About five months into the run, I began to notice that, though I would commence the show in fine voice, about two-thirds of the way through the evening, my vocal quality would weaken. A few weeks later, my voice would last for perhaps half the show before again losing strength and sounding fainter. After a few more weeks, my vocal strength lasted a mere quarter of the way through the show. It was puzzling and worrying; I had never experienced anything like it before.
Rex was having vocal problems as well, and at one point had to be out of the show for a few days.
Though I was in trouble myself, I could not be off at the same time as Rex. Audiences would have been appalled if two leads were absent. Anytime a prominent cast member is out, the rest of the company assumes the burden and the balance shifts.
Rex’s standby, an actor called Tom Helmore, was brought in. He had been preparing the role of Higgins, but he’d never actually worked with the principals, so he rehearsed with us all day Tuesday before going on that evening and then all morning Wednesday before the two shows.
Somehow we made it through Tuesday night, though neither Tom nor I was doing well in the vocal department.
During the matinee the next day, Helmore lost his voice. It descended into his boots, until he became incomprehensible. He had been drilled and pushed too hard, and his overstressed vocal cords simply folded on him.
By the evening’s performance, he could only manage a whisper. He confided to me backstage, “It’s funny, I feel so much better!” I think he was referring to his ability to play the role. Nevertheless, I could not hear him and neither could the audience. Their astonishment was palpable. Patrons began to drift out of the theater.
I was pulling everything I knew out of the hat to keep the show going. I replied to everything that Tom said in such a way that the audience understood what he had said to me.
I arrived at the song “Just You Wait,” and my voice was by now so fatigued that when I reached the middle of the song—“…one day I’ll be famous…”—a sound came out of my throat like nails scraping on a blackboard. I thought, “Oh my God, I am in terrible trouble.” I could still speak, thank heavens, and “Just You Wait” is a song that, in a pinch, can be talked instead of sung…so I did just that.
The scenes that follow are a montage of Eliza working with Higgins on her speech lessons. There are several blackouts in this sequence to suggest the passage of time, but they were not long enough for me to get offstage to alert management of my dilemma. Poor Tom Helmore couldn’t be heard at all, I could not sing, and still we had “The Rain in Spain” to do and I had “I Could Have Danced All Night” immediately after that. I knew without a shadow of doubt that I would not be able to manage it.
During each brief blackout, I sent word via members of the company.
“Tell Biff that I have also lost my voice! Please ask him to do something. I will not be able to sing ‘I Could Have Danced All Night.’ Tell him to trust me.”
They dutifully did so. I received no response, and the show wove inexorably through the lessons montage. In every blackout as we regrouped, I kept saying, “Did Biff hear me?”
“Yes, he heard you.”
“Well, please tell him to believe me!”
Still no response.
I talked my way through “The Rain in Spain,” thinking, “In one minute I’m going to be as mortified as I have ever been in my whole life.” I didn’t have the guts to stand before the audience and say, “I am so sorry. I, too, have lost my voice.” With a lifetime of discipline and training, I just couldn’t stop a show, break character, and talk to the audience without management’s permission, and I knew I could not perform “I Could Have Danced All Night” as a talk-song. It is purely melodic with a big, high finish.
Tom Helmore, Cooter, and I sank onto the couch as “The Rain in Spain” ended, and I thought, “This is it. This is the worst moment of my life.”
Suddenly, miraculously, Biff and Jerry Adler appeared on either side of the stage, walking the huge front curtains to a close.
“That’s it, folks,” Biff said to us. “We are shutting down for the night.” He slipped through the curtains and addressed the audience, explaining that, as they were obviously aware, Mr. Helmore was having vocal difficulties. Refunds or exchanges would be processed.
Biff told me later that he had heard my vocal dilemma and had received my messages, but that protocol required him to dash to the front of the theater and ask the house manager’s permission to phone Herman Levin, our producer, and get his permission to shut down the show. Hence, the agonizing delay.
