From Hollywood to Paris: Charles Laughton and I

I

AFTER the Old Vic season had finished, Charles and I went to Hollywood once more, and again at short notice. In fact, it seems that whenever we have gone to or come from Hollywood we have never had more than ten hours’ notice. We have always packed in a hurry, and they have been the most horrible times I have ever lived through. Women hate packing hurriedly because they have to pack dirty as well as clean clothes. One expects dirty frocks, and so forth, at the end of a long journey, but it is most disheartening to have to start off with them.

We went by the fastest possible boat to New York, stayed one night, and took the plane early the next morning for Hollywood. At Chicago we were met by Thornton Wilder, a great friend of ours, and one of the best companions one could have. He is a professor at the University of Chicago and has a passionate love of the theatre. For years he has followed important productions all over the world. He gets the programmes, and he knows who played Othello in 1928 in Berlin, who played Hamlet in 1926 in London, and so forth. He is a sort of walking theatrical Who’s Who.

The first part I did during this visit to Hollywood was a little bit in David Copperfield under my M-G-M contract, and then I played in Naughty Marietta. Next I had those two very good parts in The Bride of Frankenstein. In one rôle I was the female monster: not actually ugly, but with a terrifying, sculptural sort of make-up. The other rôle was that of Mary Shelley, who was sweet and gentle. It was marvelous for me really, because there was such variety in these two parts that everyone could see what I could do. The difficulty in starting on a career, if you are a character actress, is to let people see the breadth and the range of your work.

In The Barretts of Wimpole Street Charles got to like Norma Shearer enormously, and, as he also liked Irving Thalberg, it was very pleasant. I did not meet Norma Shearer for some time, but he used to come home with stories of what a nice human being she was. They appeared to have a continuous round of food during The Barretts of Wimpole Street. They used to have Canadian bacon and marmalade on fried bread when she got on the set in the morning. Apparently Norma has a colossal appetite, because, after the bacon and marmalade, at about eleven o’clock they would have soup, and so on. She used to turn cartwheels on the set, so obviously the food did not serve as ballast. Charles says she turns very good cartwheels.

Her manner is exceedingly friendly and good; she never slips over the edge. I mean, when I laugh I sometimes make too much noise — you know the feeling. All Norma’s actions and movements and her gayety are really restrained. In fact, it is like perfectly timed acting; she is a good timer in life. The parties at her house were the only ones at which I quickly felt at home — a very, very easy household to move about in,

I particularly remember one party at her house on the Santa Monica beach. Most of the houses there have a swimming pool of fresh or salt water, according to what people want, and a little garden and sand of their own. There is a right-of-way between the sea and the fence at the bottom of the garden. On one night of the year — sometimes two — when the moon is full, a strange thing happens along the Pacific Coast. Little fish called grunions come up in great numbers to breed. They come in on to the beach and stand on their tails, twiddle round, and go back to deep water. They are about six inches long, and it is a lovely sight to see them. The local people come and catch them; they more or less know what night the grunions are ‘running,’ but sometimes the fish come in and go back before people are aware of what is happening.

Things like that interest me very much, but, like people in London who have never been to see the Tower, Hollywood folk are not much interested in the grunions. One night when we were at the Thalbergs’ house I saw Jean Harlow — whom everybody loved so much — with one of these little fish in her hand. It was alive, and she put it into a bowl of flowers. I knew it was not a fresh-water fish and that it would die, so I thought it had better go back into the sea. I took it out of the bowl of flower water and rushed into the garden and down on to the beach. Then I discovered that the beach was covered with grunions, and that people were catching them in their hands and in handkerchiefs. I had taken my shoes off and had my evening dress up round my knees. Knowing Charles would be madly interested, I dashed back into the house, crying: ‘The grunions are running! The grunions are running!’ Nobody took any notice except Charles, and Jeanette MacDonald. We all three dashed out and paddled about in the water. The sea was so full of grunions that it seemed as if one’s legs were being massaged by them. We did not try to catch any. We just watched them go up on to the beach, twiddle round on their tails, and slip back again.

