Then and Now (7 page)

In the meantime, however, it was June 1951 and I was heading back to Tamiment for my second summer. That second year in the Poconos would turn out to be a momentous one for me because it was there that I met David LeGrant, the man who would become
my one and only husband, and a profound influence on my life in many ways. He was the only acting teacher I've ever studied with, a deeply talented man who for unknown reasons was unable to claim his place as a fine director.

Most important of all, he became the father of my darling son, Adam.

RETURNING TO TAMIMENT
meant I could earn another five hundred dollars for the summer, so I didn't just think a return to Tamiment would be nice—I was eager. It meant money, fun, and a summer in the country. I never guessed I might acquire a husband along the way.

Prior to meeting David I'd had a few dalliances, but none of them was really serious. With David it was the real thing. We met in June of 1951, and while David was not a handsome man by conventional standards, I was drawn to his sensitivity, his superb talent, and a certain gentle quality in his personality. He seemed rooted. Solid. Looking back on it now, I think what attracted me most of all was that he seemed to have a lot of the “answers.” He seemed very sure about the basic issues in life, and just a few weeks into our ten-week Tamiment season, we became inseparable. I don't remember when we started thinking and talking about the possibility of marriage, but by the time the summer had ended and we returned to the city, we thought we might get married.

There was one big problem, however. My mother. She had recently come to New York to live with me—in many ways it was inevitable that she would follow me to New York because I was her life. She was, however, dead set against my being with David, much less marrying him, and I think the prospect of our marriage may have been the deciding factor in her move to New York—she
really wanted to stop us from marrying. In her view, David was poor as hell, wore tattered clothes, and had no real prospects. I knew about his talent, but even if my mother had been aware of that, it wouldn't have mattered to her. She just felt he was terrible husband material—he wasn't handsome, he was penniless, and, worst of all, in her mind, he was Jewish.

She did everything she could to stop us. At one point there was even a very dramatic scene in the kitchen when she picked up a knife and threatened him. Of course she wasn't really going to stab David, and she certainly was never physically violent to me when I was growing up, but when you look at photos from our wedding day you can see her anger; she made no attempt to hide her scowl.

I was in a terrible state. It wasn't just the ignorance of her prejudice—it's that it was so dumb on her part. If you want to have any kind of a relationship with a daughter whom you adore, then you sure as hell better find a way to get along with her partner or you're excluded, which is exactly what eventually happened. A lot of the time she was just excluded from our life together.

Her blatant anti-Semitism was just continuing a theme that had started all the way back when I was in high school. I was going out with a Jewish boy at the time, and when I'd leave the apartment she would ask: “You going out with the kike tonight?” I had a Chinese friend—same thing: “You goin' out with the chink tonight?” The casual use of those slurs was so upsetting to me. It bothered me enormously in high school and even more so when applied to the man I was going to marry.

Equally horrifying was the letter she wrote to David's mother, who was a really sweet, very naïve kind of peasant lady from Ekaterinoslav, in the Ukraine. Never having met her, my mother still wrote her a letter saying something like “Your lousy stinking Jew
black-balled son wants to marry my gorgeous daughter”—and on and on. This poor lady didn't know how the hell to react. When you think about it, my mother's horrible letter to David's mother is a specimen of the following sort: you might be angry enough to write it, but you sure as hell don't mail it.

I liked David's mother very much, and I still have fond memories of driving cross-country to California to meet her for the first time. On that trip, David and I didn't even have money for restaurant food; we bought a big salami, which we could keep for some time, then a jar of mayonnaise, and a new loaf of bread every day. That was our daily ration, and we made that salami last through half of the United States!

One memory of that trip which is decidedly more embarrassing revolves around our stops at Native American reservations. I would go out of my way to demonstrate my friendliness—asking these Native Americans, who were total strangers, and whom I would never see again, how they were feeling and what their day was like. This behavior, understandably enough, embarrassed David, but I think the horrible racist attitudes I had encountered growing up simply pushed me too far in the opposite direction. Such inappropriate sentiment was my way of trying to say, “I'm not like the others.” I still cringe thinking about it.

