready for more.
Then he said something that I have treasured all my life, wisdom from the master, as it were: ‘You do not need to go to any school for acting. Acting comes from within. You can work it all out from within, as long as you have enough within. Think it out on your own, but think it out from A to Z.’
As I left, he walked me out of the house. In the garden was his head in bronze.
‘Is that by your father?’ I asked.
‘Could I afford something my father had sculpted or painted?’ He laughed.
The next day, Renoir took me to meet his agents, Musical Corporation of America (MCA). He was clear in his instructions.
‘You must make a dossier for Leela,’ he said. This is not half as exciting as it sounds, since it only means a file. ‘She has thin sk
in so no heavy make-up when you take her photographs. It will also reflect light so no dramatic lighting. She must not be used as an exotic. She can do anything for the camera and the stage. But she cannot play a prostitute or a criminal or someone caught in the middle of a war. She is far too sensitive for that.’
They scribbled all of it down and I began to wonder what was happening. But Renoir left no time for that. ‘I refuse to be bored,’ he once said to me. It seemed to be his way of addressing life, with a wide-eyed wonder, a decision to be interested, to find something that would hold him.
As I said, Dido and he adopted me. We went to see his Paris retrospective, a veritable treasure trove of cinema, together. Renoir was not much of a party person, but he would consent to go out to dinner if he thought the people might amuse him. He only accepted dinner invitations if he thought he would not be bored by the company. At one dinner party thrown by M D’Assault, a very cultivated man, I was seated across the table from Maurice Chevalier who was in sparklingly good form. At some point, we were all taken to the pantry to see a much-prized mynah bird which M D’Assault assured us could read the Bible.
As we walked down a dark corridor, we could hear a very human voice shouting imprecations.
‘Idiot, fool,’ the voice shouted irritably. ‘Put on the light.’ As we turned the corner, the idiot who had obeyed this peremptory command was revealed. It was a Persian blue, a cat that is not known for its docility or its obedience. But this was we discovered a very special mynah bird, and it had a will to power.
Alberto Sardi, the Italian comic actor, tried to flatter it but in vain. His overtures were returned with a volley of abuse that a sailor would have been proud to claim for his own. One of the gorgeous and effete young men in Louis Quatorze outfits, who were serving us at table, one behind each guest, tried to quell it by covering it with a red velvet drape. The mynah was having none of that and began to abuse again. Like Goethe, it wanted more light. Finally, we returned to our table and I found myself talking to Louise de Vilmorin who had some very perceptive remarks to make about India.
Rossellini had also provided me with a letter of introduction to the Cahiers du Cinema. I went to their office and almost at once, I was chatting to François Truffaut. The letter did its work and on the days that I was not with Renoir and Dido, I was going to see great films, and the films of James Dean. (For some reason, the French were obsessed with his films. But then it seems that they have an inability to deal with America and its popular culture in any sensible manner; witness their love of James Hadley Chase!) After the film, we would go to a café and discuss it. I would listen to Truffaut protesting the use of artificial lighting or Jean-Luc Godard analysing a shot.
One late evening, we were driving back across le Pont des Beaux Arts in a taxi. The air was thick with the smoke of several conversations and Gauloises going simultaneously. As we crossed the river, I heard a cry, ‘Au secours, au secours.’
I stopped the cab and we all spilt out on to the bridge. There in the murky water of the Seine was an enormous woman. Neither Godard nor Truffaut could swim but we had two other energetic young men with us. Despite the bitter winter night, they stripped and jumped in. We rushed off to get an ambulance and finally, the woman was dragged ashore. She was obviously very drunk. As soon as the water had been pumped out of her lungs, she looked around and realised that she had quite an audience. Truffaut and Godard were looking down at her bemused. Then there were her rescuers who were being given shots of brandy and were huddling in blankets. Along with the ambulance attendants and a couple of stragglers, it was quite a respectable audience and the diva in her rose to the surface again.
‘Oh, let me die,’ she moaned. ‘Why did you not let me die?’
This was more than her rescuers, shivering in the cold, could bear. ‘Shut up,’ said one of them. ‘Or we will throw you back in.’ She shut up and we went home.
I could not think of any way of repaying Renoir for all that he had done for me so I settled for a gesture. I planned a meal at the Hotel Meurice. I did not think myself sufficiently entertaining and so I planned to invite Ingrid Bergman and Truffaut and Goddard as well. Le grand chef, summoned by Monsieur Jacques, was unimpressed by their names but M Renoir? It was a name to reckon with. M le Chef was thrown into paroxysms of delight at the thought of being challenged to please such a demanding palate. M le Chef knew that M Renoir was a gourmet and he, himself—M le Chef—knew exactly what M Renoir liked. He was not one of those American idiots who insisted on lobster with café au lait. For M Renoir, l’homard, oui, mais à l’Armoricaine with the finest asparagus and artichoke hearts and salads. There would be crêpes Suzette flambé for dessert and with it, white wine and champagne.
