My First Five Husbands (24 page)

M
ichael Cacoyannis, considered a top-rate director, was casting a production of
Lysistrata
to star his friend, Melina Mercouri, a Greek movie star famous in the States for the film
Never on Sunday
. He granted me an audition for the role of Kalonike, Lysistrata’s best friend, and for four blessed hours, I sat at his kitchen table, reading for him, discussing the play, and generally wooing him into casting me. When I left, I had a whale of a headache, but by gollyannis, I had the part.

Rehearsals began in early October.
Sticks and Bones
was posted to close September 30. A convenient segue. This production was to be a hip new American version of the play by Aristophanes, in which war-weary Lysistrata calls the women together, convincing them to withhold all sex from their husbands—drive them crazy, no matter how long it takes, no matter how horny the women get—until the men stop this war foofaraw and there is peace and tranquillity. The Cacoyannis rewrite had original music, written and performed by the leader of the pop group The Lovin’ Spoonful. Some of New York’s funniest actors were cast, and everyone began rehearsals with high hopes.

First day of rehearsal, we started at the top of the play. It’s dawn. Lysistrata appears center stage, looking out, wondering aloud where her lazy girlfriends are. Kalonike—that was me—enters from the back of the house and runs down the aisle toward the stage, calling, “Lysistrata! Lysistrata! Why have you summoned me?”

Cacoyannis called from the audience: “No! No! Eet’s ‘
LEE-seestrata! LEE-seestrata!
WHY ’ave you summoned me?’ Go back! Take eet again!”

Returning to the back of the house, I ran in again, doing it exactly the way he did.

“
LEEseestrata! LEEseestrata!
WHY ’ave you summoned me?”

“No! No! No! Eet’s ‘Why ’ave you summoned ME?’ Try eet again.”

Back to the starting point, run in.

“
LEEseestrata! LEEseestrata!
Why—”

“No! No! Don’t use an accent! Do eet like I do eet! No accent! Again!”

Like he does it…but no accent. Hmmm.

Me, with American accent: “LEEsistrata! LEEsistrata! Why have you summoned ME?”

“Oh, no! Not ‘summoned ME!’ ‘SUMMONED me’! We don’t ’ave time, just move on!”

Every sentence I uttered after that, he stopped me and corrected the syllables he wanted stressed, changing it every time. He gave me no time to get acquainted with the character. Do eet like he does eet! But no accent! And I wasn’t the only one. He gave syllable readings to everyone but Mercouri, with whom he conversed in Greek. The morning was interminable. That afternoon, we were turned over to the musician to learn some of the songs, which were confusing and disorganized. How does the music fit into the story? Who’s supposed to sing what? And when are they supposed to sing it?

Next morning, we started at the top again, and again there was no way to do it “right.” Two of the actors quit. The third day, the oldest character actor, a man of some reputation, quit. That day, an actor who had one of the larger roles invited me to have lunch with him and his friend, Peter O’Toole, who was somewhere between filming
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
and
Under Milkwood
. When I related the week’s goings-on, the stunning Mr. O’Toole said, “Oh, darling, just do what we British do. Tell the director to sit there like a good boy and keep quiet, then jolly well do it your way.”

That made me laugh, but there was no way Cacoyannis was going to keep quiet. And a good director shouldn’t! He is supposed to help the actors find their way. But that was clearly not going to happen here. The fourth day, I gave the stage manager notice that I was quitting.

“Oh, no you’re not!” he told me. “You signed a run-of-the-play contract.”

“What?” I was horrified. “No! I never signed for run of the play!”

I called my agent, who confirmed that I was right. But when I ran over to the Equity office, they showed me that my contract was indeed filed under “Run of the Play.” My heart sank. I was trapped. Held prisoner by that control freak! I cried all the way home to Closter.

Friday morning, I reported for work and the assistant stage manager handed me a pink slip.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“You’re fired.”

“Wait a minute! I couldn’t quit, but they can fire me?”