As I've gotten older and gained a little perspective I find myself believing that my mother was not well. The mechanism that keeps most people from acting on their most awful urges, such as writing that hateful letter to David's mother, was often simply missing in her.

I understand perfectly well how tricky it is to be a sidewalk psychiatrist, but for years it never occurred to me that my mother might be ill. In the past few years some friends have suggested she
might have been bipolar. I tend to doubt that. I've shared stories about my mother's behavior with a friend who is a psychologist and she confirmed my hunch that my mother's problem was a borderline personality disorder.

Right at this time of our possible marriage, David and I were both cast in a tab show called
Six on a Honeymoon
, directed by our friend Herbert Ross. It would be a tour of five or six months, playing some of the better hotel rooms across the country, including the very prestigious Blackstone in Chicago. We decided that it made sense to set out on this tour as a married couple rather than as two besotted people who would have to sneak around to be together; in those days things were not as open and easy as they are now, and spending the night together could involve all sorts of machinations.

Deciding to get married was still not easy for me because I had lots of doubts, but I finally decided to take the step, and we were married—twice. We had wanted both Christian and Jewish ceremonies on the same day—that way we would have only one anniversary. The problem was that because the rules regarding marriage were so strict back in the early 1950s, we couldn't find a rabbi who would marry us, so we were first married in a Christian service. It was about a week after that ceremony, one conducted by a minister, when Eddie Harburg found a liberal rabbi who would marry us, and we happily arranged a little ceremony, which was held right in Eddie and Yip's Manhattan living room.

We married for that second time on Sunday March 2, 1952, while we were in rehearsal. We weren't children—I was twenty-four years old and David was twenty-eight—but I was completely unprepared to assume the responsibility of having another person's
feelings in my hands. With my mother having taken the fortune-teller's advice about sparing me from any work completely to heart, I had grown up without performing even the most basic household duties—I simply had never had to pull my own weight. Without ever having had to wash dishes, cook a meal, or clean the house, I was ill prepared for life as someone's partner. I had a lot of growing up to do.

When we went back to rehearsal the day after our marriage, I remember going into the bathroom, looking in the mirror, suddenly sobbing, and saying out loud to myself that I had made a terrible mistake. I was not prepared to be a wife, and I broke down sobbing. I studied my tearstained face in the mirror and knew there was no way I was going to walk away from this marriage. I would stick with it and make it work. And it did work for a long time.

I came to love David very much. I came to depend deeply on him—ironically, so, too, did my mother—and he was an ideal husband in many ways. Very responsible. Never forgot to pick up the laundry. Never forgot to buy the loaf of bread. Would much rather be at home puttering around with me than running around with the guys or doing things on his own. Very, very dependable. We never stopped talking—we were both interested in the arts—theater, music, acting, and film. I was emotionally attracted to his talent and sensitivity. I didn't worry about his not yet making much money—I made money and felt confident that I would continue to do so. We were sympatico in many ways. And . . . I knew that David would never leave me the way my father had.

Shortly after we married, David gave me what I referred to as the The Sermon on the Mount. Looking me straight in the eye, he
declared: “Follow me and everything will be okay. Let me lead you and you'll be fine the rest of your life.” I believed that. I thought, “I don't have to worry about things because David knows what to do. I can just concentrate on my work. He's got it worked out.” No surprise, then, that when I once said to a therapist that I'd married the wrong man, he instantly said to me: “You married the
right
one. Your neuroses dovetailed perfectly.”

WHILE DAVID AND
I were negotiating married life in the suburb of Port Washington, Long Island, I of course still harbored career ambitions. In 1951,
Flahooley
had been a fast flop, but I had attracted attention and eventually landed great roles in City Center productions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals that were already considered classics:
Oklahoma!
, in which I played Ado Annie, and
Carousel
, in which I played Carrie Pipperidge. I had a terrific time with both roles: Ado Annie was the girl who “Cain't Say No,” and Carrie sang the joy-filled “When I Marry Mr. Snow.”

