Pink Triangle: The Feuds and Private Lives of Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and Famous Members of Their Entourages (Blood Moon's Babylon Series) (30 page)

When Laurette, as she herself had predicted, had died prematurely, Hayes signed to interpret the role of Amanda during
The Glass Menagerie’s
stint in London. John Gielgud signed on as its director, although, in Hayes’ view, he seemed contemptuous of American plays.

“All during rehearsals, Gielgud kept warning me that he doubted if
The Glass Menagerie
would find an audience in Britain. I had been told that he was given to throwing fits on opening night. He lived up to his billing. He became so hysterical I couldn’t understand what he was screaming about. I was told by Tennessee that homosexuals call a man like Gielgud ‘a queen.’”

Tennessee also gave a bad review to Gielgud. “He’s a
prima donna
, nervous and high-handed, rather snobbish. He surrounds himself with an entourage of middle-aged fags who still think they look young and pretty.”

But Tennessee kept his contempt for Gielgud concealed. Gielgud even gave an A-list party for Tennessee at the Savoy. Tennessee spent most of the night in gay chatter with Noël Coward.

He virtually ignored guests Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. “Had I known that Vivien would become in a few short years the greatest Blanche DuBois of them all
[in
A Streetcar Named Desire], I would have paid her more attention.”

“Gore was also in London and was invited to the party,” Tennessee said. “Gore told me later that Gielgud begged him to let him suck his dick.”

After Laurette Taylor’s “definitive Amanda,” Tennessee was disappointed in Hayes’ interpretation. “Helen told me my character was a nutbag. She was so diminutive, so sweet voiced, but could be a witch when crossed. I never cared for her in the movies or on the screen, even though she was hailed as ‘The First Lady of the American Theater.’ Give me Ethel Barrymore any day.”

To Tennessee, Hayes expressed her personal philosophy of life:

“I’ve always been concerned with the whole of life, not the fragments. I prefer the positive to the negative.”

“I’ve read a copy of your play,
Battle of Angels,”
she said, “Degeneracy has always been a part of life. But do we really need to dramatize it on the stage? Furthermore, I resent the promiscuity among actors. When I made
The White Sister
(1933) with Clark Gable, and
A Farewell to Arms
(1932) with Gary Cooper, both men propositioned me. I, of course, turned them down. “

He shocked her with his response: “If only Gable and Cooper had propositioned me, I would never have let either of them out of my bed.”

Before the
The Glass Menagerie’s
opening night in London’s West End, Tennessee, with Gore, fled to Paris, where they went carousing with the novelist, Carson McCullers. The evening before he was scheduled to take a train back to London, Tennessee, with Gore, picked up two hustlers near Place Pigalle. After a drunken orgy, Tennessee passed out and didn’t wake up until it was too late to reach his opening night in London.

However, his mother, Edwina Williams, and his brother, Dakin Williams, did show up for the premiere.

After the play, Edwina went backstage to congratulate Hayes. She introduced the star to her other son. “I want everybody to see that I have one son who is a gentleman.”

Based on her understanding that the role of Amanda had been inspired by Edwina, Hayes didn’t like Tennessee’s mother very much. “She was everything I disliked in an aging Southern Belle,” Hayes later said.

As predicted by Gielgud, British critics lacerated the play, although most of them praised the performance of Hayes. One headline was typical—“BAD PLAY WELL ACTED”

Years later, Hayes told Darwin Porter that she was much better in the role during her three-week run of
The Glass Menagerie
at New York City Center in 1956. “I forgot about Laurette’s interpretation of Amanda and made it my own.”

Even
The New York Times’
theater critic, Brooks Atkinson, liked it better. He’d panned the 1945 opening, but after Hayes’ performance eleven years later, he wrote that
The Glass Menagerie
was Tennessee’s finest achievement.

“He also said I was at the peak of my career,” Hayes said. “But I knew that once an actress hits her peak, there is nowhere to go but down. By 1960, both Tennessee and I had ‘peaked,’ so to speak. Our greatest years and theatrical achievements were behind us.”

A new saga in the very dysfunctional life of the Wingfield family began when Charles Feldman and Jerry Wald, as producers, set out to bring
The Glass Menagerie
to the screen. They envisioned it as a 1950 release directed by Irving Rapper.

Casting was a major issue. Tennessee rarely got his wish when it came to stars for screen adaptations of his plays. Originally, he’d wanted Teresa Wright for the role of Laura. “Her sad eyes and the aching vulnerability in her voice would make her ideal as Laura,” he told Feldman.

But by the time Tennessee reached Hollywood, he had changed his mind, telling Feldman, “Only Judy Garland can capture the poignancy of Laura.”

The producer had his own ideas. “I’m pitching the role of Amanda to Ethel Barrymore and the part of Laura to Jeanne Crain.”

Over the next few weeks, Feldman ran into roadblocks and kept calling Tennessee to announce changes in his vision for the cast. In the first of these, he announced, “I think Gene Tierney should play Laura, with Montgomery Clift in the role of The Gentleman Caller
.”
Tennessee at least liked the idea of Clift.

