“Frankie, try to lie still.”
“I feel too restless today. The visitors tired me out.”
“Frankie, do you want me to leave you now?”
“No. I’m used to you.”
He had, during my vigil that day, been transferred from the ward to a private room—which he doubtless recognized as a room to which he was removed to die.
There are some things that I can’t forgive “Memorial” for. It took them about half an hour to bring up the oxygen tank after moving Frank from the ward to the room; he was gasping like a hooked fish all of that endless half hour.
When the tank arrived and when he had said, “I’m used to you now,” he turned on his side away from me. The statement of habituation was hard to interpret as an admission of love, but love was never a thing that Frankie had been able to declare to me except over a long-distance phone.
He lay there silently on his side. I thought he’d fallen asleep. I stayed on a while and then I quietly left.
On my way home I thought, This has gone too far. I went to my doctor’s office, Dr. William G. Von Stein, and told him rather hysterically what a nightmare Frankie’s last days at Memorial had turned into. Von Stein gave me a sedative shot and he said, “I am going to call Frank’s doctor.”
I went out that night and my hysteria took a different turn. I got quite drunk with a group of friends in a gay bar and came home about eleven that night. I’d hardly returned when the telephone rang. Frankie’s most devoted friend was calling. He was calling to let me know that Frankie was gone. He did it with great humanity.
“Tennessee, we’ve lost him. It happened in a few minutes. The nurse gave him a shot, he sat up with a gasp and fell back on his pillows and he was gone before the floor doctor could reach him.”
My first reaction was a hard thing to analyze now. I think it must have been relief that his and my torture was finished.
His, yes. Mine, no.
I was on the threshold of an awful part of my life. It developed slowly.
As long as Frank was well, I was happy. He had a gift for creating a life and, when he ceased to be alive, I couldn’t create a life for myself. So I went into a seven-year depression.
All of Frankie’s New Jersey family arrived at the Frank Campbell funeral home. Frankie was laid out in a coffin. His older sister, Anna—a fine woman—said to me, “Go up and touch his hand.”
I obeyed her with a feeling of terror. He looked very peaceful and grave and noble. But to feel his hand so dead and so cold, laid upon his chest, was a shocking contact.
106. With Maureen Stapleton and Frankie at a Chicago night club during the Chicago run of The Rose Tattoo.
107. Maureen Stapleton and Eli Wallach, in the original Broadway production of The Rose Tattoo.
108. On location, shooting the film of The Rose Tattoo in Key West.
109. The Rose Tattoo (film). Burt Lancaster, Natalie Murray, me and Anna Magnani on the porch of the house in Key West during Tattoo shooting.
110. Burt Lancaster, and Magnani in her Oscar-winning role—the famous picture from the movie version of The Rose Tattoo.
111. Two of my best friends, Felice Orlandi and Maureen Stapleton, with the excellent actor Myron McCormick, in a superb production of 27 Wagons Full of Cotton.
112. Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty in the 1950 movie based on the novel The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. This is my favorite of all the movies based on my work; it was directed by José Quintero, who had never shot a film before.
113. A mysterious young pursuer of Mrs. Stone in Rome—the end of The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.
114. The ritual cuckolding of Casanova, played by Joseph Anthony, in Camino Real. 1953—the Elia Kazan production.
115. Camille’s entrance in Camino Real.
116. Eli Wallach finds himself among the mysteries of Camino Real.
117. A scene from Camino Real, a version with A1 Pacino as Kilroy.
118. Barbara Bel Geddes—the original “Maggie the Cat”—with dear Mildred Dunnock as “Big Mama,” in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, on Broadway in 1955.
119. Maggie and “Big Daddy” (Burl Ives).
120. The movie version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, for which I received the highest sum I ever was given for any film. Paul Newman as Brick and Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie.
121. The great Elizabeth Ashley in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1974.
122. Eli Wallach and Carroll Baker in Baby Doll, the film based on the play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton.
123. Clouds of obfuscation descending on a rehearsal of Orpheus Descending. With Harold Clurman and Maureen Stapleton.
124. The ever-excitable Maureen Stapleton understandably enchanted by Cliff Robertson in his snakeskin jacket. The original Broadway production of Orpheus Descending.
125. With Anna on set of The Fugitive Kind, a film based on Orpheus Descending.
126. Brando and Magnani in The Fugitive Kind—two huge talents that clashed.
127. Anna Magnani, Marlon Brando, Joanne Woodward in another scene from The Fugitive Kind.
128. This Property Is Condemned.
129. Garden District with Robert Lansing, Hortense Alden, Anne Meacham.
Two funerals had been arranged, one at a Catholic church, arranged by his family, and the second at Campbell’s. I had invited all of Frankie’s many friends in the theatre to attend the one at Campbell’s and for my cousin the Reverend Sidney Lanier to conduct the service there, as he had for Diana Barrymore three years before.
But the service at the Catholic church came first, quite rightly, and it was a beautiful service, a high Requiem Mass.