Should you ever have lunch with such a guest-list, go up to your room and make notes as soon as it is over. The bon mots you think you will remember for the rest of your life will pass into oblivion. The elegant repartee will fade. The heady badinage will be lost in the millions of other trivial words you will hear. You will kick yourself if you don’t make notes.
Excuse me while I kick myself.
Ingrid was blessed with a rather peculiar sense of humour. By this time Rossellini was already in the middle of his Indian affair with Sonali Dasgupta. The Parisian press was abuzz with rumours about this and suddenly, I was in their midst, a young Indian woman …
And so Ingrid invited me to lunch at Maxim’s. She seemed to be sure we would be photographed and so we were. (After all, she was an International star.) The next morning, I appeared in the papers, at Maxim’s, under the name of Sonali Dasgupta.
Ingrid rang me up with her signature deep chuckle. “They are such fools,’ she said but there was a savage edge to her voice.
On the day of the premiere of Tea and Sympathy, Renoir called at the Hotel. I had not assumed that I would be invited to it but I was thrilled. ‘Wear a sari,’ said Renoir, so I got out a Benares silk sari and the rani haar or queen’s necklace that Bikki—my husband Tikki’s brother—had given me.
Taking jewellery to a foreign country was a nightmare in those days. This necklace was three strands of pearls with diamond and emerald clasps and a diamond and emerald pendant. There were diamond and emerald earrings to go with it and a bracelet, a river of green emeralds. It was all very expensive; besides the value of the stones, it was said to have belonged to some queen or the other. No doubt I had been told but I am no good at these details. So you had to get a description put on your passport and it had to be stamped when you were leaving the country and it had to be stamped again on your return or else you could be hanged by your toes for seven months and seven days for smuggling. Or something like that. (I know you’re wondering why I’m telling you all this. Hang on.)
The play was magical as I had expected. As I rose to my feet to applaud, every woman’s nightmare happened. The fat man who was sitting next to me stepped on my sari and the pleats came undone. He was appalled of course and started grabbing metres of the delicate silk and started pushing them in the general direction of my petticoat. Then he realised what he was doing and let it all go.
Renoir was grinning in the way men do when something happens that cannot happen to them. I sat down and did my pleats again and tried to pretend that nothing had happened.
But it was not over. On the way back, I had to return the jewellery to the concierge’s care. I thought it best that all of it go back into the Hotel safe. When I was handing the necklace over to the concierge who went by the delectable name of M Gateau, the strings broke and suddenly pearls were rolling all over the lobby floor.
We were both on our hands and knees, when a flunky appeared with a message for the concierge. ‘M Cartier est arrivé,’ he said.
And it was Cartier, jeweller to the world, standing there. From my position on the floor, I looked at him with interest. I did not have very far to look. He was Cartier and to put it politely, he was not very tall. But at that moment, he belied his stature. It was probably his company that had
matched the pearls for the necklace and now he responded with superb French good manners. He sat me down in a corner, bustled everyone about and supervised the gathering of the pearls. Then he turned to me. ‘With your permission Madame, I would like to take these back with me and restring them with double knots.’
He was M Cartier so I agreed. The next day, another young man in black and white livery arrived with a green and white box in which lay my necklace. There was no bill. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Parisian concierge will know the ways of the world. I found M Gateau in the lobby.
‘I have not been sent a bill, M Gateau,’ I said. From the corner of my eye, I could see a man with beady eyes and pointed moustaches, peering intently at me from the questionable shelter of a potted palm. Nothing, I thought to myself, is going to ever hide you from people if you insist on waxing your moustache into the shape of the handlebars of a bicycle.
M Gateau smiled paternally. There is nothing a Parisian concierge enjoys as much as explaining the world to those who do not know it as well. ‘I do not think there will be a charge for you.’
So I simply sent M Cartier a card with my thanks.
After I returned, stoked with poultry juice, I found that my regular table had been changed around.
‘M Jacques,’ I asked, ‘why has my table been shifted?’
‘Oh Madame,’ he said, ‘I really cannot tell you.’
My besetting sin has always been diffidence so I simply accepted that he could not tell me and settled down again at my table. Then I found myself looking straight at the beady-eyed man with the magnificent moustaches and a rather striking woman who was eyeing me with disfavour. He seemed to be sketching me.
I began to grow uncomfortable for there is nothing so ridiculous as trying to pretend one does not know that one is being sketched. If one holds still, it seems as if one is giving permission. If one doesn’t, it seems rude.
