Hollywood (3 page)

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll think of something. Let’s just hope he doesn’t call.”

I went to see Abe Lastfogel, told him my plan. He thought my chances of getting to direct the picture were infinitesimal, but worth a try.

“I could call Jack Warner,” he said, “or Hal Wallis, but I know what they’d say. No, I think this ought to start somewhere else, not in the front office. Let me find out who’s connected with the picture, the preparation of the picture. You know Cagney, don’t you?”

“I’ve met him a few times, yes. In New York, with Phil Loeb.”

“That would be a good bet,” said Abe. “If Cagney would have you.”

“Well, I don’t mind asking. I mean, after all, I
do
know the material.”

“Yes,” said Abe, “you’ve got a point there. Let me see what I can do.”

Later in the day, he phoned to say that Steve Trilling was the first man to see. Trilling was then the principal assistant to Jack Warner, and greatly respected by him. Abe believed that if I could convince Trilling, Trilling could convince Warner.

Abe set up a date. He and I met Trilling for lunch at the Beverly Brown Derby. Abe thought it a more prudent move than going out to the studio, where we might be seen and where news of the meeting might get back to Goldwyn. At the Derby it might be strictly social.

Steve Trilling turned out to be an amiable and receptive young man. I made my pitch. He saw the advantages in my scheme, but candidly pointed out the disadvantages.

“Let me say this right now,” said Trilling. “There’s no question in my mind that you could make a contribution to this thing. I called George Abbott in New York yesterday, and he gave us a good report on you. He said you knew the property as well as anyone.”

“You called Mr. Abbott?” I said, somehow encouraged by this information.

“Yes,” said Trilling, “I’m very thorough. I’m sure I could get you onto the picture doing something. Would you like to play your original part? You weren’t bad.”

“Well, as they say,” I said, “I wasn’t
supposed
to be.”

No laugh. Trilling was all business. “Would you?
That
I think I could swing.”

“Jesus, no,” I said, “I’m finished with all that.”

“I can’t really promise you dialogue director, because we’ve got so many contract ones of our own, and we’d run into a studio mess. Actually, it might be easier to get you the
picture
than
that
job.”

“That’s fine with me,” I said.

“I’m going to think about this—I mean seriously,” he said.

“I’ll come over and direct some tests,” I said. “For nothing. How would that be?”

“No, no,” said Trilling. “We have test directors for that.”

I could see I was being forced into the top spot.

There were further meetings, one with J. L. Warner himself. A rough-talking, vital man who loved to laugh.

When it began to appear that a deal of some kind might indeed be made, Abe decided to broach the subject to Mr. Goldwyn.

We went in to see him.

“I’m very busy today,” said Goldwyn, as we came through the door.

“This won’t take a minute, Sam,” said Abe. “In fact, we won’t even sit down, how’s that?”

“That’s good,” said Goldwyn.

“What I want to ask you, Sam, is simply this. If anything came up somewhere for Gar, say like a chance to direct a picture, how would you feel about loaning him out? Naturally, I’d try to get you a good price, and Gar doesn’t expect any part of it. It would just be a loan-out. The idea is that it would be a start for him, he’d get some experience. Then, of course, he’d be back here with you.”

Even before Goldwyn responded, I could see it was a no go.

“God damn it!” he shouted. “You think that’s all I got to do is train people for other goddamn studios? Let ’em train their
own
goddamn people, not steal people from other studios. From me.” He looked at me and pointed a finger. “You take
my
money and then you want to go and work for them!”

“That isn’t it,” I said. “I want to see if I can direct a picture.”

“You want to see? You don’t
have
to see. I’ll tell you right now you
can’t
direct a picture. How can you direct a picture? You never
directed
a picture.”

“Don’t get excited, Sam,” said Abe.

“Don’t tell me not to get excited!” Goldwyn shouted. “I’m in my own office, in my own studio, and if I want to get excited, I can get excited. Here’s a kid comes out here, a nobody, takes my money, and then he wants to go someplace else.”

“I’d still be under contract to you, Mr. Goldwyn, for another six and a half years.”

“What makes you think I’m going to
want
you around here for another six and a half years if you’re going to be such a pain in the ass?” he asked.

Abe and I looked at each other. It was not going well.

“I’m beginning to not to like you,” said Goldwyn. “You’ve got something going somewhere, that’s why you bring up the subject.”

“Of course I have,” I said. “I didn’t mean to keep anything from you.”

I told him what it was.

