Kay Thompson (47 page)

Just like Eloise, Kay was ready for adventure at every turn. Comic actor Paul Sand recalled meeting Kay in Paris at that time—when he was just a twenty-year-old student of Marcel Marceau. “I taught Kay that the greatest way to look at the Eiffel Tower is by standing on your head!” Paul noted. “She
did,
while I held her ankles!”

The Eiffel Tower was just one of thirty-eight exterior locations scheduled for
Funny Face
that June. Unfortunately, Mother Nature was not on their team.

“It rained almost the entire time we were there,” Kay lamented.

While the filmmakers fretted, Kay turned the cloudy outlook into a bright opportunity. She convinced Stanley and Roger that it would be prudent to add rain gear to her ensemble for the “Bonjour, Paris!” montage. They agreed but pointed out that it was far too late for Edith Head to create something at Paramount and ship it to France.

“What a pity,” Kay replied, raising her eyebrow. “I guess I’ll just have to make do with something I find here in Paris.” As Stanley nodded, Roger smiled knowingly.

Thompson jumped in a taxi and burned rubber all the way to the House of Givenchy, where Audrey was busy with last-minute fittings supervised by Hubert himself. Explaining her predicament, Kay persuaded the couturier to come to her rescue, resulting in the elegant camel-colored raincoat that she gladly wore
over
her clothes, concealing every last stitch of Head’s duds throughout “Bonjour, Paris!” Thompson could barely contain her glee.

Tensions on set, however, continued to mount. “When Audrey, Fred, and Kay were at the top of the Eiffel Tower,” related Mart Crowley, “Kay told me that they had to get off the elevator arm in arm on the same beat, but they never could get the right step out the door. And Fred said, ‘It’s Audrey’s fault. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.’ Kay turned fiercely to defend Audrey and said, ‘It’s not her at all. It’s
you
.’ She tore him up. Fred moved off to the side, dejected, and sat down on an apple box, leaned his chin on his umbrella, and said, ‘Oh well, I guess I’m just an old queen.’ And Kay said, ‘You can say that again.’ ”

It didn’t help that they were forced to spend so much time together. As Kay explained, “The three of us—Audrey, Fred and I—had to go in the
same
car, to go to the
same
hotel, so when [any one of us] wanted to say [in a huff], ‘I’m leaving!’, we couldn’t do that because we had to wait until the car was coming and the three of us went home with your grievances—
all in the same car!
” (Their chauffeur was a diminutive Asian named Koki, whom Thompson immortalized in
Eloise in Paris
as the driver for Eloise and Nanny.)

Feigned congeniality made the car rides tolerable, but once they got behind closed doors in their individual hotel rooms, frustrations could no longer be contained. “I called [Audrey] after [Fred] had done this yelling,” Kay confided, “and Audrey said [in her soft and polite voice], ‘Yes, well, it
’tis
a bit of a strain.’ ” Thompson thought Audrey’s response was “pure heaven” and often quoted it.

Fred’s room was directly above Roger’s and, each night, Astaire would keep him awake by clomping around the floor, rehearsing his dance steps until the wee hours of the morning. Roger later discovered that Astaire was holding secret rehearsals with Hermes Pan—who had surreptitiously come to France on Fred’s dime. When Pan was spotted leaving early one morning, Astaire insisted the choreographer was in Paris by coincidence.

While Fred and Hermes were colluding at the hotel, Kay painted the town pink—often at Maxim’s—with the likes of Doris Duke, Noël Coward, Ethel Merman, Anthony Quinn, Gina Lollobrigida, Zizi Jeanmaire, Billie and Stanley Marcus, and Gloria Swanson.

Thompson was also granted a private audience with the mayor of Paris, Pierre Ruais, and she presented him with a case of California wine. “I shall sip
it with pleasure,” he said, “after it has been chilled.” In return, he gave her a silk scarf. As the meeting came to an end, Ruais “handed a ‘Friend of Paris’ diploma to Miss Thompson,” which was all very exciting until he instructed, “Give that to Fred Astaire,
s’il vous plaît.
”

If looks could kill, Thompson’s must have been radioactive.

After sixty-two days of principal photography, Kay, Audrey, and Fred were gratefully wrapped on July 3, 1956.