“You actually did sign a regular contract. Equity filed it under ‘Run of the Play’ by mistake. What’s the problem? You wanted out, didn’t you?”

Well, yes…but I felt oddly demeaned. I’d never been fired before. Still, bottom line, I was out of that turkey. Free at last! Then I realized I was out of both Broadway jobs. It had been a long time since I’d been unemployed, and I immediately began to worry I’d never work again. So, for the first and only time since beginning to earn my way strictly as an actress, I took on a job that popped up out of nowhere. Well, out of Trish’s mouth, actually. She wanted to have new outfits made for the Brooklyn Academy of Music ushers. Forty-two peacock blue polyester Cossack shirts.

“Forty-two peacock blue polyester Cossack shirts?”

“Forty-two peacock blue polyester Cossack shirts.”

(Say it aloud. Has a nice ring to it.)

“And I need them in four weeks. Can you do it?” asked Trish.

“I can do it.”

We settled on a price, and I drove all over New Jersey looking for enough peacock blue polyester material to make forty-two Cossack shirts in an array of sizes. Surprising how much blue polyester I found that wasn’t
precisely
the peacock blue Trish had in mind. Finally, I found the right weight, the right number of bolts, the right price, and Lord help us, the precisely right shade of peacock blue. With only three weeks left, I farmed out a third of the shirts to a seamstress at the Metropolitan Opera and a third to a friend, and we worked feverishly, using a pattern I’d bought. I set up shop in my dining room. The fish watched, their tanks burbling and gurgling, as I cut and sewed day and night, swimming in peacock blue polyester.

About halfway through the task—hallelujah!—I got an acting job. Another appearance on
Maude
. But it didn’t start until January, so the Cossack shirts got delivered on time.

And I bet you four Cossacks and a peacock I never make another one.

Lysistrata
opened in November, with Murph, Brent, and me perched expectantly in the balcony. I’m not a drama critic, so let’s just say that show should have been arrested. Those talented, funny actors were not funny, and their talent was lost in the mishmash. Even the stunning Melina Mercouri couldn’t inflate that lead balloon. It closed after eight performances.

There’s a story about a New York play starring an actor named Guido Natso. Some clever drama critic is said to have remarked, “Guido Natso was notso guido.” I can’t come up with anything that clever. But from that day to this, I have referred to the director as Michael Kakapoopoo. Maybe I just had an unusually bad time with him. But I don’t
THEENK
so.

That October was lovely. Mark and I spent another wonderful Halloween with Murph and Brent, wandering our spectacular Berkshire acreage, scaring the willies out of Mark’s friend Danny with the old ghost hunt, sipping cocoa, devouring gooey s’mores and Louisa’s apple pie, parting with hugs and promises to see one another soon.

On December 15, Murph and Brent were driving from the upstate house back to New York, Brent at the wheel, the highway slick with sleet. When they hit the black ice, Murph was thrown out onto the right shoulder of the highway, grievously injured but alive. Brent was thrown into traffic, where he was run over and killed instantly.

Oh, my God. Brent. Mark and I were in shock—and heartsick for Murph.

Brent’s parents came up from Texas and tried to take all his possessions—things he and Murph had shared for years—as well as half the house, which was in Murph’s name. Murph, still on crutches and desolate at the loss of his partner, had to battle them with his lawyer, who managed to beat them back to Texas with only the belongings of Brent’s that Murph was willing to part with. Murph sold the house and eventually moved to Florida, where I’m happy to say he found love and friendship with another good man.

As for the house, I rejoice that the new owners made it into a getaway that guests adore. I think our love must linger there, in the walls, in the air, in the yard, and certainly across the creek and in the sky, where Brent runs invisibly under a great ghostly white parachute every Halloween.

P
oor Mark was miserable at the Closter school and reached a low point in January. For a week, he didn’t get out of bed, incommunicado.

“I can’t go back to that school,” he finally told me. “I do want to be with you, Mother, but I think I need to go to Ardmore.”

Not knowing what else to do, I called Bill and Mother.

