Notes on a Cowardly Lion (28 page)

“I must have walked half way to London on that ship, but I had to force myself to have fun.”

Gregory Ratoff was a small, portly man whose size and thick Russian accent made him a kindly focus of Lahr's pranks. Ratoff was going to England to make up with his first wife. He was nervous and excited about the trip. He carried a diamond necklace for her in his valise. It was a reconciliation present, which he inspected each day. Lahr, who should have been sympathetic to fine sentiments, was merciless about the present. He and White baited Ratoff about its price and kept claiming they'd seen a woman wearing a similar setting on the ship. Ratoff would grow gradually angrier, until, like a disturbed peahen, his head would incline toward his chest and his neck would swell in rancor. He would bluster, “Dees is as fine as can be gotten, yes?” And on that exclamation he would stuff it back into his bag and leave the room. But Lahr would not let the joke end on such an uncomplicated note.

“I played another gag on him.” He says: “I went up to the radio operator's room and with a little persuasion I sent him wires.” The first one read:

DEAR MR RATOFF

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN PLAYING

IN AND DIRECTING “MAYTIME”

IN ENGLAND?

CHARLES COCHRAN

Ratoff, who had done the play in America and recognized the name of the well-known producer, was pleased. He cabled England at once.

“At dinner, after I sent the first wire, he kept saying, ‘I've got to go on a ship to get a job. This is wonderful. I make money while I'm over there. I can pay for the trip.'”

The following day Lahr sent another wire:

DEAR MR RATOFF

PLEASE DISREGARD PREVIOUS

WIRE STOP WILL CONTACT YOU

AGAIN TOMORROW STOP NEW PLANS

CHARLES COCHRAN

Lahr giggles at the thought of seeing Ratoff worried. “He keeps saying to me, ‘I don't like this, Bert. I wonder what it is. You don't think they've got somebody else, do you?' “Ratoff could hardly contain his excitement. Lahr was not quick to placate him. It was nice to watch someone else worry.

The next day he sent his final cable:

DEAR MR RATOFF

FORGET THE WHOLE GODDAMN THING!

CHARLES COCHRAN

Lahr never admitted the joke to Ratoff. While he walked the decks and thought about the misery of his own life, he didn't mind rankling his friends.

The trip to Europe was Lahr's first. He had read about Boswell's Grand Tour and imagined a similar kind of madcap elegance for himself. His own adventure could not have been more clownish. The day after he arrived, he received word that Mildred had finally left Robinson.

Confused while Lahr was in New York, beset by acquaintances who urged his cause, Mildred could not decide what to do. “The whole damn bunch haunt me so much,” she confided to Robinson, “I'm almost out of my mind.” While Lahr strolled in Hyde Park, Mildred was writing a note and placing it on the living-room table.

Dear Robby:

I have received the copy of Arnold Bennett and thanks so much.

Today I am checking out of the hotel and going away for a time. I really think it's the best and please do not be bitter toward me.

Robby you have everything I admire in a man but I could not find happiness with you. I took $50 and paid the bill which I am enclosing marked “paid.”

Goodbye and may God bless you and give you happiness.

Sincerely,

Mildred

When Lahr heard the news, he visited one of Mildred's showgirl friends in London and asked her to go to America to keep Mildred
company and protect his interests. Restless and disconsolate, he moved to Paris, where he saw the Eiffel Tower by accident and had a French model fall in love with him at the Ritz bar. She called him, sent him notes, but Lahr was not interested. His entire Grand Tour lasted five days. On the sixth, he was at Le Havre, still as empty and confused as when he had left, ready to set sail for home and an apprehensive future.

By the time Lahr arrived, Mildred had already moved to the American Woman's Club. Lahr inherited a situation he only half controlled. Mildred was not committed to him, and both of them recognized the capriciousness of their situation. There was absolutely no guarantee that she could get a divorce from Robinson or that Lahr could ever marry her. Nonetheless, she took the step for a man she could hardly understand and who could barely articulate his own emotions. “There was no romance with Bert—he never said things. You just knew he liked you.”