“That play is no damn good,” he said.

“You’re dead wrong. I know it line by line, and it’s one of the best American comedies ever written.”

“For the theatre!” yelled Goldwyn, and brought his fist down hard on his desk top.

“For the
theatre
! But all that making fun on Hollywood in that play, how can that be a picture? Listen, I got the Spewacks working for me here, but when I have them, I have them write something that’s good for pictures, not for the goddamn theatre.”

He was out of control now, completely unreasonable. There was no point in going on with it. We left.

Three more meetings on the same subject were filled with increasingly bitter exchanges.

In between, I had gone to see Cagney. To my surprise, he remembered me. I outlined my plan, practically acted the whole play, performed the routines, explained how each laugh was achieved. “Would it be all right with you if they put me on the picture as director?”

“Certainly,” said Cagney, “just so long as you don’t tell me what to do.”

He laughed.

“I wouldn’t even come
near
you,” I said.

The
Boy Meets Girl
deal fell through, but by now I had begun to believe I was ready to direct. So virulent was my germ that Lastfogel became infected and actually got me an offer from RKO. I could scarcely believe it. I had, as yet, done nothing.

All that stood in the way was the Goldwyn contract.

“He
has
to let me out,” I said. “Doesn’t he? I mean, what good am I to him if I don’t want to be there? I can just horse around and do nothing. I don’t want to do it that way. I’d rather have it amicable.”

We went in to see Goldwyn again. I expressed my feelings. He looked hurt, and said, “Well, you’re not the first one who stole money from me.”

Abe was outraged.

“That’s a
hell
of a thing to say, Sam,” he said. “So I’ll tell you what. You give him his release, and we’ll give you back all the money you’ve paid him this last year.”

It was Goldwyn’s turn to be outraged. “You think I need the money?” shouted Goldwyn. “
F’Chrissake!
It’s the
principle
. Of the thing. I wouldn’t take a penny from you
or
from him. It would be from you anyway because what has
he
got? Nothing. And I’ll tell you something else. He’s
never
going to have anything. He’s got a little talent, but he doesn’t know how to use it. Bothering me, day in and day out—he wants to be a director, f’Chrissake, when I was giving him all this opportunity.” He turned to me. “Listen, you don’t want to be around here? Nobody’s going to put you on a ball and a chain. You want a release? I’ll
give
you a release.”

“Thank you, Mr. Goldwyn,” I said, and extended my hand before he could change his mind.

He looked at my hand, significantly, and did not take it. I shrugged and left quickly.

When Abe did not emerge for half an hour, I began to worry. When he did come out, he looked stony, and motioned to me with his head to follow him. We walked down the hall, down the stairs, and went outside.

“It’s not good,” he said. “This is what he wants us to sign.”

He showed me the form of release, in which I agreed I would not accept employment from any other studio, without his permission, for the length of the contract. This meant that I could not work in films, in any capacity, for
six years
! My heart pounding, I strode
back to Goldwyn’s office with Abe following me all the way, imploring me not to go further with the subject today. But there are times when reason fails.

I burst into Goldwyn’s office and began yelling. Goldwyn yelled back.

Neither of us was making sense.

When we were both exhausted, I said to him, “All right,
keep
your release!” I crumpled it and threw it at him. “I’ll stay here. I’ll report every morning, and I’ll be here from nine to six, but you’ll never hear a word out of me, and you’ll regret you’re putting anybody through this. Slavery. That’s what it is.”

“Slavery,” said Goldwyn. “You’re
some slave
. If you
were
a slave of mine, you know what I’d do? I’d
sell
you!”

I left. The next day Goldwyn gave me an unconditional release. That was on a Saturday. On Monday, I reported to work at RKO.

Seven months later, my first picture,
A Man to Remember
, was having a success. It was a small, inexpensive film, but, unlike the usual run of B pictures, did not insult the intelligence.

I was at last an accepted member of the Hollywood film community.

When Willie Wyler, who I had known at Goldwyn’s, took a new wife—a girl named Margaret Tallichet—he invited me to the wedding. Talli was a Southern beauty who had been one of the discoveries of the highly publicized nationwide search for a Scarlett O’Hara. She came out and made a test. She did not get the part but she did get Willie Wyler.

At the reception, I was standing at the bar with a glass of champagne in my hand when I saw Samuel Goldwyn coming toward me.

I had neither seen him nor spoken to him for almost a year. He seemed to be smiling, although with him, it was not always easy to tell. He stopped and stood looking at me.