Two days later, Feldman called again with another change: “How about Marlon Brando as The Gentleman Caller, and Tallulah Bankhead as Amanda?”

“As much as I adore Tallulah, don’t you think she’s a bit strong to play a gentle Southern belle?”

Before Feldman called again, he’d spoken to Brando. “Marlon said he’ll never work with Tallulah again unless the Earth is attacked by Martians.”

[In 1947, Tallulah and Brando had starred together, with frequent outbursts of spleen, rage and fury, in the Jean Cocteau play
, The Eagle Has Two Heads
.]

A week later, Feldman called again. “I’ve come up with the best idea of all: Miriam Hopkins, that Savannah magnolia, as Amanda, with Ralph Meeker playing The Gentleman Caller. He’s less than lovable to work with, but brazenly masculine for the role.”

Although it had been pre-arranged that the film would be distributed by Warner Brothers, there were rumblings from Louis B. Mayer at MGM. He had called Audrey Wood, claiming he owned the rights to
The Glass Menagerie
because Tennessee, while on salary at MGM, “wrote the play on our dime. By giving this to Warner’s, he’s biting the hand that fed the little faggot. I’m finding it harder and harder to cast Greer Garson. But she’d be great as Amanda. I also resent Williams’ criticism of my judgment at MGM.”

[Tennessee had told the press that he had been dropped by MGM “in retaliation for my unwillingness to undertake another stupid assignment after I fucked up on
Marriage Is a Private Affair
for Lana Turner.”]

Mayer’s threat of a lawsuit did not materialize, and eventually, to his humiliation, he lived to see his own daughter, Irene Mayer Selznick, produce Tennessee’s second film,
A Streetcar Named Desire
, for Warner Brothers, not MGM.

Tennessee was surprised once again when Feldman called to tell him that he’d just signed the British star, Gertrude Lawrence, to play Amanda. Tennessee knew her as a singer, dancer, and musical comedy performer.
The Glass Menagerie
would be Lawrence’s only film in which she worked at an American studio with an otherwise all-American cast.

Since, contractually, Feldman had the power of casting, Tennessee relented, but nevertheless threw in a dig, “Is Lawrence bringing Daphne du Maurier to Hollywood with her?”

[Both Tennessee and Feldman knew that Lawrence and the world-famed novelist were lesbian lovers.]

When Tennessee actually met Lawrence, he was provocative: “In London, Noël Coward told me that he lost his virginity to you when he was just thirteen years old. According to Noël, the two of you did it on a train.”

“That story is absolutely true,” she answered. “I fear I scared off the boy from women for life.”

With some reluctance, Tennessee accepted a screenwriting credit with Peter Berneis, the play’s adapter.

Tennessee shuddered when he learned the details of the movie’s final casting. The role of Amanda went to Jane Wyman, the former Mrs. Ronald Reagan, who had won an Oscar as Best Actress for her portrait of a deaf-mute, Belinda MacDonald, in
Johnny Belinda
(1948), a film that dealt with the till-then-taboo subject of rape.

Tennessee feared that Wyman was too old for the part, but the co-producer, Jerry Wald, assured him she’d be terrific. “Jane, of course, isn’t fresh anymore. But unlike her in the past, she studies a character for weeks and throws herself into the part.”

It was the director, Irving Rapper, who called Tennessee to tell him that the pivotal character of Tom Wingfield would be played by Arthur Kennedy, and the part of The Gentleman Caller would be given to Kirk Douglas, then in the first flush of his stardom.

Visiting the set, Tennessee met with Wyman, later defining her as “a strong, cold, and determined bitch.”

He remembered her divorced husband, Reagan, dropping by the set to give Wyman a poodle for her birthday.

“I later met John F. Kennedy before he became President,” Tennessee said. “I thought he was much too good looking and sophisticated to get elected. As for Reagan, there is no way in hell that I could believe this untalented actor would ever become president. It was inconceivable. I guess I don’t know how to pick them in politics.”

Reagan invited Tennessee to join Wyman and him in the commissary.

As he remembered it, Reagan and Wyman talked about which boarding school would be the right choice for their daughter, Maureen. “They decided on Palos Chadwick School at Palos Verdes. That’s where Joan Crawford sent her daughter, Christina, instead of smothering her. I’m sure Joan would have decided on death-by-strangulation if she knew that Christina would write that horrid little memoir,
Mommie Dearest, [published in 1978]
about her adoptive mother. Maureen never wrote a
Daddy Dearest
book about Reagan, but that other daughter of his, Patti Davis, came close, or so I’d heard. I never read crap like that.”

After Reagan told Wyman and Tennessee goodbye, he headed out the door. Ten minutes later, Tennessee left the commissary with the intention of beginning his afternoon walk. “Reagan was waiting to be picked up by someone. This blonde suddenly pulled up in her car. I strained my one good eye. The face was unmistakable. That blonde taking Reagan away, no doubt, for a session of love in the afternoon, was none other than perky little Doris Day.”