Then Frankie’s body was taken back to Frank Campbell’s funeral home for the second service. The big chapel was full. And just before the service I had Frankie put in a different coffin as I didn’t like the pink quilted lining nor the light color of the wood. He was transferred to a much handsomer casket with plain white satin lining.
Afterward, I couldn’t go out to the cemetery but returned to my apartment with Kazan and his wife Molly. I kept up a good front but I noticed them exchanging looks. They knew that I had lost what had sustained my life.
The first version of The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, an interesting but rather extended title, grew out of a short story of mine, one of my best stories, I believe, called “Man Bring This Up Road.” I wrote this story one golden summer at the Hotel Miramare in Positano on the Divina Costiera of Italy. I was there with Maria and we were both supposed to be at work on Luchino Visconti’s film Senso.
I have always had trouble sticking to an assigned piece of work, and this was especially true in the case of Senso because I did not regard Farley Granger as an interesting actor. Also, the fact that I was working without remuneration on the film-script did not enhance my interest in it. Actually what little work I did on it was done because of my admiration for Visconti and my gratitude to him for giving my dear friend Maria a much-needed job in the production.
When I returned to the States, I picked up the short story one morning and it began to shape itself in my head as a long-short play, and I wrote it as such and as such it was produced the following summer in Spoleto’s Festival of Two Worlds. This initial production was distinguished principally by the performance of Hermione Baddeley in the role of Flora Goforth. We had a gala opening night to a packed house. Anna Magnani drove up from Rome for the event and she shared a box with me. She stared at Baddeley with growing amazement.
“Come magnifica!” she kept exclaiming under her breath, and I knew that she was referring to the star and not to the play.
Anna was a great and very strict judge of acting talents and she recognized in Hermione Baddeley an actress of a magnitude that approached her own and she was not envious, as a lesser woman might have been, but quite genuinely delighted. After the show, her greetings and felicitations to Miss Baddeley were all Anna and all heart.
The play itself made no particular impression and received only one subse
quent performance in Spoleto that summer. Of course I have always been a little skeptical about the seriousness of the annual Spoleto festivals; they always strike me as being, mainly, an ego-trip for the Maestro, Gian-Carlo Menotti, and his friend Tommy Schippers. The highlight of the festival is always Menotti’s huge birthday party for himself. There is a great display of fireworks all over the charming little town: and at the climax Menotti and Schippers appear in white tie regalia and are charioted about the packed streets in a big new convertible, probably a Caddy or a Rolls …
However, never mind. It was his kick, and I don’t think I should knock another man’s kick, nor his ego-trips, nor the fantasy world he lives in. There are worse things than a fantasy world to live in. I wonder, indeed, if a fantasy world is not the only world inhabitable by artists.
That next season Roger Stevens decided to produce Milk Train on Broadway. At first, he wanted Tallulah Bankhead to play Goforth. But I had seen Hermione Baddeley in it and I stood my ground against the mighty Stevens and insisted that Hermione Baddeley remain in the starring role. You see, I still had some clout in those days …
Paul Roebling, who had created the part of Chris Flanders in Spoleto, was also retained for the Broadway production and it rolled into action.
Opening night in New Haven was somewhat disastrous. Hermione was great as ever but the audience was far from sympathetic to the play.
There was a sort of Green Room set up for an after-opening confab among the persons involved in the production but it began to fill up with persons who had no connection with the production and I flew into one of my Wagnerian tantrums.
“What the fuck are you crepe-hangers barging in here for? Take your drinks and get out, we have a play in trouble and we’ve got to discuss it strictly among ourselves.”
The Boston opening of Milk Train was much the best that it received, despite a number of hilarious mishaps that occurred in the first scene. Almost immediately after her entrance Hermione’s red wig fell off, but she appeared to ignore this incident. She swept about the desk at which she was dictating her memoirs and when she arrived at the wig, she snatched it up—and put it on backward, and the audience howled. It seemed like the natural thing for “Sissy” Goforth to do. To the best of my recollection—as a Watergate conspirator might say—the notices were mixed but mixed in an interesting way, and certainly that dean of Boston critics, Elliot Norton, recognized it as an exploratory but important stage-work and was deeply impressed by Miss Baddeley as was everyone who had the privilege of seeing her.
We did good business in Boston at the Wilbur and it was nice being back in a suite at that lovely hotel the Ritz-Carlton with its fireplace and its view over the snow-white Common in winter.
But then we hit Philadelphia and things began to go sour.
The notices were less interestingly mixed and business not so good.
However, what I chiefly remember about the Philadelphia gig was a party given by Mrs. Roebling for the cast. The Roeblings, Baddeley, and of course the director, Herbert Machiz, were seated at a large central table which was festively decorated and I—ah, me—was shunted off to a little table apart, the sort of table that is called a “deuce.”