“Hello, Mr. Goldwyn,” I said. “How are you?”

“You dirty little bastard,” he replied. “You dirty, double-crossing little son of a bitch.”

He smiled. I did not.

“Why do you say that, Mr. Goldwyn?”

He laughed. “Because that’s what you are. A little double-crossing bastard.” He put his hand on my shoulder in the most avuncular way and said gently, “Why didn’t you ever
tell
me you wanted to be a director?”

He clapped me on the back, too hard, spilling some of my champagne and said, “Call me up. Come over to lunch. I want to talk to you.”

He was gone.

I sought out Willie Wyler and told him what had happened. “How do you explain it?” I asked.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Willie. “He believes with all his heart that you spent a year at his studio and never mentioned the subject of directing. He believes it because he
has
to. He’s convinced himself that’s the truth, because—don’t you see?—if he admits to anybody or to himself that there you were, under contract to him, begging him every minute for a chance to direct, with him turning you down, then you go out and become a successful director for another studio, he’s made a blunder. He’s used bad judgment, so rather than admit this, he convinces himself you never mentioned it. That’s his
mentality. I think it may be one of the main reasons for his success. To himself, he’s never wrong. He’s a god. Not a bad thing to be, especially if you live on earth.”

“What makes you think he lives on earth?” I asked.

In his long day, John Barrymore was considered by many to be the greatest American actor ever.

If, indeed, heredity is a factor in the mysterious art of acting, his credentials were impeccable. The Barrymores were the Royal Family of the American theatre.

John, usually called Jack, was the spoiled baby of the Barrymore family. His brother, Lionel, and his sister, Ethel, were more or less in charge of him after the death of their mother at an early age.

In addition to his talent, he was blessed with rare good looks. The word “beautiful” describes him better than the word “handsome.” He was known as The Great Profile.

He was magnetic, hypnotic.

He was one of the few Barrymores who at first firmly resisted the theatre. It might have been out of fear that he would not be able to live up to expectations, or perhaps he did not relish being compared with his illustrious relatives. Whatever the reason, he flatly refused, early on, to pursue a theatrical career. Instead, he turned to drawing and sketching and cartooning and for a time was thus employed by various metropolitan newspapers.

He wanted to be a journalist and did all he could to further this plan. Alas for his aspirations, the blood in his veins was actor’s blood and in time he was drawn, however reluctantly, to the boards.

It had to be. Members of his family and cronies soon became aware that he was giving better performances in saloons and drawing rooms than were to be seen generally on the stages of New York theatres.

He began to act professionally, but not in New York. He still objected to that, settling for touring companies in various parts of the country.

He made friends easily and young Edward Sheldon became one of his closest. For a time, they shared an apartment in Gramercy Park. Sheldon was a brilliant, wealthy, attractive, and talented Chicagoan who had written a play while still a Harvard undergraduate. It had been produced on Broadway with great success. Minnie Maddern Fiske in
Salvation Nell
by Edward Sheldon. Imagine it. A New York theatrical triumph starring America’s outstanding actress, written by a college boy of twenty-two.

Sheldon was different from his chum in almost every respect. Interested in education, he was sober, industrious, honest, respectable, and, above all, wildly ambitious, not for material gain but for artistic achievement.

It was Edward Sheldon who was responsible for the change in the direction of John Barrymore’s career.

Barrymore was not easy to influence. He enjoyed the perverse pleasures of being the black sheep of a great family. He drank and caroused and womanized. When he worked, he worked superficially, using no more than the tip of his talent with that historic enemy of artistic progress—facility.

But despite his lack of drive, he was soon building a reputation as a charming, expert, sure-fire
farceur
who connected magically with audiences from the moment of every entrance. All great actors possess a sixth, perhaps even a seventh, sense. They are able to convey to an audience what they are thinking and feeling no matter what words they happen to be speaking. Conversely, they are able to judge accurately the temper and the reactive power of the audience from moment to moment. It is as though they can tell what the
audience
is thinking and feeling, and then adapt their performances to match it.

This quality makes great actors sensitive, often oversensitive, in real life as well. (If an actor can be said to have a real life.)

For example: John Barrymore, while at the peak of his motion-picture career, was married to the equally successful Dolores Costello. They lived beautifully and extravagantly in the hilltop home, or abroad, or on Barrymore’s famous yacht,
The
Infanta
.

Dolores Costello became pregnant. The event took on exaggerated importance, as in all royal families.

