Master of Ceremonies: A Memoir (25 page)

Larry Hagman, my next-door neighbor in the Malibu Colony and one of my most cherished friends for years, stopped by for coffee. I’m sure he sensed my tension, because he decided to take me out to get a haircut, lunch, anything to distract me. He did a pretty good job, too.

Larry was always trying to loosen me up. While I was careful and alert, Larry was a wild man. His mother had been Mary Martin, who had left her son in the care of his grandmother when he was just seven years old. After she married Richard Halliday a couple of years later, Larry was shipped off to military school and eventually became estranged from her. I have no idea how Larry turned into such a sweet man. Other than his sixty-year marriage to his beloved Maj, there was nothing conventional about him. A card-carrying member of the Peace and Freedom Party, he thought nothing of wearing quirky costumes while walking down the beach or requesting a joke in exchange when asked for his autograph. And he loved to smoke pot. Once, while we were soaking in his Jacuzzi, where he particularly liked to get high, he insisted on my taking a puff. I, the guy who got drunk off one grasshopper. You don’t get much squarer than that. But I tried it. (It just made me dizzy.) Larry didn’t seem to have many fears, and I loved that in him.

Larry got me back home just in time for me to put on my tuxedo and be ready by three in the afternoon. That’s when Jo, looking spectacular in Halston, and I got into the waiting limousine and were waved off ceremoniously by my big buddy and Maj, the sun and sand blazing all around.

I felt like a star when Carol Burnett, a pal and the host for the Oscars that night, mentioned me in her opening monologue: “I knew him when he was Joel Katz…” And she did! But it was hard to keep smiling as the tension mounted. Best Supporting Actor, thank God, is one of the earlier awards given, so at least I didn’t have to wait long.

The award’s presenters, Diana Ross and James Coburn, opened the envelope and the singer, in her signature breathy voice, said, “And the winner’s Joel Grey.”

I was out of my body as I kissed Jo and ran up onstage. I can’t recall my exact words because the moment was such a blur. All I remember is starting with, “Don’t let anyone tell you this isn’t a great thrill.” But that didn’t begin to convey how I felt. As one of only eight people to win both the Tony and Academy Award for the same role, I was in amazing company that included Yul Brynner for
The King and I
, Anne Bancroft for
The Miracle Worker
, and Rex Harrison for
My Fair Lady
. The actors who made the difficult transition from stage to screen were quite a group, and I was grateful to be a part of it.

The rest of the night was as much of a blur as my acceptance speech. At the Governors Ball, Liza, who won for Best Actress, and I were giddy. Bob, who took home the Best Director award, and I exchanged more muted congratulations for
Cabaret
, which won for cinematography, art direction, sound, film editing, and music. We were pretty much back to square one in our relationship, but nothing could keep me from feeling good.

More clearly etched into my mind is the limo ride back to Malibu, during which Jo and I talked about little things.

“Did you like the quiche?” I asked in the dark, holding hands with my beautiful wife, and looking out onto the Pacific Coast Highway under the moonlight.

“I thought it was an odd choice,” she said.

“You looked so beautiful in your dress. The photographers were falling all over themselves to take your picture.”

“Well, I am the Best Supporting Actor’s wife.”

I didn’t think I could feel any happier, but I was wrong. When the limousine dropped us at home, standing in front of our door was this enormous trophy that Larry had left for me, just in case I came home empty-handed. I picked it up and read the words he had engraved on it:
TO JOEL GREY,
THE BEST FUCKING NEIGHBOR AWARD
.

“You’ll see. This time will be different,” Liza said, “and we’ll be together.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Opening the shutters of the Gritti and looking out onto the water, I saw a boat delivery of fresh bread, which made me call room service immediately.

Jo and I, both of us so happy to wake up in a beautiful room in the fifteenth-century Venetian palazzo turned hotel, luxuriating in our bed with linen sheets, laughing, loving, and enjoying each other—my wish coming true.

