It's All In the Playing (10 page)

“Charles has been waiting in the lobby for an hour,” she said. “I expect there’s been a mix-up in scheduling.”

I hated to hear that, because I hated that to happen to me.

I got up, having calculated the amount of time it would have taken Charles to emerge from the elevator and walk down the long hall toward my door. Perhaps if
I
greeted him informally, it would take the edge off the mix-up. So I opened the door and leaned out. I saw the tall ginger-haired actor from
Jewel in the Crown
walk determinedly toward me.

“Hi,” I shouted in a friendly manner.

He didn’t smile. Instead he said, “Why have I been kept waiting for an hour? Couldn’t you be more professional than that?”

Whoops, I thought. He comes right to the point. But the point seemed to be overstated.

“Well,” I said as he came closer, “I’m sorry. I don’t really know what happened. But never mind. You’re here now.”

As he reached me he blushed.

“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t realize I was talking to you. I thought you were Rose.”

I wanted to ask why Rose warranted being talked to like that, but I was more concerned that his gaffe would make him uncomfortable about our meeting.

“I’m very happy to meet you,” I said, ushering him into the room and looking him over as he entered. He was dressed in a corduroy suit and was blushing through his freckles. His skin looked like a peach-and-rose parfait. Even his hair seemed spattered with freckles. He was dazzling. His body movements were awkward, but he was built like a Greek god. I wondered what weights he used to work out with. He turned around and observed me closing the door behind him. I looked hard at him. As a professional, it’s always interesting for me to compare what I see in a human face in real life to its translation to the screen. On a small screen (TV), Charles Dance had an entirely different countenance from the one I had seen on the big screen
(Plenty).
I wondered whether the remote look he had had in that film had been his interpretation of the part, because he was playing an insensitive aloof husband who contributed to his wife’s insanity. I looked into his face again. He leveled an insecure ogle at me and blinked.

Everyone shook hands all around. Then Charles stood there.

“Well,” I began, wanting to break the ice, “how did you enjoy working with my favorite actress Meryl Streep? If there’s such a thing as genius, I would have to say she’s it.”

He blinked again and swallowed. I wondered what was troubling him. Up to then I hadn’t known about his interviews on TV relating to working with Meryl.

“Oh,” he said, “I didn’t enjoy it very much.” He hesitated. “It was difficult.”

Hmmm, I wondered. He’s pissed off at having been kept waiting, and the most cooperative professional in the business he found difficult. He was certainly honest. Maybe he
would
be good for Gerry.

I didn’t press the Streep question. Under the circumstances, it would have been unfair.

Charles sat down. He pulled out a package of cigarettes and said, “Well, would you like me to read for you?”

Well, I thought, he’s not
that
far off base. Either he’s extremely secure or he wants the part very much.

We began. Colin and Stan read other parts while I played myself. Charles had a sensitive command of the character as we went scene by scene. By now I had heard each scene played by about twenty-five actors. It was a pleasure to see and hear an actor who
looked
and
sounded
in character. At the end of the reading, Charles lit a cigarette.

Stan and Colin sat there diplomatically thanking Charles and quietly discussing their reactions. Because
I
had been
acting
with him I was somehow on the other side of the decision-making table at this moment. I felt awkward, because the one question I wanted to ask was whether they felt he was too young to play opposite me. He was thirty-nine. Gerry, as written, was five years older than I when I was forty-five. I decided to voice it anyway.

“What about the age difference, Stan?” I asked.

Stan came right to the point. “Well, Charles,” he said, “can you play older?”

Charles came right back. “You’ve got the wrong man,” he answered.

I looked back and forth between the two. Did he really look that much younger than I or was this my own personal concern?

“Shirley,” said Stan, “you two look the same age.
It’s nothing the audience will even think about. You look really wonderful together.”

Charles nodded, but didn’t smile. Okay, I thought. If it doesn’t bother him or anyone else.

I looked at Charles. “Do you want to play Gerry?” I asked.

