(My Travels with) Agnes Moorehead – The Lavender Lady (4 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

THE PHANTOM ACTING SCHOOL

I arrived at Sutro’s the following Saturday promptly at 9 A.M. with a pen and brand—new loose-leaf notebook. There were fifteen or twenty students in the class. The number never exceeded twenty. They were mostly young and evenly distributed between the sexes I remembered looking at them and vaguely thinking that some of the people were kind of scruffy and it bothered me a little. It has always bothered me, in general, through life to be close to or associated with unkempt people. There were two or three girls who were starched and lacy and coiffed and a couple of guys like me. But the rest were scruffy, tacky, unfortunately like most actors are. You might say very Bohemian. They were real, but at the time, despite my brief blow-up in Ohio, I was still basically a ‘goody two-shoes”. And then, for someone like Agnes, who apparently wanted everybody to be nice and kissy-poo, it struck me that there were a lot of people who just didn’t fit in. Agnes would constantly say, “I just love beautiful people. I love clean people.” In fact, that made me more dumbfounded than ever because she had some of the worst derelicts ever assembled. Many of them were her pets.

This was my first day. I was anticipating her arrival so fiercely and, when she came, she had such magnetism about her, a magic that you wouldn’t care if everyone was dressed from New York’s Bowery. Every session with her, every lecture she gave was a performance and she did it with great gusto. Medea was up there and she was captivating. She was grand and eloquent with her flashing blue eyes and repertoire of vocal nuances and theatrical gestures. She was a great actress and you just didn’t think about the dirty guy next to you till after you heard the same things over and over and were just a little bored. That first morning, and I remember it well, I couldn’t be bothered from boredom or anything like it. I sat there as intrigued as a little kid his first day of school. “I’M ACTUALLY IN AGNES MOOREHEAD’S SCHOOL!” Agnes wasn’t there yet. She would be an hour late. She always had a thousand things to do and the distribution of time wasn’t easy. There was a fine actor, Leon Charles, who often substituted as her acting coach when Agnes was absent or late and it was he who opened the class this morning. Of course, he was very reverent of Miss Moorehead. In his lecture he promoted her with, “Miss Moorehead this, and Miss Moorehead that.” He quoted her. It was always very formal in that sense. He constantly said things. “She’s fabulous, she’s great and she’s the most wonderful woman.” And he perpetuated everything she presented with subtlety, sometimes telling stories about her, something she was doing, or had done or said. At this point, I was hinging on every word.

He spoke about her for an hour and then there were questions. “Is she going to do this for us?” “Is she going to do that for us?” “Is she going to put us in a showcase at the end of this year for all the heads of the studios?’ “Will she get us jobs?” “Is she going to give us screen tests?” “Can she bring in Marcel Marceau (with whom she had studied) for the pantomime class?” Everyone wanted Marcel Marceau and it was apparent to me that Agnes had promised he would come and take over some of the classes just as she promised all the other things that students were seeking reassurance of. As it is customary in the industry, actors and actresses, and would—be actors and actresses, need constant propping up and they have to be told their favorite fairy tales over and over. Most of those have them getting fabulous parts in fabulous pictures. Then it was apparent that most of us were like children, even more jaded ones. We hung to promises like a coat hangs to a coat rack.

Finally, at ten o’clock, the great Agnes Moorehead made her grand entrance and the chatter in the room broke into silence. “Hello,” she asserted in a strict, effective voice. She looked us over haughtily but with the intermittent familiarity of a school marm as if to say, “Have you been good little children?” She wore another version of lavender or shocking pink. She wore some variation of lavender always and usually a suit. Meanwhile, Kathy, who had chauffeured her to the school as usual, took her place at the back of the class and smiled at Agnes as she sat down. Kathy ambitiously handled the money, collecting $25.00 a week from each student and handing out any books or Xeroxed lectures or notes or whatever was necessary. She was the business end. On the other hand, Agnes carried on with great flare on the small stage. Agnes, in an imperious manner, without explanation, took the stage and announced as number one item on the agenda, “I won’t be here next week.” Then, instead of explaining why, she told us who she as going to have substitute for her. There were several muffled moans of disappointment. In fact, one was mine. She was aware of it. I thought, “Oh gee, she has this school that she talked about everywhere. Why would she not show up?” Somebody had nerve enough to get up and say, “Why won’t you be here Miss Moorehead?” It didn’t get them anywhere. She merely said, “I have to be away.” She said it airily and it brought no argument. Before I could really question it, which I didn’t want to do anyway, I found myself caught up in what she was saying next.