I went back to my dressing room and leaned against the door, feeling as if the hand of God had come down and plucked me from a fate worse than death in the nick of time. No one was around. It was the middle of the evening, still quite light outside, and no other shows had let out yet. The theater was eerily silent.
The following morning, the press simply mentioned poor Tom Helmore and the fact that he had a very bad cold. There was not one mention of my vocal troubles. Amazingly, Tom went on again for the next few nights, and with some decent sleep, I, too, recovered enough to manage three or four more performances until Rex returned, though I was out of my mind with worry. Finally, I took time off and my understudy went on.
I went to see various specialists.
One doctor told me there was nothing wrong with my throat. “It’s a little pink, but that’s all. You’re fine.”
I asked him, “Then how come I can only sing for a quarter of the show before my voice weakens?”
“Well,” he replied, “the cords are a little tired, but they’re not red, they’re just pink. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”
Another doctor—one recommended by Alan Lerner—gave me a complete physical, then suggested that perhaps my problem was sexual. “Are you and Tony having physical relations? Maybe you shouldn’t kiss or hug or overstimulate each other for a while.”
No point in continuing to see that medical genius!
Eventually I saw a dear man called Dr. Rexford, an Austrian, old-school, knowledgeable throat specialist. He took one look at my cords and said, “No wonder you’re having problems. You have acute vocal fatigue. If, for instance, you hop on one leg for the longest time, it will eventually weaken. You rest it overnight and it might be a little better, but hop on it again the next day and it will become weaker sooner. That is what has been happening to your cords.”
Dr. Rexford prescribed ten days of rest, and at that very moment, my father came to visit. It was difficult for me, because I hoped to give him a wonderful time, but I had to rest and remain silent. I was a basket case of anxiety, nerves, and tension, knowing that so much of the show rested on my shoulders. I knew I had to return to performing as soon as possible, and that I still had more than a year to go before completing my contract.
Dad immediately assumed that what I needed was country air. His solution was to take me to Central Park, rent a skiff, and row me around the lake talking quietly to me all the while. I remember looking at him with affection, thinking, “Dad, you’re a darling, but I don’t think this is really going to do it for me.” But it was dear of him. He tried so hard to bring me back to nature and its soothing, healing qualities.
I began to visit Dr. Rexford every Saturday morning. He would check my vocal cords, pulling my tongue out so far that I became expert at relaxing my muscles and I seldom gagged at the mirror that was halfway down my throat. He always gave me a vitamin shot—B-12 and B-Complex—which was painful since he insisted on keeping his old needles and resterilizing them, rendering them horribly blunt. He would then sit at his piano and make me vocalize with him. He employed an awful falsetto voice, demonstrating what he wanted from me vocally, but he knew his craft.
The instinct, when one is in self-preservation mode, is to grab the cords and make a harsher, harder sound. If in fact you do not rub them together abrasively, but let them relax and use a good deal of breathy air as the sound comes through,
it can stand you in good stead.
I hyperventilated so much trying to follow his advice that I nearly passed out onstage once or twice, but I learned some invaluable techniques for getting through a show: as much humidifying steam as possible in my apartment and my dressing room, no alcohol, no ice, vocal rest, of course—and NO talking on the telephone, especially first thing upon waking.
Midweek was always the hardest time for me. To this day, I still think of Wednesdays as “Black Wednesdays.” I would be in the theater early to prepare for the matinee. After the performance I would nap in my dressing room—always making sure that my upper half was propped up against pillows, as the blood rushes to vocal cords and thickens them if you lie flat, especially after having used them. I would then eat a light meal and get ready for the second show. I would not leave the theater until midnight or after. I barely saw daylight on a Wednesday.
Doing two heavy shows on one day can slam you down in terms of fatigue. I would gradually pull myself back up for the Thursday evening performance, and by Friday night would feel a little better. Saturday arrived and with another two shows I would be flattened once again. I could relax on Sunday, but by Monday evening we started the process anew.