Barrymore had a young daughter, Diana, by his second wife—the poet Michael Strange (Blanche Oelrichs). In aristocracies, however, sons matter more.

Anxiously, Barrymore kept changing obstetricians for fear that he did not have the best, the very best man available to usher his first son into the world. Finally, he settled on Dr. John Vruwink, who was, by general agreement, the outstanding man in his field.

Barrymore was content at last. He was able to relax. Still, he insisted that Dr. Vruwink pay a daily call on Mrs. Barrymore to make certain that all was progressing as it should. The doctor objected, pointing out that a daily visit was hardly necessary, but Barrymore insisted with such passion that the doctor acquiesced. After all—John Barrymore. The relaxed situation was not to last long.

Barrymore returned from the studio one afternoon, went directly to his wife and found her chatting with Dr. Vruwink.

After a few pleasantries and a good report, Barrymore said, “Well, that’s capital. Simply capital. Were you just leaving, doctor?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Let me show you to the door.”

“No, no. That’s not necessary. Goodnight, Mrs. Barrymore. Don’t forget about that extra pint of buttermilk. Potassium.”

“I won’t,” she replied. “Thank you, doctor.”

At the front door, Barrymore and Dr. Vruwink shook hands.

“Well,” said the doctor, “everything’s fine.”

“Everything’s
too
fine,” said Barrymore, fixing him with a hard look.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Goodnight,” said Barrymore. “And
good-by
, you son of a bitch. Don’t come back. If I ever find you in this house again, I’ll break your goddamn jaw.”

The doctor regarded him quizzically. (A madman or simply a Barrymore?) He left quietly.

Back in the bedroom, Barrymore stretched out on the bed beside his wife, lit a cigarette, and said, “I fired the bastard. We’ll get someone else. Someone better.”

Dolores was understandably stunned.

“What are you saying?” she asked. “There
isn’t
anyone better. You told me yourself. After all that investigation and all that—” She rose and began to move about nervously. “Look here, Jack, I don’t understand this. Any of it. What happened?”

“I don’t want him around here,” said Barrymore calmly, “because he’s stuck on you and I don’t want anybody stuck on you touching you, especially the way this guy has to touch you. It’s over. He’s out.”

“I think
I
ought to have something to say about it,” Dolores insisted. “After all, I’m the one who—”

“Wait a minute,” Barrymore interrupted. “Let’s just wait one damned minute here.”

He rolled off the bed and moved toward his wife. Close to her, he looked deeply into her eyes and asked, “You don’t want him out?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because, Jack—look—be reasonable, for God’s sake. The baby’s due in seven or eight weeks. He’s the sixth man we’ve had. It’s very difficult. More difficult than you can imagine. All this change and readjustment. It’s nerve-racking. This isn’t easy, this experience. Please try to be understanding. And anyway, how can you think—imagine! For heaven’s sake, look at me! All puffed out and revolting, really. What could make you think—?”

“Jesus Christ,” said Barrymore, awestruck.

“What?”

“Jesus Christ!” he repeated. “Not only is
he
stuck on
you
but
you’re
stuck on
him
. The two of you. You’re stuck on each
other
!”

“Oh, Jack, for God’s sake, will you—?”

She might have said more, much more, had not Barrymore slapped her, hard. She staggered away and instinctively picked up the telephone.

“Who are you going to call?” he said, scornfully. “Him? Or the police? Or that googoo mother of yours?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and put down the phone.

Barrymore left. She went back to bed. He was in and out of the bedroom all through the rest of the evening and all through the night. He questioned her relentlessly, screamed at her. She screamed back. Later, they discussed the matter quietly. Later still, another row.

Toward dawn, both exhausted, they slept.

For the next few days, Barrymore avoided all contact with her. In fact, he spent several nights at the studio. Dr. Vruwink, a thoroughgoing professional, continued to make his calls. The subject of John Barrymore’s obsession did not come up again.

The baby was born. A girl. Dolores Ethel Mae.

It was not until two years later, on June 4, 1932, that John Barrymore’s dream of a son was realized. Dr. John Vruwink supervised the birth of John Barrymore, Jr., this time without incident. Before another two years passed, the marriage of John Barrymore and Dolores Costello exploded in violence and bitterness.

Immediately following the divorce, Dolores Costello married Dr. John Vruwink.

Barrymore told me the story late one night on location.

“How do you explain it?” I asked.

“Explain what? There’s nothing to it.”