Agnes never talked in anything but a stentorian tongue and she announced, “Mr. Lane will be coming next week. For anyone of you who doesn’t know, he is the head of the make-up department at Columbia Pictures. Now, “she instructed us, fastidious but forceful, “I want you here on time and don’t be unprepared. Be prepared. Don’t be silly. Don’t ask silly, idiotic, ridiculous questions. You’re older and you should know a lot better. Be prepared and, by all means, be enthusiastic.” She suggested, “Think about it for a few days. Focus on it and find out what you want to know about the theatre. Understand?” Everyone understood. Everyone nodded intelligently. We went on to ask her intelligent questions. I remember I was part of it but I don’t remember what I asked her. I was filled with a tremendous feeling of wanting to please her and I wondered if other students felt the same way. I was actually working for her approval. She answered me when I asked questions but she was distant, objective, and cold and I was hurt. I was forty years old, an executive, husband, father and I sat there just like a little boy who is trying to act grown up. It was like with my mother. I wanted her to notice me. And this grand, domineering, creative, flamboyant, positive counterpoint of my mother had the same effect on me. She fit the part perfectly and hardly noticed me. However, she said things so unimportant in an important way and occasionally quoted from various plays and books and she seemed to be all-knowing. I was mesmerized by her, excited. There were so many words of wisdom. I felt anointed, as if I were in a religious experience. I was in her presence.

After her first announcement and instructions, she said, “You want to be in the theatre? Do you know what the theatre’s all about? You’ve got to be a drudge.” I found out later that it was her favorite word and I loved it. “You’ve got to be a drudge before you can become a genius. To be a good actor, one must have a constant urge to work, unceasing, unrelenting work. You have to love to act and love to be on that stage. You can never let up a minute. If you do, you’re dead. She was a fabulous figure standing there with her chin jutting forward. She fixed us with her snapping blue eyes and railed at us as if we were a bunch of three-year-olds. And she shouted, “drudge, constantly, constantly. A good actor must be constantly learning, constantly studying, and constantly working even when he’s not making any money. A dedicated actor will constantly do this.” She talked in rhythm. She repeated words. She repeated themes. Next would be the same material but presented always with variations, always expanded in a number of different ways. She was fascinating. “The trouble with young actors today is that they’re not dedicated. They’re not willing to work, drudge! They think, ‘Oh, I know this now and I don’t have to keep learning it.’ No.” Her face took on a stern expression. Her eyes glittered something like the blue sapphire she wore on her finger. “Today’s young actors are self-indulgent, and self-satisfied, followed by permissive education. You lack discipline. You want everything doled out to you but you can’t swallow acting skills in a capsule. Success as an actor is 99% work and the other 1% is the way your particular spirit does your hard work.”

It seemed like she could talk on and on and it was always interesting. “How can you continue to be interesting if you stop growing?” she commanded in astonishment. “What will you work with? What will you druff on? You druff from every experience in life you have ever had. Anything that I have ever learned in the University or in life I have used in the theatre. It’s like a writer. Your books are the entire content of you, of what you’ve seen, heard and learned.” Then she said something that I never quite figured out. “Talent is cheap.” Then she leaned forward, drawing her wrinkled face into a witch’s snarling, sardonic smile. “Talent is cheap, but not prevalent.”