Under the leadership of Jean Dalrymple, City Center, on West Fifty-fifth Street in New York City, was producing limited runs of these musicals. In 1953–54 we did an entire season on the road with
Oklahoma!
but first we played the month of September at City Center in New York; I was Ado Annie and David played the peddler, Ali Hakim. We then went on the road and had a good time together. It was during that tour that I really got to know Florence Henderson, who was playing Laurey, and we have remained friends to this day. She is a genuinely talented and thoroughly nice woman, with a particular fondness for playing against her wholesome image by shocking others.

One problem during the tour of
Oklahoma!
was Mary Marlo, who played Aunt Eller and proved to be a genuine pain in the ass. She fancied herself quite the grande dame, and would make pro
nouncements like “You simply cannot entertain while on tour—you don't have the proper china and crystal.” There was also a second fly in the ointment: Jerome Whyte, one of the casting directors for Rodgers and Hammerstein, who directed the tour. He insisted that I copy Celeste Holm, who had originated the role. Well, for any actor, that's death. It's just impossible. You have to discover the role for yourself. I was so unhappy trying to be Celeste that I began trying to make this my own Ado Annie. Jerry Whyte watched a performance, came backstage, and told me that if I continued to give my own interpretation he would see to it that I never worked again.

By way of contrast, when I was playing Carrie in
Carousel
, Dick Rodgers came to watch a rehearsal and noted that I did not get the laugh Jean Darling, the original Carrie, used to get with a funny piece of business with her bustle. I said to Dick, “Why would I walk that way at only this one point when I never walk that way again in the entire show. I can get the laugh another way without the business with the bustle.” He listened and let me do it my own way.

I played Carrie Pipperidge from June to August of 1954. Bill Hammerstein, Oscar's son, directed
Carousel
, and there was no question but that it represented my best work thus far, a true breakthrough for me. With newfound confidence in my acting, I felt liberated onstage. For the first time I received major, major reviews, the general tone of which was: “This new person has happened!” I had been brought to the attention of the press and my face was everywhere. Suddenly I was being touted as the new theater discovery.

Both Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein came to see
me in
Carousel
and were very complimentary. Dick Rodgers was much more effusive than Oscar. Dick had an eye for the girls—well maybe it was both eyes for the girls—but he never chased me around. That may be because on the one day he asked me up to his office, I nervously opened the door to find that he had one foot gingerly positioned on a hassock; he had gout, so at least on that one day I knew I wouldn't be chased around his desk. I remember Oscar as being very tall with a warm smile—people admired him so. He possessed an aura of goodness—a very moral person. He didn't throw around a lot of compliments, but when he saw me in
The King and I
and said, “That's the best you've ever done,” it meant the world.

It was also during this time that I screen-tested for the role of Ado Annie in director Fred Zinnemann's screen adaptation of
Oklahoma!
At the time of my screen test, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman were up for the roles of Laurey and Curley, Eli Wallach was trying out for the role of Ali Hakim, and Rod Steiger was up for the role of Jud Frye. Rod was the only one from our group who was chosen to be in the film.

My clearest memory of that test involves standing right next to the director as he filmed Joanne Woodward doing Laurey's speech about wanting a cut-glass sugar bowl. I thought she was terrible—that she wasn't doing anything. When she finished, Zinnemann turned to me and said, “Now, there's a screen actress for you. She's going to have a big career in film.” I was amazed, because standing just a few feet away I saw nothing happening, but he was certainly right.