On Christmas Eve I got rather too merry. It was then that I got to like Hollywood. Before that I had not liked it, but for me that Christmas Eve was a great moment. Van Dyke, who directed Naughty Marietta, gave an enormous open-house party. He often gave such parties, and absolutely anyone could turn up. The house was crammed on such occasions. I had a very popular American drink called, I think, ‘Old Fashioned’ — it has whiskey and sugar in it. Sugar in whiskey makes it more alcoholic, or something. It was the first time I had tasted an Old Fashioned.

I have a comic face which perhaps a painter might like — I don’t know; but, as it is an unusual face, when I am among a lot of beautiful women I have an inferiority complex about it. At this party I got very gay, and I suppose I looked natural and therefore nicer; important people flung their arms around me. That was almost too much for me. When you have been in a place for months and are miserable, and people suddenly look at you as if you were the only woman in the world, it does you good. Anyway, from then on I thought, ‘ Well, I may not be a beautiful blonde, but I am something.’ It gave me confidence. Charles took me home at exactly the right moment. Since then I have never disliked Hollywood.

II

Ruggles of Red Gap had been chosen for Charles’s final commitment with Paramount. He was immediately attracted by the story, and was keen to do it. However, when he came out of the hospital the script of Ruggles was not ready, and he had been persuaded during his illness to do Micawber in David Copperfield. Scripts of productions are always weeks late; it cannot be helped. Since the script of David Copperfield was ready, M-G-M got permission from Paramount to borrow Charles for the part of Micawber.

On the face of it, Micawber seemed to be a wonderful part for Charles. He set about the make-up, and had the whole of his hair shaved off. In the end he really did look like Micawber. Hugh Walpole and George Cukor saw the silent test. They and everybody else agreed that Charles just was Micawber: his every movement, the walking stick, the top hat, were all that is associated with the character. But Charles realized when it came to speaking the lines that he did not have the necessary quality for the part. He felt that it needed a music-hall technique which he did not have. He started the film, but persuaded David Selznick, and quite rightly, that he was not suitable for it. Eventually W. C. Fields did it with great success.

It is very unpleasant for an actor to discover that he cannot get into a character, and have to beg people for whom he is working to release him. M-G-M did not at first agree with Charles, because they thought he was good, but Charles felt he was not.

During the wait for Ruggles we went out to Palm Springs, the resort in the desert one hundred and twenty miles from Hollywood which is a playground for film people. The town is not a very picturesque place. There are large hotels, palm trees, swimming pools, and every modern convenience. When you get up in the morning you feel you have to put smart clothes on. When I say ‘smart clothes,’ everybody will say, ‘Oh, but you just wear slacks; put on an old jersey and a pair of sneakers and go out.’ But the trouble is that there is a smart way of wearing slacks. In England we get up and sit around in dressing gowns and pyjamas, or we put on a

rather old pair of gray flannel trousers and brogues. Yet in Palm Springs I could not have gone out in sloppy clothes without attending to the final details of make-up. In fact, it is smart slovenliness. You wear slacks with an air. All the talk about ‘wearing anything’ is nonsense; people are very careful how they look easy in Palm Springs.

At last, however, Charles came back to do Ruggles of Red Gap. This was one of the best times we have had. The company all liked each other; everyone was exceedingly happy and the ‘rushes’ came out well. But they began to have doubts about the picture towards the end. It seemed to be a bit sophisticated, somehow; they were introducing English jokes to Americans, and jokes about the Middle West to English folk. They started to think, ‘Well, maybe in England they won’t understand the American gags.’ They had doubts about the national characteristics they had introduced. They need not have worried. Both countries laughed at both lots of gags, and it made a most successful film.

After this Charles and I were both working in separate studios. I was the Bride of Frankenstein and he was Javert in Les Misérables. We both used to get home in the evening, dog-tired, and talk about what we had done during the day. Whether we listened to each other I do not know, but it makes things go happily when one is able to give an exact recital of how Mr. X had twenty ‘takes’ and so on.