In “Bewitched”, she told us, she arose at 5 A.M., was ready for make-up at 6 A.M., started shooting at 8:30 A.M. and worked until 7:30 P.M., read her lines for the next day, and then popped off to bed. “And you must do this day after day, week after week. I work all the time. I’m always working, even when I don’t lack money. An actor never stops learning. I believe in excellence. Otherwise, why bother? Most men buck the ballet (a school included in addition to the scenes and lectures classes, pantomime, fencing, musical comedy, camera and film technique).” She went on. “But you must learn all the tools of your career. If you don’t want to,” and an imperial dash of the wrist dismissed all such deadbeats, “you can find a less-demanding school. When I came to Hollywood with Orson Welles”, and her voice grew stronger, “I impeccably taught myself all the skills of my trade, including how to ride English, Western and sidesaddle. Next season, incidentally, “she added, “horseback riding will be added to our curriculum.”

The students were enraptured by her. They popped questions. There were interchanges. They asked, she answered quickly, back and forth. She went on, “When I was with the Mercury Players, we did thousands and thousands of radio plays, sometimes six a day. When we weren’t doing radio, we were doing stage and when we weren’t doing stage, we were doing radio.” She informed us in cadence, ‘But we were always working. I lecture in schools around the country now and they sometimes ask who discovered me.” Scorn saturated her voice. “No one discovered me, “she snarled. And I believed her. “I was never discovered. I just climbed and climbed and climbed until I made it and that’s true for anyone in this great country of ours. If you have the talent and you want it badly enough, you can make it if you work. That is if you work. Remember, drudge, drudge.”

Oh how she relished talking about herself and her work. I’m sure she would have run the school free of charge if she could have. I loved every moment of it. It was my mother again. All my mother ever knew was work. I’ve a therapist now who’s working on the mother aspect of myself, so I tied into the “drudge” right away and I just loved it because my mother just said, basically, “Do it or I’ll knock you on your ass.” But Agnes was giving explanations and they made sense. “There’s no time for social life in this business and what time you have you must rest to keep up your energy and your health.” Her arm rose in the proclamation and an accusation. “Acting takes the energy of an Amazon and yet you must be willing and able to do this and not fall by the wayside.” Her arm fell and her voice turned more matter-of-fact though that simple, riveting intensity was lightning as always beneath her every word. “There were 350 students in my class at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, “she related. “Only two of us are still in the business, myself and Rosalind Russell. The rest fell by the wayside.” She paused for effect. Then a sentence between her pause, “They wouldn’t starve.”

A rumbling growl shook her throat. She’d tend to get a little heavy-handed. I couldn’t take my eyes off her and, believe me; every student in the room had their eyes fixed on her. “It’s a terribly discouraging business, a sorrowful business, a critical business,” she went on, more mellow. “You’re up there and the people can take the skin off you bit by bit and enjoy it. If you get anywhere in it, there’s a strange kind of human tendency to tear you down. I don’t know what it is. I really don’t know what it is. Pictures,” she reflected, “pictures. I’ve been at least thirty-five years on the road. If they get four pictures, they print the worst. Tell me, why do they do that?” Sometimes I thought she was talking more to herself than to the class. “I don’t know what the psychology of it is. I think I’m going to ask an analyst.’ She didn’t believe in analysis which I found out later to my pain. “If they take pictures of the President, the ones they use make him look like an ogre.” She distorted her mouth ogre-ishly. Everyone laughed. She laughed with us. It was wonderful. It was like watching a great show that was worth anything for the price of admission.

The only way to fight it is to keep on developing and maturing and being sincere in your work and just go right on whether audiences or critics are taking your scalp or not. We live in a cruel world and you must have the courage of a colonel on a firing line and the hide of an alligator. My father taught me to have courage and a fighting spirit and I am grateful to him for that.”

This strong, staunch spirit of Agnes Moorehead was very attractive to men and women despite the fact that she was no beauty and her figure was nothing to write home about. Women, especially, were drawn to her. She had a certain quality of strength that they could lean on and there were often rumors that famous actresses cared for her more than it appeared on the surface. Whether that is true or not, I don’t know. I’m inclined to believe that all the amorous part of any relationship she had with women was not from her side but from the other side. However, I never was behind closed doors with her and other big stars.