I liked Fred Zinnemann very much and only wish we had worked together. I was disappointed to be turned down, but since
Shirley Jones was playing the role of Laurey, perhaps we were too much the same type for me to be in the film as Ado Annie. I had successfully played Ado Annie onstage but it's often the case that actors famous for their stage performances are not chosen for the film versions of those very same shows. Carol Channing was passed over in favor of Barbra Streisand for the film version of
Hello, Dolly!
Julie Andrews lost the chance to play Eliza Doolittle in the movie of
My Fair Lady
when the producers and director chose Audrey Hepburn. And perhaps most famously, Ethel Merman never filmed
Gypsy
. Rosalind Russell, who played the role of Rose in the movie, is a wonderful actress, but Ethel Merman
was
Rose. If only her performance had been preserved forever on film.

In 1954, I also appeared in a television soap opera called
Golden Windows
, playing an aspiring singer who sang off-key. It was filmed live in New York City but didn't last long. For the most part I enjoyed the experience; it is very rewarding to know that you are reaching millions of people at the same time, but the frantic nature of live TV was very stressful. There was no second chance once those cameras rolled—you better pay attention and get it right the first time, because there ain't no second time!

By this point I was also studying voice, although my lessons had come about in a rather unusual way. In 1953 it was actually my husband who started lessons with Bob Kobin, the man who would become my main voice teacher. At the beginning, I was so cautious that I wouldn't work with Bob. I would go with David to his lessons and just listen. This was partially in reaction to the fact that I had already endured two false starts with voice teachers; my first teacher was really more of a coach, a woman with whom I never really clicked, but she did help me with presentation. I remember that for some strange reason I would wear short gloves
during lessons because they made me feel strong. Well, as Wally Harper used to say, “Whatever blows your skirt up.”

After a second mismatch with a vocal coach, I was still hesitant, but I liked what I heard when Bob was teaching David, and I finally told him that I'd like to study with him. Bob based his entire technique on physiology, a very commonsense approach. We know how sound is produced—it's not a big mystery—but many teachers don't take that into account. Bob's techniques, however, had a sound basis in science. Now, I know this will sound crazy, but here's the story his wife, Joan, told me. Bob went to the slaughterhouse, collected a few cow larynxes, and dissected them, because they are, I'm told, so similar to human larynxes. He really wanted to know how the damn things actually worked.

Armed with this knowledge of physiology, Bob developed a theory that said that you, the singer, already know how to sing, but that you must, in effect, get out of your own way. Your body instinctively knows what is required, and if you are singing properly, every note you sing should strengthen your voice. In Bob's mind, you should be able to sing for a long time and not only not hurt yourself, but actually get better and stronger. He didn't want to hear about hot tea and lemon, scarves, drafts, or any of “that stuff.” He used to tell me I should be able to get hit by a bus and then stand up and sing! Bob really helped me put my voice together in a way that didn't make me sound like I had four different voices. He would say, “This note needs to come out of the preceding one organically—it's as if you are making a string of pearls, so it needs to be continuous, logical, and organic.”

My singing improved, and after my success in playing Carrie in
Carousel
, my confidence grew. I knew I could really sing, and I now began to feel that I could definitely act as well, that
I was capable of creating a flesh-and-blood character onstage and bringing the audience along on the journey with me.

So it was that in 1954, shortly before I was cast in
Plain and Fancy
, I went through a period of repeated auditions for
Peter Pan
. I literally auditioned at least ten times but Jerome Robbins, the director, couldn't decide between Kathy Nolan and me. Regardless of Jerry's reputation for being mean, he was always very kind to me and clearly seemed to respect my talent, even though the role eventually went to Kathy. Because she sat in on all of these auditions, Mary Martin began to take a real interest in me and my career. Even though I didn't get the job, she would send me little gifts—it was so nice of her. She was the biggest star on Broadway and it was all very flattering.
Peter Pan
played at the Winter Garden, and when we later went into that same theater with
Plain and Fancy
, she, knowing which dressing room I was going to be in, had written on the mirror in lipstick: “Good luck from Peter Pan. Peter loves you.”