T
hompson attended the first
screening of
Funny Face
at Paramount on October 5, 1956, with a guest list that included David Niven, Tony Martin and Cyd Charisse, Agnes Moorehead, Vincent Price, Rosemary Clooney, Jose Ferrer, Ann Sothern, Gloria Stuart and Arthur Sheekman, Don Loper, Betsy Blair (Mrs. Gene Kelly), Arthur Freed, Michael Kidd, Leonard Spigelgass (then writing the
Playhouse 90
adaptation of
Eloise
), Donen, Edens, Gershe, Ira Gershwin, Edith Head, and the inspirations for the leads, Richard Avedon and his ex-wife, Doe Avedon.

“Caught the sneak preview of
Funny Face,
” wrote Hedda Hopper in the
Los Angeles Times
, “which should be retitled ‘
A Star is Born
with Kay Thompson.’ She is sensational.”

Mike Connelly wrote in
The Hollywood Reporter
, “Audrey Hepburn looks like a very, very cool million . . . And the screen really comes alive when Kay Thompson dances ‘Clap Yo’ Hands’ with Astaire.”

“Kay Thompson steals many a scene,” reported Dorothy Kilgallen, “even from such formidable talents as Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn.”

On February 4, 1957,
Funny Face
was screened for the first time on the East Coast, attended by Kay, Roger, and a large contingent of staffers from
Harper’s Bazaar
. As the film unspooled, it was clear that the audience was eating up Thompson’s fierce impression of Diana Vreeland—with one exception.

“A stony silence emanated from the direction of Vreeland,” wrote biographer Penelope Rowlands.

At the conclusion of the movie, Diana’s assistant editor, Barbara Slifka, recalled, “Mrs. Vreeland marched out saying, ‘Never to be discussed.’ ”

An article about
Funny Face
in the British edition of
Harper’s Bazaar
took the position that much of the film’s depiction of the fashion magazine world was fiction: “Some of the frantic antics we recognize: the pictures lying about on the floor tend to be old
Harper’s Bazaar
covers; but the pink doors and the uniform twittering young ladies are not true to office life. Kay Thompson, on the other hand, is anyone’s idea of a fashion editor.” No one could accuse the
fashionistas of sour grapes, but the praise was so faint, it practically evaporated from the page.

Icy relations thawed
rawther
quickly, though. Before the year was out, Vreeland and Snow allowed Thompson to write a humor piece for the December 1957 issue of
Harper’s Bazaar
entitled “Eloise’s Christmas List.”

Outside the fashion world,
Funny Face
was very well received. At the screening that left Vreeland cold, for instance, cheers erupted from Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Van Johnson, and Norma Shearer. Gloria Swanson requested a print for private viewing, then wired Edens that she thought it was “exquisite.”

Lucille Ball hosted a screening party at her home in Beverly Hills with Thompson as guest of honor. Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne was there that night: “When ‘On How to Be Lovely’ came on, Kay got up and did the number. So, she’s up on the screen with Audrey Hepburn
and
she’s in front of the screen doing the number live. And I thought, ‘Well now,
this
is fabulous.’ ”

Samuel Goldwyn was so impressed with the film, he sent a fan letter to Paramount’s grand pooh-bah, Barney Balaban, declaring, “
Funny Face
is, by all odds, one of the finest musicals I have ever seen—on stage or the screen . . . Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn are simply marvelous . . . and Kay Thompson has opened up a new career for herself.” The praise was so generous, especially coming from the competition, Paramount took out ads in
The New York Times
and
Daily Variety,
reprinting the letter in its entirety.

T
he charity gala world
premiere of
Funny Face
was set for March 28, 1957, at New York’s Radio City Music Hall to benefit the Hospitalized Veterans Service of the Musicians Emergency Fund. Exhausted from nonstop work, Audrey had decided to take a year off. With its primary star MIA, Paramount asked Astaire to escort Thompson to the opening but he flatly refused, preferring to take his sister, Adele, instead.

Upon hearing this, Kay decided it would be best to follow Audrey’s lead and let the film speak for itself. At the time, Thompson was back in France with Hilary Knight doing additional research for
Eloise in Paris,
so she changed her return flight to several days
after
the premiere, creating the convenient excuse that she was “unavailable, working abroad.”

Edens interceded by appealing to Thompson’s ego. Audrey’s absence, he argued, would allow Kay to become a major focus of the push behind the film. Otherwise, he added shrewdly, the publicity would end up being all about Fred. Enough said. Kay cut short her Paris trip and attended the premiere at Radio
City and the lavish after-party at the Waldorf-Astoria, covered via live remote hookup on
Tonight! America after Dark
(NBC-TV, March 28, 1957), the interim version of
The Tonight Show
between the reigns of Steve Allen and Jack Paar. Astaire did some
Face
time but steered clear of his costar, doing his best to ignore her.