I think Charles gave one of his best performances as Javert in Les Misérables. He represented the law pursuing its course by rule of thumb rather than by any individual choice. Javert’s own private conscience turns on him in the end, and he realizes that possibly the law may be wrong. Then he commits suicide by jumping into the river, Charles got rather tired of wading through mud, slime, and so on in the sewer scenes; it was pretty realistic. I remember that on the United Artists lot he had a dressing room, sitting room, bathroom, and kitchen — a whole flat — and he could have had a cook if he had wished.

At M-G-M the stars choose to be in tiny dressing rooms about twelve feet by seven. There are rows and rows of them. One walks about a quarter of a mile to get from one end of them to the other. Some smart ones have been built, but most of the stars are sorry to give up their old dressing rooms as they progress up the ladder. They get used to them, and know exactly where to get the best light for make-up. Charles has gone from one dressing room to another; he started with a very simple one at Paramount and finished up with a very smart one.

For character make-ups one goes to the make-up room, where all the yards of crêpe hair are hung out. Crêpe hair comes in a plait, and when it is unplaited it is frizzy and curly. It is dipped in water, and a weight is hung on the end to get it straight. Of course most face fungus that has to be put on has to have a bit of fuzz. This is not real human hair. Most of the human hair is used for wigs, and comes, I believe, from Russia and the East. Black hair can be bleached to any color. Of course there are various sorts of animal hair, too.

There is only one thing to make frizzy hair like mine straight — a Japanese wood which is most difficult to get over here. You soak it in a jar of water for six hours; then you remove the wood and smear the thin glue-like liquid on to your hair. It can then be set straight, or in sausage rolls, or in marcel waves, according to taste. While I have been a martyr to hair-straightening processes, Charles has rarely been in a film without going through much more complicated tortures. The make-up room to him must seem more like an operating theatre, what, with Henry VIII’s beard, Nero’s nose, Mr. Barrett’s side whiskers, and Captain Bligh’s eyebrows. It is always a pleasant shock to see him as himself between films.

III

During the filming of Mutiny on the Bounty Charles spent much of the time on Catalina Island, which lies about twenty miles off the coast of Los Angeles. Although in the picture Charles went to Tahiti, he did not do so in reality. The native girls shown in the picture went to Tahiti, but it is expensive to send stars on such a long journey, so ‘ process shots’ are taken. You see Clark Gable, for instance, talking to a girl on the beach at Tahiti; she was there but he was not. That is one of the secrets of the screen. They get a man to practise Clark Gable’s walk, and they make a long shot of him walking on the beach and sitting down with the girl in Tahiti. Next they make a close-up of the real Clark Gable against a Tahitian background projected on a screen: this is what is called a process shot or back projection. Then they bring the girl to Hollywood from Tahiti and do closer shots of the two of them in front of the processed Tahiti background. After that they cut back to a long shot of Clark Gable’s double, and so finally you cannot tell that Clark Gable is not walking on the beach and sitting down beside the girl in Tahiti.

In the shooting of the wreck of the Pandora in Mutiny on the Bounty one of the camera boys was drowned after the Pandora wreckage scene had been shot, when some rafts were being towed back by tugs. One of the rafts got into the trough of a wave; a tank was torn off the deck, and the raft sank. The whole thing was nobody’s fault.

I was in England at the time, and the first I heard of it was when a London newspaper telephoned me and asked, ‘Can you please tell us if your husband is all right?’ I replied, ‘As far as I know, yes. Why, what’s the matter?’ They said: ‘The Bounty has sunk and rumors are coming through that several people have been drowned.’

Fortunately, previous to that Charles had told me in a cable, not apropos of anything, ‘If you hear any rumors of accidents, don’t take any notice.’ There is a lot of stunt publicity around a picture like Mutiny on the Bounty, and any little accident that happens gets turned into a sensation. I bought an evening paper and saw that the Bounty had sunk — it was big headline news for one evening paper. But Charles was not on the boat, he did n’t see it happen, and it was not the Bounty anyway! The newspapers hoped to be able to say, ‘Mrs. Laughton screamed and fainted at the other end of the wire,’ or ‘ Mrs. Laughton yelled: “My God, he is dead!”’