Lahr himself was amazed by Mildred's decision. “I still don't know why she came back to me. He was younger, more handsome.” In many ways Joseph Robinson would have made a much better husband than Bert Lahr. He was romantic and considerate. He remembered the little things that flattered her—the flowers, the birthdays, the surprise telephone calls. He liked picnics and long walks.

But Mildred now wanted a divorce. Lahr could only stick by her and prepare himself for what would be a long and, as he feared, dirty fight. On November 20, 1936, the long-threatened suit became national front-page news. Lahr was unmasked as a love-thief, an idea that seemed to amuse city editors.

BERT LAHR REHEARSES YELPS FOR $500,000 HEART BALM SUIT

Ooooo-wah!

Can't you hear it? It's Bert Lahr's cry of distress, and he was brushing up on it today because—

Someone is preparing to slap him with a half-million dollar heart balm suit charging him with stealing the affections of beautiful Mildred Schroeder, blonde showgirl.

And that someone—irony where is thy sting—is Joseph S. Robinson, the attorney who led the fight in the State Legislature to outlaw love-balm suits …

New York
Post

To someone so concerned about his career as Lahr, these headlines brought fantasies of total disaster. The press, which had always loved
his humor, was now exploiting his troubles. Lahr wisely let Abe Berman speak for him five days later when he made a rebuttal.

COMEDIAN LAHR READY TO DENY THEFT OF LOVE

Indirectly but vigorously, Bert Lahr, the comedian named as love thief, replied yesterday to the charges of Joseph F. Robinson, attorney, whose wife, Mildred Schroeder, deserted him.

The answer was made through A. L. Berman, counsel for the comedian in affidavits declaring the Brooklyn Supreme Court had no jurisdiction in the case.

Mr. Berman asked Justice Conway to vacate the order under which Mr. Robinson was authorized to examine the records of Mr. Berman, the Schindler Detective Agency, and telephone and telegraph companies before trial of an alienation of affections suit.

“My client would make categorical denial of the charges were there any charges to deny. But it is impossible for Lahr to make any defense in the present state of litigation, because there is nothing to defend here.

“Mr. Robinson declares that he has enough data to warrant a suit. If that is so, this order is unnecessary.”

Mr. Berman declared that Mr. Robinson, a resident and voter of Manhattan courts, had sustained the new anti-alienation law and Brooklyn courts had rejected it. The statute is now on appeal.

Mr. Robinson charged that the comedian, whose real name was revealed as Irving Lahrheim, lured Mrs. Schroeder-Robinson from him on their honeymoon and is now maintaining her in a Beverly Hills cottage. Justice Conway reserved decision.

New York American, November 25, 1936

While Lahr at no time tried to inveigle Mildred away from her husband while they were on their honeymoon, as the New York
American
said that Robinson charged, the fact remains that he was supporting her while she got a separation.

Robinson maintained to the press that Lahr, with the help of a detective agency, had tried to uncover information that might lead to a fraudulent divorce. That he was foolish and the agency bumbling Lahr cannot deny. A letter from the detective remains.

Dear Bert,

The enclosed appeared in yesterday's paper. Of course, it is a matter of considerable embarrassment to me as the rat implies that we tried to frame him, and it certainly doesn't help me with the type of clients for whom we do business. However, there is nothing you can do about a situation of this sort.

But Lahr, angered by the publicity and gross mishandling of what had begun as a whim, refused to honor the detective's bill.

Having tried and failed to obtain a Florida divorce, Mildred decided to move to California as a stepping stone to residence in Reno. Robinson tried to bring an injunction against a Nevada divorce, restraining her from obtaining legal decree out of the state of New York. As the tension and court appeals mounted, the legal questions blurred. Lahr was cast as the Diomedes to true love. In a full-page story in the
American Weekly
(“Persevering Mr. Robinson vs. Wicked Reno”), a caption describes Robinson as he muscles his right arm in fierce debate in the picture above.

Mr. Joseph Robinson, who, whether he wants his wife back or not, is determined Funny Mr. Lahr shall not have her
.

The adjudication was harrowing; and although Lahr stuck by Mildred, he shrank from each news story. While he never believed what drama critics said about his work, he began to question his own dignity when reporters classified his private life. “They called me a love thief—it was humiliating. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before.”