“I saw him at the party,” Kay recalled, “and he just looked at me like, ‘Do we know each other?’ ”

After that, Kay was sent on a personal appearance tour to Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., and became the spokesperson for Angelique Perfume, which launched a new fragrance, Pink Satin, as a tie-in between
Funny Face
and
Seventeen
magazine.

And, in exchange for a free automobile, BMW featured Kay in advertisements for its Isetta 300, the “microcar extraordinaire” with the door that opened in the front—like the one she and Fred had driven in
Funny Face
.

“With no other place to put it,” noted the
Los Angeles Daily News
, “Kay Thompson parked her German midget car in The Plaza’s tricycle garage.” Gratis, of course. And in response to Kay’s drumbeating, Elvis Presley bought one for himself and another for Colonel Parker.

On the morning of the
Funny Face
premiere, Kay was interviewed by her former flame, Dave Garroway, on
The Today Show
(NBC-TV) and, on April 14, she guest starred on
The Ed Sullivan Show
(CBS-TV). Kay was still in Paris when she learned that she was booked on the latter, so she decided to shop for something special to wear.

“Kay was very friendly with Pierre Balmain’s
vendeuse,
Ginette Spanier,” recalled Hilary Knight.

“She had a creep of a husband, Dr. Paul-Emile Seidmann,” noted Kitty D’Alessio, former president of Chanel. “Ginette had a
real
relationship with Nancy Spain.”

Spain was “a flamboyant society lesbian, writer, journalist and broadcaster,” wrote Caroline Mitchell in her book
Women and Radio,
“often found at the social gatherings of the rich and famous, invariably wearing men’s trousers and shirt or a suit.” While Nancy exuded the stereotypical attributes of a “bull dyke,” Ginette was a classic “lipstick lesbian.”

Mocking her femininity, Thompson often referred to Spanier as “Muggsy,” after Muggsy Spanier, the jazz musician. So, when Kay decided to get a dress for
The Ed Sullivan Show,
she simply rang up Muggsy and made an appointment.

“I went with Kay to Balmain,” Hilary Knight recalled. “Balmain made for her—and
gave
her—this beautiful beige silk and chiffon evening dress.”

“She went to many fittings at Balmain and finally the dress was ready,” Mart Crowley related. “Kay took it back to the hotel and put it on but thought it was too stiff. So, she filled the tub and threw the Balmain into the water to soften it up a bit. A brand new Balmain!”

“She just wanted an excuse not to wear it,” Knight concluded, “and so, after soaking in the bathtub, it shrank and it was completely ruined. She ended up wearing a suit. I’m not sure where she got that.”

Wisa D’Orso, one of the regular dancers on
The Ed Sullivan Show,
recalled, “For rehearsal, I used to wear riding pants because they gave. Kay
loved
them and asked, ‘Where’d you find those?’ I said, ‘Oh, at a store across from the Madison Square Garden’—back when the Garden was at Fiftieth Street and Eighth Avenue. She ran right there and bought herself a pair.”

Rehearsed and coiffed within an inch of her life, Kay hit the Sullivan stage to perform one of her nightclub standards, “Quel Joie” (Kay Thompson), and a brand-new song entitled “Bazazz” (Kay Thompson–Ralph Blane), inspired by Miss Prescott’s catchword in
Funny Face
. Taking advantage of the tie-in, “Bazazz” was rush-released as a single by Verve Records, the same label that was distributing the soundtrack album for
Funny Face
.

The opening day gross of $23,000 at Radio City Music Hall broke the house record, and according to the April 26 front page of
The Hollywood Reporter
, the fourth week’s take of $214,777 was “the biggest one-week gross of any movie at any theater anywhere in the world in all history.”

Thompson was unanimously heralded in all
seven
of New York’s major daily newspapers as the hottest “newcomer” in showbiz. However, it was Elspeth Grant, critic for London’s
Tattler and Bystander,
who most eloquently summed up the general consensus: “Miss Audrey Hepburn’s performance in the title role of
Funny Face
is a complete ravishment—yet it is not the one I shall remember in stunned admiration whenever I think of this admirable musical. No: I shall remember Miss Kay Thompson as the ferociously efficient editress of a fashion magazine called
Quality.
Miss Thompson streaks comet-like into the cinema firmament—a luminary from the Outer Space of cabaret—and beside her the familiar stars look pale. She is the most dominant female personality to have struck the screen for quite a while and she handles every situation, every line, every song and every dance routine that comes her way with dazzling virtuosity.”