“I mean to say, how did you know? When you first knew.”

“There was nothing to know,” he said. “There was nothing going on between them back then. Nothing at all.”

“But you said they were—I think the phrase you used was ‘stuck on each other.’ ”

“That’s right,” he said. “They were. Only
they
didn’t know it.
I
knew it.
I
knew it before
they
did.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” I insisted. “How
did
you know?”

He took a long, long puff on his cigarette, inhaled the smoke, exhaled it, and said, “I knew it because I am John Barrymore.”

My relationship with this remarkable man began near the beginning of my own career as a film director. I had made one small film called
A Man to Remember
.

I was immediately assigned to a run-of-the-mill nonsense, objected, was told to do it or else, chose to do it, and suffered through it.

As I was finishing the second picture, the first one opened and was a surprise critical success, gaining much attention. At this point the front office executives looked at it for the first time. They too pronounced themselves impressed. Thus, about a month after
A
Man to Remember
had been in national release, a preview was held, following which the film was rebooked into larger and more important theatres.

Pandro S. Berman, then the head of RKO, sent for me. I took the opportunity to blast my resentment of having been so cavalierly assigned to a nothing job.

Berman was entirely sympathetic and said, “Listen, I’m sorry but we’ll make it up to you.”

“How?” I asked. “How can you?”

“We’ll let you do any picture you want next. Anything on the lot that you can put together.”

As it happened, there was a picture on the lot that interested me greatly. It was a shelved project called
The Great Man Votes
.

A
Saturday Evening Post
short story by Gordon Malherbe Hillman had been adapted for the screen by John Twist, one of the best writers at the studio. John Ford had, for a time, been interested in this piquant story of American politics and his touch was apparent throughout the final screenplay.

The reason for its abandonment was unclear. Explanations varied greatly. Ford claimed they would not come up with a workable budget. Pandro Berman said that it was satire and quoted George S. Kaufman’s definition: “Satire is what closes Saturday night.” Cliff Reid, who, with John Ford, had made
The Informer
, said that it had been a question of casting. Whatever the reason, the script had been put away, along with hundreds of others, and seemed destined for oblivion.

John Twist was a studio pal, and one afternoon he dropped a copy of the manuscript off at my office. I read it and was instantly captivated by its whimsical, yet powerful premise: a once-promising, cultivated scholar, now a widower with two small children, lives and works as a night watchman in a forgotten precinct in lower Manhattan. Gerrymandering has reduced the voting population of this precinct to one and that one is the night watchman, Gregory Vance. In a hotly fought mayoralty election, the outcome depends upon this particular precinct and thus on this man. Life has kicked
him into obscurity, but he is all at once being wooed by both parties and is elevated to momentary greatness but then—a surprise ending.

One way to judge a script is to see if it comes to life as one reads. A script, after all, is not a play, nor is it a film, which, in time, will take place on the stage or a screen, or, more accurately, in the collective mind of the audience.

As I read
The Great Man Votes
, shots came into focus, sights and sounds, and shortly, visualizations of the various characters. To my eye, Gregory Vance was John Barrymore and John Barrymore was Gregory Vance. It was a piece of casting so obvious and yet so inspired that there was no second choice.

Taking Berman at his word, I went to him with the suggestion that he let me make
The Great Man Votes
. Of course, he refused, attempting to warn me off the subject, but I reminded him of his promise, and after a time he agreed, saying, “Okay. If—and it’s a big ‘if’—if you can cast it.”

“It’s all cast,” I said.

“Go ahead.”

“John Barrymore.”

“Nothing doing,” said Pan, in a way that made me fear it was final.

“Why not?” I asked.

“We don’t want him here.”

“You don’t want him here,” I repeated. “The greatest actor in America?”

“Was.”

“Could be again. In this part.”

“He’s not going to work on this lot,” said Pan. “He’s unreliable and irresponsible and impossible.”

“That’s all changed.”

“What makes you think so?”

“That’s all over, Pan. This new marriage of his. He’s all settled down. He wants to work. Let me do it, Pan. Trust me.”

“I couldn’t let you take the chance, kid. You’d be sticking your neck out. You might start it but you’d never finish it. Not with him.”

“I would, Pan. I’ll take the responsibility.”

“
You’ll
take the responsibility! Who the hell are
you
to take the responsibility? This picture could cost three, four hundred thousand dollars!” (A sizeable budget for those days.) “What if it goes down the drain? Will you send me your check for the amount?”