Lahr was trapped between his career and his suddenly public private life. His nerves were frayed; he lived in constant disgust about the recent past and fear of the future. Lee Shubert, who had signed him for
The Show Is On
late in 1936, called Lahr into his office to talk about women. Mr. Shubert, small, sallow, with an aquiline nose, was a businessman who rarely dealt with the dilemmas of his performers' personal lives. But Shubert was worried that Lahr might suddenly skip town to join Mildred in California or go on a drinking spree. He wanted to try to stabilize his comedian. He had never met Mildred; but he knew from reading the papers the circumstances that perplexed Lahr.

“Shubert was a hard businessman. It was the first time he ever talked to me like this. He sat me down—I can remember it so vividly, and he said, ‘Young fellow, I was once madly in love with a woman. She was known in show business as the most beautiful woman of the stase. Justine Johnston. I found she was untrue to me. I found there was another man. I took it very hard. The nights became months. I kept walking, nobody could talk to me, everybody was concerned. I walked
the docks. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. Finally, after many months, one morning I woke up and it was gone. The whole weight, that sadness, had left me like a bad dream. In later years, when I looked back at it—it seems so silly, so laughable. It was puppy love. Don't do anything rash, Bert. Try to forget this thing, Bert. You won't, I know—but try. Because one day, you'll wake up and it will be gone. Like the snap of a finger.'”

Lahr remembered Shubert's words. The confession surprised him. “Here was the head of a theatrical empire, this calculating, brilliant businessman, and he was under the same stress as I was. He had felt the same pangs.” But Lahr could not be so easily consoled. The experience compounded his suspicion of the world, and even of Mildred. His view of himself fluctuated with his mood; at times he felt flippantly above society and at others, nervously under the scrutiny of the public eye. Before going into rehearsals with
The Show Is On
, he visited Mildred. Even with her, he was, in his imagination, some kind of social leper. A distressed letter from Mildred to A. L. Berman indicates his obsession.

Dear Abe,

… I have been staying in every night because B. L. is ashamed to be out with me since the publicity. Truly, I sometimes feel that I am a criminal the way he acts. Do you think, Abe, that I have committed a great act? I know I made a mistake but did feel, at the time, I was doing the right thing, even if it turned out miserably. If only B. L. had some of your understanding qualities. I hope you believe me, Abe, that I have made every effort to do the right thing by B. L. since the day he left for London. But as the years pass by, he throws it up to me and seems unforgivable to the point of making me a bundle of nerves. Waking up and asking me what I did with what man and so on …

Mildred always tried to comfort him; but with every attempt at intimacy he moved away. Lahr could manipulate people on stage with the audience's approval; off stage, he was vulnerable and suspicious.

Bea Lillie co-starred with Lahr in
The Show Is On
. Despite the genuine pleasure of working with the comedienne and trying out fresh material, Lahr brought to his rehearsals the weight of his personal problems. Annulment proceedings had begun with Mercedes; the Reno divorce seemed stalled by a temporary injunction; and his son,
Herbert, was beginning his Christmas vacation. Lahr brooded; the show suffered. To those who did not know him well, his anxiety and inability to concentrate were the galling affectations of a star. His unwillingness to explain his nervousness made him an object of anger and mystery—at least to his director.

An article for
The New York Times
(“So You'd Like To Direct the Sketches”), quotes Edward C. Lilley in his justifiable irritation at Lahr:

Neither does the attitude of Bert Lahr during rehearsals fill a director with delight. Mr. Lahr, as everyone knows who has traveled long in his company, is just about the worryingest rehearser in the business. As Mr. Lilley puts it, “He's a button waster …” Nothing ever strikes Mr. Lahr as funny. He never laughs during rehearsals; he fidgets through his lines with nervous haste and comes off twisting a button and saying, “Yeah, but I don't think it'll do.”

Another demoralizing habit which the sad-faced Mr. Lahr indulges according to Mr. Lilley is that of “Lawyer calling.” In the middle of a sketch rehearsal, he will ask somebody for the time and then rush off with an explanation that he has to phone his lawyer, A. L. Berman. Just why, nobody seems to know. Or he'll bellow like a hopeless bull for “Louis” and then wait in anxious suspense until his agent Louis Shurr comes to his assistance …