Well, a few years later my mother was visiting me after a performance of
Candide
and was in my dressing room when up the stairs came Mary Martin and her husband, Richard Halliday. I saw them coming and I froze: I could not remember Richard Halliday's name to save my life. I knew I had to introduce them to my mother, so I decided to be honest and say to him, “I'm sorry. I don't know how this could have happened but your name has just flown out of my head. I apologize.” Mary never spoke to me again.

I may not have won the role in
Peter Pan
, but my confidence continued to grow; when I auditioned for
Plain and Fancy
, far from perspiring throughout the audition, I walked onto that stage feeling like I could do no wrong. I knew in my bones that I could do this. I remember singing “Mr. Snow” for Franz Allers, the con
ductor, and I was then asked to read a scene; when the creative team learned that I had never seen that particular scene before, they were so happy with my first attempt that the role was mine.

I was to play a naïve Amish girl, Hilda Miller, who has lived her entire life in an Amish community without ever once venturing to a city. She runs away and has adventures, all to the accompaniment of a very entertaining score by Albert Hague and Arnold Horwitt. We had a great cast, including Nancy Andrews, Richard Derr, and Shirl Conway (the unknown Bea Arthur was Shirl's standby). I thought the show could be a lot of fun, and I was right; this was a musical that seemed to work well right from the beginning.

Even rehearsals were great, including a cast field trip that proved just how interesting this business can be. Part of the action in
Plain and Fancy
involved the full company singing “How Do You Raise a Barn?” as we gathered to build a new barn, so we all went to the Feller Scenery Shop in the Bronx, where they were building the set, in order to gain hands-on experience with the onstage barn. By hands-on, I mean literally hands-on, because we all learned to simulate a real barn raising—where to put our hands, how to hoist the planks, and how to work together just as Amish farmers would. The first time we tried to raise the stage barn, it took twenty minutes, which obviously would never do. We did it over and over, cutting down the number of minutes it took, until we finally made it within the allotted amount of time. It was so exciting that it was like winning the Derby! Audiences loved that moment in the show, but nothing ever quite touched that wonderful feeling of family togetherness we experienced in the scene shop.

Audiences liked
Plain and Fancy
from the start of our out-of-town tryout, although I had a humorous (in retrospect) moment with my song “I'll Show Him.” That particular song, which I was
to sing right before running off to the carnival, had not been written as a typical soprano solo, and as a result necessitated my singing in a different style than usual. I was worried about the song and went to our director, Morton “Tec” Da Costa, and our choreographer, Helen Tamiris, to explain my solution: “I want to cut one of my songs.” Needless to say, they had never before heard those words from an up-and-coming actress, and simply looked at me before bursting out in laughter. That was the end of the discussion.

We opened in January of 1955 at the Mark Hellinger Theatre, quickly switched to the Winter Garden for the rest of the year, and then returned to the Hellinger for the final four months of the run, closing in March of 1956, after 461 performances. I received some great notices, and when I recently looked up some of those reviews I was actually a bit startled at how enthusiastic the big critics really were. Walter Kerr, then at the
New York Herald Tribune
, wrote: “Barbara Cook, right off a blue and white Dutch plate, is delicious all the time, but especially when she perches on a trunk, savors her first worthwhile kiss, and melts into the melody of ‘This Is All Very New to Me.'
”

Something about the spirit of the show—the real sense of community it conveyed—seemed to touch people deeply. During our run, a woman who had left the Amish community wrote me; she had loved the show and sent me a few of her old Amish caps, including a very special dress-up one. I still have those caps.

It was during
Plain and Fancy
that I appeared in a network television production of
Babes in Toyland
. The surprising thing is that I don't have strong memories of the production, even though there were major television personalities involved; the show was produced by Max Liebman, one of the leading TV producers of
the time, and my costars included Wally Cox, Dennis Day, Dave Garroway (of
The Today Show
fame), and the Bil and Cora Baird marionettes (the Bairds gained worldwide fame for their work on the film version of
The Sound of Music
).