“Very much,” he answered. “I should have been extremely disappointed had you chosen another actor.”

Well, I thought. That’s that. We’ve got our Gerry. I just have to be careful of keeping him waiting….

We had several more rehearsals with Charles so that we could get his input on the script. I liked working democratically, with everyone feeling free to give me an opinion about what I was doing. His input was valuable, particularly in regard to the British class system and the speech Gerry gives in the House of Commons and to the English press relating to Third World poverty. Dance himself came from a needy background and worked his way up, remembering and identifying with those who were disenfranchised. This aspect of Gerry was what motivated him to devote so much of his talent and energy to achieving power so that he could help change people’s lives for the better. Up to now Dance hadn’t asked about Gerry’s true identity. He had the British sensitivity to privacy and anyway probably didn’t really care. As for me, I hadn’t talked to Gerry in some time and wondered if he had seen that the English papers had announced that Charles Dance was playing him. Dance was scheduled to come to America for wardrobe fittings, makeup tests, and more rehearsals.

I wondered if he would ever want to know who Gerry was.

Chapter 7

   C
olin, Stan, and I went back to America to find a David, who actually had a larger part than Gerry. And we hadn’t even begun to zero in on him. In my thinking about casting for David, I had early decided it had to be someone enormously sensitive with that very particular sensitivity that allows one to find one’s own way. Yet he had also to be strong within himself. He was not going to be easy to find, but the leeway we had was that his part didn’t begin shooting until January, a good seven weeks into the schedule. We discussed possibilities ad infinitum. Casting David was crucial to me and central to the whole theme of the subject. At last I became semi-settled about it—at least in my head.

   John Heard is one of those actors the public doesn’t recognize, but within the business we all know he’s brilliant. He’s an actor’s actor. He is not John Hurt, or William Hurt. He is John Heard—a man with a last name that aptly expresses his need to be listened to. His life-style is as legendary as his talent. So is his intelligence. So when he walked into my apartment in New
York only forty-five minutes late, I felt privileged. It was Colin’s reaction to John that was the most fun for me. Stan wasn’t present.

In real life John looks like a WASP traveling salesman. In “reel” life he can look like anything. He photographs much taller than his five-foot ten-inch frame and more massive than he actually is. He walked in with a growth of beard (to indicate nonchalance?), shuffling along with the thick
“Limb”
script under his arm. He slumped over and glanced at us furtively without settling his gaze on either one of us. He tossed the script on my coffee table and sat down, leaned back, put one leg over the other, and laughed as if we were silly-assed people to want to put him in our movie. Colin bristled, but John tickled me, probably because he was so irreverent.

“Well, John, I really admire your work,” I said.

He laughed again, as though that made me a jerk. There was no conventional “thank you,” no comment of any kind—he just leaned back and chuckled secretly to himself again.

“Okay,” I said. “I see. So what did you think of our script?”

“I didn’t read it,” he answered. Colin bristled again.

“Why?” I asked.

More chuckles from John. “Because,” he said, “I couldn’t lift it.”

Colin blushed crimson. But I was really warming to this guy.

“Then why are you here?” I asked.

“Because my dentist appointment got canceled,” he answered.

Oh, boy, I thought, this is going to be more than amusing.

“I’m fat and bulky,” he went on. “You don’t want me.”

I thought I’d join the game. “Why don’t you have your dentist sew up your mouth then?” I asked.

John flashed that childlike shock of one playmate recognizing another playmate sooner than either expected. Colin wasn’t sure what was going on.

“John”—Colin decided to participate—“did you come here because you’re interested in doing this?”

John chuckled again.

“I mean,” said Colin, “do you know what this is about? Do you know anything about David’s character? Has your agent read the script?”

“I fired my agent,” said John.

“Oh,” said Colin. “How about your manager?”

John leaned back on the couch and looked out the window. “If I said there was a flying saucer on the windowsill you wouldn’t bother turning around, but if I said there’s this funny disc-shaped craft with Donald Duck ears, you’d be up and out of your chair in a flash, right?”