Actually I did not take any notice at all, fortunately. I said, ‘I have heard nothing. I am sure it is quite all right,’ very meekly and mildly. But I did not like the simple way they said: ‘Have you heard about your husband?’ It was rather frightening.

While I was in England I occupied myself at our country cottage with my eight-millimetre movie camera. I made four funny shorts with my two friends, John Armstrong (who designed the costumes for some Korda productions) and Benita Jaeger, who is my closest woman friend. When Charles was at last coming home we spent hectic evenings cutting these little pictures so that they would be finished in time for him to see on his first night home.

We called ourselves ‘Country Film Productions, Ltd.’ The titles of our films were Mother India, Parlez-Moi d’Amour, The Sleeping Clergyman, and Whither Tarzan — we still show them, but only to friends. Benita, John, and I got frantically professional at this time, and, I can tell you, a little temperamental also. But we all know one another so well that it did n’t matter.

With regard to story values in films, years ago when I had first met Charles, H. G. Wells wrote three shorts for me. Although I say ‘wrote,’ he really did not. I met him, and the first thing he said to the company was, ‘Elsa blows a whistle.’ That’s all — and that was one story. The effect of my face seen blowing a whistle and the results of the blowing of it — the world of officialdom that I brought down on my head — constituted the whole story, and represented for the films something much more valuable than pages of words about how and why and when.

IV

It was about August 1934 that Charles returned from America after Mutiny on the Bounty. Korda was proposing to do Cyrano de Bergerac, but, however much the author of the script and those adapting it worked upon it, they did not seem to be able to get a satisfactory shooting script out of it. They clung to Cyrano all through the autumn and winter; costumes were designed and Charles had various fittings, but finally the subject had to be dropped and no other script was ready to take its place.

Now I’m sorry to talk about ‘my operations,’ but just think of the pleasure it gives me not to have anyone to shut me up, although of course you can skip this bit if you wish. I was in London with nothing to do and decided to visit Charles’s family in Scarborough. We — that is, Benita Jaeger and John Armstrong and I — set off in the car intending to make a leisurely trip, a chauffeur driving. But seven miles outside York we collided with a ‘dangerous driver,’ and you know what that means. The little film actress (that’s me) was the only one to get a scratch. John and Benita would certainly have suffered from shock, but they had to look after me, and so did n’t. I had a cut about the same size as my mouth through my left eyebrow, and, thinking I might become unconscious or faint, I sat by the roadside and said: ‘No one must touch me except George. . . . Benita, have you got a pencil? Write his name down at once.’ ‘George’ is the most famous plastic surgeon in Europe, and I must confess that I had this sentence prepared before the accident occurred, on the ‘you never know’ principle. I did n’t faint, and eventually we got a lift to York Hospital, where I was cleaned up. George was playing golf somewhere and was reached by Benita on the telephone. She also reached Charles in Monte Carlo and he started back immediately — he did n’t even bring a hat. I traveled back to London that night, and so did George.

I often like to tell my friends about ‘the accident,’ but they don’t take any notice. I point to my scar, but they can’t see it. Why should they? I can’t see it myself — sometimes I wish I could.

This was the longest period that Charles has ever been unoccupied. If we had known we were going to have ten idle months, Charles and I would have done what we have always wanted to do: traveled round the world on board ship. But from week to week, day to day, discussions and arguments went on, subjects came up and were turned down, and authors were employed to see if they could make the subjects turn in the right direction.

So Charles and I stayed at home to wait for these ten months to pass—a long bite out of an actor’s life; they were trying days.

We spent most of our time in the country, in our four-room cottage. We have two rooms, and the couple who look after us have the other two. It is only twenty-eight miles from London, and stands in the centre of a thirty-twoacre wood, which is, again, in the middle of six thousand acres privately owned and kept chiefly for shooting purposes. The railway station we use is six and onehalf miles from our cottage.