At the bottom of 51st Street, the New York docks are situated on the Hudson River, and the Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth Cunard liners departed for England around noon on a Wednesday. I would be in my dressing room, applying my makeup for the first show of the day, and I would hear the great ship’s horn as the tugboats guided one or the other out to sea. The sound always made me feel sad. The liners represented freedom and home, and I longed to be aboard and sailing away in the fresh sea air.
I started seeing Dr. Rexford on Wednesday mornings as well.
REX, TOO, FELT the strain of eight performances a week. He also became a little bored. To keep himself amused, he would do mischievous things.
We’d be doing the lessons montage, and he’d suddenly pull down a trombone that was on the wall and blow it in my ear. I’d jump out of my skin, though he always made it seem as though it was part of the action.
Later I’d ask, “What did you do that for?”
“They wouldn’t have put it there if they hadn’t wanted me to use it.”
Or he would take up the box Brownie camera that was set decoration and ad-lib, “Hold it!” and pretend to take a photograph of me.
Cooter did a fair bit of ad-libbing, too, upping one or two lines to three or four, then five or six. He could bluster on forever, and backstage we would raise eyebrows and say, “Oh Cootie,” as he “milked” a monologue for several minutes.
For some reason, about three months after we opened, I started to get the giggles onstage. I have no idea what actually sponsored this appalling lack of discipline, but I could not help myself. When this occurred, Rex would look at me in total surprise, his eyebrows raised high, and from sheer nerves, I giggled all the more. I’m ashamed to admit that at times it got so bad I could barely speak my lines. If I didn’t look at Rex, I managed pretty well, but he was so unpredictable with his expressions and the things he might do, that the minute I got onstage with him, the slightest thing would set me off. I can only guess at the extent to which my nerves were frayed. Was Rex setting me up? Did he sense my awe and fear of him? Did I sense his irritation with me? Who knows!
I prayed in my dressing room before the show, “Please God, don’t let me be such a wimp. I do not wish to giggle.” It took me about six weeks to get over that idiotic phase.
“THE RAIN IN SPAIN” was a high point in My Fair Lady. Eliza has finally spoken flawlessly, and there is great excitement. Higgins picks up a cloak, Pickering pretends to be a bull and charges the cloak, then Higgins swirls Eliza in his arms for a mad tango, at the end of which they all fall back onto the couch with laughter. At this moment applause usually stopped the show, and there was time for a brief sotto voce exchange between Rex, Coote, and me.
One night we had a particularly unresponsive benefit audience. Rex murmured quietly, “Bunch of twats.”
I’d never heard the word “twat” before, and assumed it meant “twit” or “fool.” I echoed him gaily, “Yes. Twats, twats, twats! You’re absolutely right.”
The two men looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
Later I asked Tony about it and he tactfully said, “No, no, darling, that’s not the same word at all…,” and he explained.
Not long into the run, I became aware that Rex had a rather windy stomach. I expected that much of his balletic “dancing” stemmed from attempts to clench through gaseous moments.
One night his timing was impeccable.
In the penultimate scene of the show, Eliza runs away to Higgins’s mother’s house. Higgins barges in and confronts Eliza, and she launches into a long speech about the difference between a lady and a guttersnipe; i.e., it is not how she behaves but how she is treated. All Rex had to do at this point was pace up and down at the back of the scene. He didn’t have to say a word.
On this particular evening, as I finished my speech, Rex released a veritable machine-gun volley of pent-up wind. Members of the orchestra heard it—every musician looked up to the stage in bewilderment; even the first few rows of the audience heard it. There was a shocked silence, and at that precise moment Cathleen Nesbitt, as Mrs. Higgins, had the line “Henry, dear, please don’t grind your teeth.”