“Not necessarily,” I replied.

Colin and I looked at each other. What did he mean? Was our script not funny enough?
Had
he read it?

John did his secret chuckle again. Colin took the bull by the horns.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s read. Maybe you’ll get the sense out of it as you go.”

John shrugged. “Okay, man,” he said. “But my teeth hurt.”

“I thought your dentist appointment was canceled,” I said.

“No,” said John. “My girlfriend can’t cook. She makes carrot salad for my mother so my family will like her.”

Oh, brother, I thought. This is something Woody Allen or maybe Albert Brooks would understand. Or maybe the guy was just scared in an interesting way…. It
did
take a certain kind of left-field intelligence which I wasn’t sure I possessed to understand him, and Colin
apparently didn’t even want to—but, as I reminded him later,
he
wasn’t the director.

John picked up the script and lifted it slowly to his shoulder as though it were a ten-ton boulder. Then he chuckled and opened it to the first page.

“Some directors say I chuckle like this when I’m insecure.”

Yes, I really liked his off-the-wall honesty. Even Colin was disarmed for a second. We turned to John’s first scene and he began reading and acting his part. I felt a little premonitory shiver run down my back. I knew some actors were really good at cold readings, but the good ones usually weren’t. What we were hearing was an actor reading with in-depth understanding
and
a comprehension of metaphysics and spiritual principles. Had he been kidding us? I said nothing, just kept on going although it was hard for me to concentrate on my own part because he was so unexpectedly brilliant. Finally I couldn’t stand it. I stopped the reading and looked at him. I punched him in the arm. He looked at me.

“You’re a friggin’ liar, John.”

“I am?” he said.

“Yes. You’ve studied the script backward, haven’t you? How can you be this good without knowing it beforehand?”

“Oh”—he stopped me—“I’ll never be this good again. Don’t worry. I’m a fake. You know, I run between the raindrops.”

“But did you read it?”

“No,” he said, “because I would have told you the truth if I didn’t like it and I didn’t want to say the wrong thing.”

I looked deep into his eyes. He chuckled again.

Just then the doorbell rang. Because John had been late, my appointments were overlapping. It didn’t faze him in the least.

“John,” I said, “this is Bella Abzug. She is here
because she wants to read for her own part. Can I put you in the den to finish reading this thing?”

John shrugged. He stood up and shifted his weight back and forth and put his hands in his pockets and ran his tongue over his lips. Then he pulled his fingers through his floppy hair and pushed the curls forward as if to make sure their unkempt style would remain intact.
This
was a complicated and spellbinding crazy man. He shuffled back to my den, sat down with the script, and I closed the door in order to give Bella the respect she so richly deserved.

Bella knew we were looking for a “Bella” and had been reading actresses, but she thought
she
should do it. What better way to protect the investment she had made in the character she had invented for herself. I was not enthusiastic, based on how much theatrical discipline I knew it would take for her—or anyone—to do scenes over and over.

Bella had been a close personal friend since the McGovern campaign in 1972. We had had our personal ups and downs, but she has always remained, and I believe she always will, a friend who will be honest with me as I will be with her. She is earthy, witty, more than compassionate, and possessed of an intelligence that blazes with clarity. She is also pragmatic, ambitious, and loves to be the focus of attention. That is precisely why she is so charismatic. Besides all of that, I love her deeply.

She entered my living room dressed in a color-coordinated red-white-and-blue business suit, patriotism being the mood of her day today since she was thinking of running for Congress again.

“So? Why am I here?” she said as she walked toward Colin and me. “You people summoned me, right?”

“Yes,” I answered. “We’d love for you to read for us.”

She saw the script on the table, picked it up and flipped through it. “So you want me to read this?”

“Well,” I said, “we’d like you to audition. You said you were available.”

“But I’ll blush,” she said, “and I’ll be awake all night wondering if I get the part.”