Once some people rang up and said: ‘We are going to have a paper chase, and we have made your cottage the end. Would you please give your autograph to the winner?’ Charles said, ‘Certainly not,’ because if one person found his or her way to the cottage, dozens would be coming along. On a day like August Bank holiday we might see a hiker or two go through the wood, but usually we see hardly a soul. We get up, have breakfast, and walk for miles without meeting anyone. We don’t mind if it is rainy or gray or muddy — we just plod through it.

Once we met a couple of girls wheeling a tandem bicycle, and a little time after they had passed us we heard one of them come panting along behind. It was a girl with spectacles and plus-fours. She said, ‘Excuse me, my friend’s ever so soppy, but she says you are Charles Laughton. You aren’t, are you?’ Charles said, ‘Yes, I am,’ and she at once said, ‘You are n’t,’ and when he repeated, ‘ Yes, I am,’ she said again, ‘You’re not,’ then turned tail and fled back to her friend like a rabbit, saying, ‘Oo-er . . .’ ‘My friend’s ever so soppy ’ has become a sort of gag in our house.

V

At last began the preparation of Rembrandt. It arrived as an original script by Karl Zuckmeyer, but, as he was a German, it had to be adjusted to the English-speaking point of view. It was obviously something Karl Zuckmeyer felt deeply about and did a good job on, but the sentimental parts of the German script did somehow stick in the mouths of English-speaking people — I mean German sentiment as apart from English sentiment. It is not a matter of translation, but of adjustment. That took a great deal of time.

Meanwhile, Charles was invited by the Comédie Frangaise to act the part of Sganarelle in Act II of Molière’s Le Médecin malgré lui at a midnight gala performance which the Comédie Française gives annually, when not only the permanent company do selections from the most popular plays, but distinguished visitors are also invited to act. This was the first occasion on which an English actor had been asked to join them in a play as one of themselves, and not as a separate turn on the programme. It was a great honor and very alarming. The Comédie Française has been in existence for three hundred years, and Charles was the first Englishman to be invited into this select company. He was exceedingly pleased about the invitation, but as the time drew nearer he became steadily more scared.

He went over to Paris with Alice Gachet, whom he credits with teaching him more about acting than anyone else. He worked under her while he was a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and, as Charles says, anyone who wants to go on the stage should go and be taught by her. She still teaches there, and she has spotted many famous people, including John Gielgud, Robert Harris, Celia Johnson, and so forth.

For four or five days before the performance Alice and he rehearsed with the company, and privately with one or two members of the company in the evenings. It was very nice of them all to rehearse so much with Charles, considering they had all been playing the parts for a long time and knew them backwards.

When Charles arrived for rehearsal he found people pointing toes, and clicking fingers, and saying, ‘One-two-three-ah.’ Not being one who acts by these methods, he was scared out of his wits, because he realized it was entirely different from what he had been accustomed to. When he found these slick people dancing round him, not an inch out of place, not a quarter of a second off time, while he has been in the habit of groaning and moaning his way through characterizations until he reaches the truth he has been looking for, he was almost in despair. By the time I arrived in Paris he was a nervous wreck, more like a person living in the middle of a nightmare than a human being. He was in one of those moods when every time he took a taxi he hoped that a collision or some other accident would occur before the dread night. All actors have experienced that feeling; they would not commit suicide, yet if death came accidentally and honorably they would be glad.

When the night of the performance came it was an exceedingly painful experience, because Charles had not been able to eat or sleep, and was just living in a state of nervous tension. The performance began at midnight; there was nothing to do but to have late dinner, try to sleep, have a thimbleful of champagne at a time, and then go to the theatre. In that nervous condition on first nights you do not feel so bad when you reach the theatre and are sitting in your dressing room surrounded by make-up. One layer of nerves is, as it were, deadened, just as when you go on to the stage all your nervousness vanishes. Sometimes it returns in the middle of the show for a short while. Anyway, Charles had a period of prolonged agony because it was a midnight matinee, and as the act from Molière was the star piece of the evening it was put right at the end of the programme. Also the show started late, as shows always do in France.

