Haywire by Brooke Hayward (android based ebook reader .txt) 📕

honesty. And she could be merciless in her expectations, whether of herself or of any other actor.

In spite of the anguish with which she regarded her profession, Mother, when actually working, was fiercely dedicated to it. Joseph Cotten, who played the male lead in “Sabrina,” was amazed by the way, one night, she was able to assimilate thirty-odd changes into her performance. Hank Potter, the director, remembers quite vividly:

“It was even more remarkable than that. What happened was that she had allowed that little wistful (trademark) note to color far too many lines in ‘Sabrina.’ I spoke to her about it when I went round at half-hour one night. I did not want to confuse things by being too specific just before a performance, but I told her to try and keep it in the back of her head when she played that night. She told me I was a lousy director, never gave her anything specific. No one had ever made that particular accusation to me before, and so I got out my notes and showed her about fifty detailed instances where this was happening. So she got mad at me and asked me how I dared upset the applecart just before the performance. She went out on the stage, gave a brilliant performance, and made the necessary changes in every single case, without touching in any way her customary reading of any line that had not been noted. I don’t think anyone else, before or since, could have done it.”

• ••

She could also be dedicated in her loyalty to fellow workers and friends. During tryouts in Philadelphia the play wasn’t going too well.

Joe Cotten:

“It had begun to disintegrate, get out of control. Hank Potter was working so hard with Sam Taylor, the author, that he was neglecting the play on the stage a little bit. Everybody decided that Hank better go down to the Labrador retriever trials near Baltimore for a little rest. Bob Sherwood came down from the Playwrights Company; he was very good for morale but not much better as a director for this particular play. It was going right down the drain. They were fiddling around, looking for another director. And Maggie told me that Hank Potter had been fired on his last play (Point of No Return) by Leland, that his recent history in theatre had been a series of flops; she was of the opinion that if he was dismissed from this one, his career in the theatre would probably be over. She didn’t think he deserved that and she wasn’t going to be responsible for it. She made it clear that if Hank was fired she wouldn’t open with the play in New York. They brought up Equity and Maggie said, ‘Do whatever you want, kick me out, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be responsible for Hank Potter’s being buried as a director.’ So they brought him back, and everything turned out all right. All he’d needed was a change of scenery.”

Mother claimed that “Sabrina” was one of the happiest theatrical experiences of her career. Out of it came many lasting friendships: Joe and Lenore Cotten, Cathleen Nesbitt, Sam and Suzanne Taylor. But her conflict about wanting to work and not wanting to work was greater than ever. Millicent Osborn told me:

“Before she and Leland were divorced, she went to this analyst in California and after she’d been going there for a while, she came to me and said, ‘You know all that nonsense I’ve been talking about—how I hate being recognized and how I hate the theatre and how I hate acting?’ And I said, ‘yes,’ and she said, ‘Well, I’ve discovered I love it.’ And I said, ‘How did you discover that?’ And she said, ‘Through my analysis.’ Maggie maintained that she didn’t mind the acting, as such, but she hated having to take a bow, she hated the audience rapport, she wanted to go on and presumably act in a vacuum—which of course was not true. She was deluding herself, because the very essence of acting is that you have an audience.”

In Paul Osborn’s opinion:

“I think that Maggie was so conflicted about being famous that she was unable to see herself as a public person. Consequently she used this idiot ruse of pretending she wasn’t who she was. Yet at the same time she had a very distinctive outward appearance, which she made no attempt to disguise. She both liked the adulation and hated it. Subconsciously she wanted it and she hated herself for wanting it, so she pretended she didn’t want it at all. I don’t think that’s an uncommon trait in actors, but in Maggie it was terrifically magnified.”

Millicent Osborn:

“Maggie was not a cruel person and yet she was capable of cruelty. One time, Paul and Maggie and I were having lunch at the Lafayette. The poor old chef came out—a little Frenchman with a high white hat; he walked over to the table where we sat and handed me an autograph book, and I said, ‘No, this is Miss Sullavan.’ He didn’t speak any English, and Maggie confused hell out of him by insisting that I was Miss Sullavan. And in order to stop that, I finally signed it.”

When the summer of 1954 came around, Mother agreed to let Bill and me spend it with Father in Los Angeles while she visited Bridget in Europe. We were thrilled. One of the reasons for letting us go was that Jane and Peter Fonda would be there with Hank; Father was making Mr. Roberts into a movie. Locations were to be shot in Hawaii, so Jane and I began making plans for our invasion of the beaches of Waikiki. Jane was also in boarding school, Emma Willard, and much more sophisticated than I. Everything about the Fondas’ lives seemed “more” than ours. Jane and Peter’s mother, Frances, had committed suicide; this, while tragic, was provocative. Mother had entered into endless discussions with Mrs. Seymour, their