I did a slow burn as I took in this insulting situation. Then I rose to the occasion with a vengeance. I stalked over to the festive center table, from which I had been excluded, and I went directly up to Mrs. Roebling, seated at its head, and kissed her hand. I said this, to the best of my recollection:
“You’ve given a lovely party for the cast and thank you very much but I am sure you must understand why I am leaving at once!”
I then started for the elevators, but that nice boy and talented actor, Paul Roebling, rose from the center table and pursued me and tried to detain me.
At this time I was going a little zany and I made the most arrogant remark I can remember having ever made in a life that seems to lead me frequently into arrogance.
As best I recall my lines, I said to dear Paul, “When I attend a party for a play that I’ve written and am shunted off to the side of the big table, it is not an insult that I’m inclined to suffer gladly. This is all a Machiavellian trick played on me by Herbert Machiz and I’m very surprised that your mother and you would permit it to happen.”
Then the elevator arrived at the banquet floor. Paul made an effort to restrain me from entering the elevator but my outrage made me stronger than I was and I pushed him back and entered the elevator and savagely pushed the down button.
The play arrived in New York during a newspaper strike and so we received no written reviews in the papers, but copy of the notices were distributed and they were all ecstatic about Hermione and a bit cool toward the play.
The next day I entered the office of Roger Stevens and I said to him, “This woman has received the greatest notices, in a play of mine, since Laurette Taylor in Menagerie. I think you can have a run with the play if you exploit her notices. What are your intentions?”
His intentions were negative.
I like Roger very much but I felt he’d let me down and I said, after a few moments of verbal evasion on his part, “I get the message, good-by!”—and stalked out.
If you write a play with a very strong female role, such as Flora Goforth of The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, it is likely to surface repeatedly, since female stars of a certain age have a rough time finding vehicles suitable to their talents, personalities, and their public images. To call Milk Train a vehicle is somewhat unfair to it. In that play—really only successful, scriptwise, as the movie BOOM—I was fanatically obsessed with trying to say certain things. It was a work of art manqué. It is very sad that Tallulah didn’t play it about five years earlier, but it didn’t exist then. When it was ultimately given her, it was simply too late. Tallulah no longer had the physical stamina to put it over, she was too deep into liquor and pills, and she had great difficulty in projecting clearly past the front of the house.
The production came about in an odd way. The English director Tony Richardson got hold of the script and phoned me one day, heaping upon the revised version the most frighteningly extravagant praise.
(I don’t know why directors and producers think they have to bullshit a playwright in this way when all they have to say is, “I like it and want to do it.”)
Richardson was very “hot” at this time and the production was sure to be dominated by him, since Tallulah had kept her rebel spirit but lost her strength to fight, and the same was more or less true of myself. Richardson did not want Tallulah but the producer and I did. A curious compromise was made, one with which neither Tallulah nor I felt at all happy. They said to me, “Tenn, I will accept Tallulah as Goforth provided that you’ll accept Tab Hunter as Chris Flanders.” I was reluctant to accept this proposal since I could not see in Tab a mystic and ambiguous quality which the part demanded. Tony said to me, “I have a moral obligation to Tab Hunter and casting him as Chris will pay it off.” I can only surmise what the “moral obligation” may have been, and I shall leave you in the same uncertainty.
(Tallulah was once asked if Tab were gay, and she replied wittily, “How would I know, darling, I never fucked him.”) Considering his prior performances, I’d say that he peaked out in Milk Train, he showed more talent than I would have expected, but an ambivalent mysticism was not so apparent in his performance as a lingering talent for exposing his skin and physique. Around me, he was always affable, but he and Tallulah did not hit it off at all. That’s surprising, since Tallulah was usually very fond of her male associates.
Rouben Ter-Arutunian provided a poor set for the play, lacking in Mediterranean atmosphere and featuring his penchant for the stark and bizarre. I was deep in depression because of Frankie’s death. And Tallulah’s on-stage liquor and pills were the real thing. The production limped through several cities, rarely getting a good notice and supported only by Tallulah’s special and fanatic fans. When we arrived in Baltimore we were abruptly deserted by Richardson.
He had to fly back to London to attempt to patch up his confused marriage to Vanessa Redgrave.
There was much about Richardson that I liked and much that I deplored. He had a female assistant at rehearsals who rushed backstage at intervals too frequent to fetch him a drink which was not water. Despite his preliminary gushing over the play, he showed a strange indifference to its disintegration on the road. And once when I became outspokenly disturbed over something, he said to me, “I don’t think you’re insane but you are a chronic (or natural) hysteric.”
(Which was true at the time he said it, if not quite always.)
Good-natured and gifted he was, if responsible seldom.
David Merrick, the producer, came to our last road-stop in Baltimore and had the decency to ask me whether or not I wanted to bring the play onto Broadway. I answered, “I think it would kill Tallulah if we closed it.” So in we came. The first preview was practically pre-empted by Tallulah’s gay following, and they gave her an ovation. Merrick remarked to me, “If we had this audience every night, we’d have a smash.” However, on opening night, the audience did not buy the play and the critics demolished it.