“Send that boy down here,” said Bill. “I’ll put him to work and make a man out of him.”

I agreed but first took him with me to L.A. when I did my second appearance on
Maude
. Mark’s motorcycle idol, Evel Knievel, was doing his daredevil thing, and although the show was sold out, we hung around outside the gate, watching from afar. When we returned to New York, Evel was appearing at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, and I did get tickets. (Oh, joy—Evel Knievel twice in two weeks!) But Mark still wanted to move to Ardmore, so I sent him. I thought a man’s influence might be good for him, and there certainly wasn’t another one in sight. Mark finished ninth grade at the same school I had attended and even had the same world history teacher, Mr. Todd, who ended every class by saying, “And that’s all they are to it!” And that summer, Bill did put him to work, along with Melinda’s son, Brendan.

Living alone—well, alone with Trish, Sandy, Panther, Grover, and seven tanks of suicidal fish—I invited an actor friend over for dinner one night. He stayed late, and we thought it best he spend the night in Mark’s room and have breakfast with me and Trish, after which I would drive him to the city. On our way over the George Washington Bridge next morning, he asked, “Why are you living with a lesbian?”

Taken aback, I said, “Huh?”

“You can’t tell me you don’t know.” He made a face. “My God, Rue, it’s obvious.”

Hmm. Trish did play poker one night a week “with the guys.” And she had switched jobs to become a bartender. But a lesbian? It had never even occurred to me. Then, on my birthday, Trish invited me to the bar where she worked. Wall-to-wall women. I felt like such a dumb bunny. But around me, she was always a perfect gentleman!

The ides of March rolled around and found me playing Will Hare’s wife in Brian Friel’s play
Crystal and Fox
. In the role of my son was a spectacular young actor named Brad Davis, who was twenty-three playing a seventeen-year-old IRA escapee being sought by the police. Crystal and Fox, itinerant Irish gypsies, harbor the runaway son in their wagon. Opening night, I found a bouquet of flowers on my dressing table and a note from Brad, giving me the clear impression that the young lad had a crush on me. Although I was flattered, I was not about to open that can of peas. But Brad was equipped with a very effective can opener.

The play closed a couple weeks later, and Brad got a job with Handy Andy, a yard service. By June, my large yard was begging for pruning and clearing, and he needed work, so I hired him to come out a few times a week. He worked like a Trojan (oh, dear, those puns), doing a bang-up job (yikes, there’s another one!) on the yard. I found him very funny and terribly sweet—but still off-limits.

The sparring continued.

“Brad! You’re only nine years older than my son, for heaven’s sake!”

“What does that have to do with anything—for heaven’s sake?”

Late one afternoon after he’d cleared the last of the overgrowth and carried it out to the street, we took a tour of the yard to check it out. He was joking and acting the fool, and we were laughing, heading down the hill toward the artist’s studio. The houses on either side of the property were a hundred feet away. All was still. Nobody in sight. In fact, in all the months I’d lived there, I had never seen either of my neighbors.

Brad stopped and said, “This farce has got to end. You know it’s inevitable.”

And he kissed me. And right then and there, on the grassy hillside under the June sky, we both dropped our Levi’s. A little while later, Brad was on his knees, zipping his pants up (and he gets an A, with a capital
A
!), when we heard a cheerful voice across the yard.

“Hello, Miss McClanahan! Isn’t it a lovely day?”

About forty feet away, my neighbor lady to the west could be seen striding down her yard, waving. I hunkered down in the grass and wiggled back into my jeans, zipping them as unobtrusively as possible, calling, “Yes, isn’t it? So nice to see you!”

Brad burst into laughter, helping me up, dancing around, singing, “Isn’t it a lovely day? So nice to see you!”

I grabbed his hand and pulled him up the hill to the house.

That Brad Davis was a caution. Of course, we both knew the affair wasn’t going anywhere, but he turned out to be one of my three best friends, along with Norman Hartweg and Lette Rehnolds, and the only best friend I shared with Mark, which I found a charming coincidence.