A knock at the door interrupted. “Buongiorno!” said the waiter, setting the tray upon the bed before giving a quick bow and leaving. The two of us were giddy with steamed milk, strong coffee, and fresh baked pastries
con marmellata
. How far I had come since my last time in Italy, at nineteen. I slept upon a straw mattress in a simple pensione in Positano!

When I was growing up, no one in my family had ever been abroad. What had once been relegated to movie screens, art museums, books, and personal fantasies was finally in the realm of possibility because of the international success of
Cabaret
. The financial perks it brought us allowed Jo and me to pursue beauty in new places. The joyous period in my relationship with Jo that began with
Cabaret
only improved after winning an Oscar. And because Jo had given up her career to support mine, we shared my achievements, which only made them richer.

We both loved to travel, and now during our first trip to Venice, there was not an instant that was less than perfect. The moment we set foot on the vaporetto from the airplane into town, we were overwhelmed. As if it were our honeymoon, we did everything, getting totally lost in the city’s mazelike magic. We were corny American tourists, taking pictures with the pigeons of Piazza San Marco, sloshing in the high tides, visiting the Jewish ghetto on Giudecca, and hopping a small boat to the island of Torcello for a lunch of vitello tonnato and wine in a garden. Our friends Regina Resnik (the opera singer who was in the 1987 revival of
Cabaret
) and her husband, Arbit Blatas, a well-known painter, showed us around the city, which they made their part-time home. And one night in the lobby of the Gritti, we ran into Truman Capote, whom I knew through our mutual lawyer, Alan Schwartz, and off all of us went to dinner at Harry’s Bar.

Just being alone with my wife, however, tumbling into our four-poster bed at the hotel for a nap after hours of walking, was more than enough. With the kids back in New York with Nellie, we became acutely aware of the fact that we were getting to do so much of what we had dreamed and talked about.

That year, it also seemed like a good idea to move from the second-floor rear apartment on 87th Street and Central Park West to a spacious eleventh-floor apartment at 1120 Fifth Avenue that overlooked Central Park’s reservoir. Although we now lived in an old-money Upper East Side building, we simplified substantially. We focused less on furnishings, which made for a great, neutral background for our small but growing art collection filled with works by friends such as Jim Dine and R. B. Kitaj. Hiring John Saladino was the last right touch. The interior designer built platforms on which were placed mattresses slip-covered in duck all along the front windows that looked out onto the reservoir.

The whole place was not unlike our Malibu beach house. We loved living on the ocean, thriving in the sensibility of light and sky and water. The New York apartment had a clean look, like our tiny cottage in LA with its bleached floors and sun-drenched patio. Frank Israel—the LA–based architect revered for his innovations to the contemporary Southern California style made famous by Frank Gehry—had recently redesigned the house after an awful fire during which no one was home or hurt. It seemed that on both coasts, simple was good.

Jimmy and Jen were loving being back in New York. They went to great schools, and on the weekends we took family trips out to Westhampton or Nantucket with a close group of pals. James was always marching to the beat of his own drum, doing boy things such as building model cars and dropping water balloons from our apartment window on people walking along Fifth. Jennifer’s idea of fun was more sophisticated. She was an independent teenager who sometimes did things I thought were inappropriate. Teenagers hate that word, which Jennifer let me know in no uncertain terms. (Hmm … kindred spirits!)

I never stopped worrying about both of my children. From the moment Jennifer and James were born, we were very present in both of their lives. I would go to PTA meetings, pick the kids up from school, and take them to their lessons, which my flexible schedule often allowed. I loved doing all of it, because it made me feel complete and like a good father. So I was always close to both my kids.

Winning the Academy Award meant that many more varied projects came my way that allowed me to work steadily. One job offer I didn’t think I wanted to do, however, was tour the US with Liza. Capitalizing on our success in
Cabaret
with a nightclub act was something of a no-brainer. But I hadn’t forgotten how I’d loathed working in nightclubs, the people eating, drinking, and smoking during the show. “You’ll see. This time will be different,” Liza said, “and we’ll be together.”