The programme was marvelous. I sat in a box with the Director of the Comédie Française. In France a distinguished actor is awarded the Légion d’Honneur and is called maître. The leading posts of honor in the theatrical world are held by the leading actors of the Comédie. I sat in the box with some of the more venerable representatives, but naturally I did not enjoy the performance much because I knew Charles was moaning in his dressing room on the other side of the proscenium. When at last his particular part of the show came on I was near enough to see the beads of sweat on his forehead, and the agony in his eye.

Charles had one of the most horrifying experiences that any actor can have who is used to pointing a phrase with a gesture in the theatre, knowing where the laughs are to come. He spoke the enormously long tirade in Act II, and the whole of the speech was received in stony silence. At the very last line the audience cheered for several minutes. Nobody had told him that during the famous passages in Molière the Comédie audiences, knowing them by heart, remain completely silent to receive their full savor.

Alex Korda had come over, and we mooched around in the intervals. I remember I was very thirsty, but could not get a drink of water anywhere. They certainly did n’t seem to have a bar in the Comédie Française, but perhaps it was shut, as it was midnight. Nerves are inclined to make one thirsty and I know I was uncomfortable for at least three hours; my tongue was parched and sticking to the roof of my mouth. When the play was over we went behind the scenes. Charles was surrounded by people as relieved as he was that it was all over. There were flashlight photographs, champagne and flowers. When we got out of the theatre I suppose it was about five o’clock in the morning. Everybody said Charles was marvelous, and, considering he is an Englishman who had only had four days’ rehearsal, he was marvelous. But he knows, and I know, it was not a thoroughly good performance.

From both his point of view and mine, considering the sort of actor he is, he neither fitted in nor achieved success in his own method of acting. We read the newspapers afterwards and felt rather sad. It is, of course, the critics’ job to criticize, but if Charles rehearsed hard and gave a good performance on the stage to-day and really did create something good, he would not be treated as an actor acting but as a star starring. When Charles went over to Paris to play at the Comédie Française and was under-rehearsed, the critics who went over there all lauded him and declared his acting wonderful.

The whole of Paris seemed to be waiting on the pavement when we left the theatre. People were on their way to work; maybe that’s why there were so many of them: young shopgirls, young workmen and office boys. Charles and I, Beatrix Lehmann, Alex Korda, and Alice Gachet, the five of us, got into a taxi and returned to our hotel and held a postmortem. We were wide-awake with relief, although we all had black rings round our eyes. My eyes looked like stewed prunes on burnt toast. We ordered breakfast. After breakfast the men decided, on the spur of the moment, to go to Holland to soak themselves in atmosphere for Rembrandt. So I packed for Charles like a madwoman — one of those beastly jobs when you have taken enough away for four or five days in Paris, and then want something suitable for three days’ traveling by car. Dirty clothes have to be considered in a new light. I was in full evening dress and drinking black coffee.

Charles was loaded with souvenirs given to him by the French company. We still have them, and they are greatly valued. One we love very much is a little dish painted by Renoir, which someone sacrificed to Charles because of his gesture in coming to Paris to act. He kept the purse that he had used in the play with stage money in it, and someone gave him a ring with Cyrano’s head on it, not knowing that the Cyrano film project was already buried in the past. There were also two paintings, a couple of drawings, a lot of books, and copies of plays that the Comédie Française had done, signed by members of the company. He had a book of their history signed by the entire company from the wardrobe mistress up to the leading actors. They were charming people, and seemed to have such high spirits compared to most other actors. Once you are in the Comédie Française, the public cannot discard you like an old glove. It is a life appointment. Where other actors possibly worry as to what is going to happen to them when they grow old, these people fall off the stage like autumn leaves — which is a nice system.

(To be concluded)