It was outrageously funny. The orchestra roared with laughter. I could not look at Rex, and every single line I uttered in the scene after that had a double meaning.
HIGGINS: Eliza, you ungrateful wretch, you talk about me as if I were a motor bus.
ELIZA: So you are a motor bus; all bounce and go and no consideration for anyone!
By now Rex had a devilish look on his face. Cathleen was trying to disguise her mirth, and as usual, I was a basket case of giggles.
Eliza’s song “Without You” follows this dialogue, and I could see the lyrics coming at me before I sang them: “No, my reverberating friend, you are not the beginning and the end!”
I took so many pauses in that scene trying to contain myself that the show ran over by about ten minutes.
I found myself punching Rex during the curtain calls.
“How could you do such a thing?”
He pulled at his tie and straightened it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I was always a windy boy—even when I was young.”
Another night Rex lost one of his capped teeth. I was suddenly faced with this gap-toothed actor, trying to work the object into the side of his mouth for later retrieval.
It’s very hard to keep a straight face when things like that are going on.
There is a moment in the show when Eliza hurls Higgins’s slippers at him. I have never been able to hurl anything. I don’t have the appropriate flick of the wrist or the elbow or whatever it takes. If I try to throw a tennis ball, I somehow manage to end up on my backside. So the slippers would hit Rex on the head, or smack him on his bum, or worse, they’d disappear completely into the horn of the megaphone that was part of the scenery—all of which Rex used to full advantage. He would turn and look at me with total outrage—especially if I hit him on the head—and the giggles would rise in my throat all over again.
I learned to sing and perform through every kind of difficulty: rain, shine, air-conditioning breakdown, leading man having problems, my having a sore throat, giggles, headaches, disasters backstage.
Alan Lerner once said that a long run in one very good role is probably better training for an actor than performing repertory week after week. One can really hone one’s craft and find out what works, what doesn’t, and why.
THIRTY-FIVE
IN OCTOBER OF that first year of My Fair Lady, I celebrated my twenty-first birthday. Charlie Tucker flew over for it, as did my mother and also my girlfriend Susan Barker.
Charlie hosted an after-theater birthday supper upstairs at the famous 21 Club. Lou Wilson was there, and Rex and Kay, “Cooter,” and Cathleen. Stanley and his
wife were invited, of course, as it was his birthday, too.
There was a large U-shaped table so that we all sat facing each other. I was next to my mother. It was her second visit to the States, and for some reason, she was in a foul mood. I do not know what caused it. She certainly drank a lot that night, and single-handedly, she made my twenty-first birthday an absolute misery. All through supper she scowled and barely spoke. It was embarrassing and sad to see her so disturbed.
Trying to engage her in conversation, I whispered, “Doesn’t Cathleen look beautiful tonight?”
“Yes,” she replied in an icy tone, “and she’s such a lady, with such good manners,” implying that I had none.
When we finally returned to the Hotel Park Chambers, Tony felt moved to say something. As he said good night, he added, “Please, Barbara, try not to hurt Julie any more.”
It was the first time I had ever heard him speak to her that way. It was a brave thing to do because he was not in her good books—nobody was.
As she and Charlie were preparing to depart for Britain, he said, “Julie, your contract with me has expired. I’d like to renew it.”
I was miserable that my mother was leaving with so much unresolved. I knew she was probably miserable, too. I replied, absently, “That’s fine.”
“No need to look at it. It’s the same as it’s always been,” he said. “Just sign.”
Later, when I went over the document with Lou Wilson, I discovered that Charlie had raised his already large commission by a considerable amount. Lou was appalled, and I felt betrayed. I had signed the paper, so the damage was done, but unfortunately that incident changed forever the tenor of Charlie’s and my relationship.
After they departed, Tony and I settled into a quieter way of life. Technically, he wasn’t allowed to work since he had to wait to take the United Scenic Artists of America exam in order to join the union, and that exam was offered just once a year. He began looking for a job anyway.
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