It was always hard to say no to Liza; her enthusiasm was infectious. Of course, she turned out to be absolutely right. From our very first show at the Riviera in Las Vegas, we were the talk of the town. Fred Ebb, who had already been writing Liza’s act, wrote one for me. Ron Lewis staged it with a large steamer trunk. The beautiful prop, covered in stickers from all the places I had ever played (and some I hadn’t), magically opened up, and I climbed on top to sing a big
George M!
medley. I even tap-danced on top of it. I opened the show, then Liza did her dynamite act, and then I joined her to do a couple of encores such as “The Money Song.” There was never an empty table or seat, even in the vast arenas we sometimes played. Liza, loose, savvy, generous, and often hilarious, was a great onstage partner.

One night on the tour, the stage manager in the theater gave her the cue to introduce me before I was ready. The show had been arranged so that I went on first, with the orchestra playing my overture, followed by a drum roll, then Liza’s announcing from a backstage mic, “Ladies and gentlemen, my friend, Joel Grey.” That night, however, when she said my name, I still wasn’t dressed. More specifically, I didn’t have any pants on. I came out onstage anyway—in pleated shirt, bow tie, black kneesocks, and shoes. The audience, which loves it when something goes awry, screamed.

I went back offstage, and my overture started over. Again Liza announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Joel Grey.” This time, however, I came out fully dressed to start the show. Never one to be outdone, when it was time for Liza to make her entrance and I announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, my friend, Liza Minnelli,” she came out in curlers and a robe. The audience was screaming again when she added, “
I’ll
be right back.”

The Oscar led to more interesting screen roles. The director Robert Altman offered me a part in his revisionist Western
Buffalo Bill and the Indians
. As Nate Salisbury, Buffalo Bill’s press agent, I got to act with Burt Lancaster, Harvey Keitel, Shelley Duvall, Geraldine Chaplin, and Paul Newman, a fellow Clevelander, who starred as Buffalo Bill. Bob Altman’s sets were very informal, creative, and family-oriented, so Jo and the kids visited me in Calgary where we spent three months shooting a complete re-creation of “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” show.

That same year, I was cast as a creepy denizen and mysterious presence of the Viennese demimonde in
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution,
directed by Herbert Ross, a friend with whom I’d worked on an ABC TV pilot in the sixties. In the film, I played Lowenstein, a suspicious character who pops up all over Vienna. Again I found myself in another great group of actors, including Alan Arkin, Robert Duvall, Lawrence Olivier, and Vanessa Redgrave.

Despite these amazing experiences, the thought of abandoning Broadway for Hollywood never crossed my mind. The theater always suited my soul. I went back to Broadway in 1975 (once again at the Palace Theatre) in
Goodtime Charley
, an unlikely musical about Joan of Arc and the Dauphin Charles VII of France, aka Charley. The score, by Larry Grossman and Hal Hackady, was unequivocally good and made all the better by the stunning orchestrations of Jonathan Tunick,
the
Broadway orchestrator of his generation. I loved the piece—and in particular my character. His evolution over the course of the musical from a dolt to a great king was due to the belief that Joan of Arc (played by Ann Reinking) had in him.

When
Goodtime Charley
opened on Broadway, I received my usual break-a-leg telegrams from friends—this time including one from Bob Fosse, Ann’s boyfriend at the time, who wrote, “Even when you do the steps backwards you are terrific.” He wasn’t the only one from my
Cabaret
family who wired. Kander and Ebb sent one that read: “Dear Joel, Long live the King! Love, John and Fred.”

Unfortunately, the show got mixed reviews. The critics warmly embraced Ann’s and my work, and they loved Rouben Ter-Arutunian’s sets and Willa Kim’s costumes. But they were hard on the book and score. Fortunately
Goodtime Charley
had enough going for it that we didn’t end up on Joe Allen’s wall of shame (the wall of the restaurant displaying show cards of all the productions that are notorious flops). In fact the producers didn’t close
Goodtime Charley
until almost four months later when I had to leave the show to shoot
Buffalo Bill
with Bob Altman.