My Life as a Mankiewicz (7 page)

There's a race riot in the film, something unthinkable to have put on the screen at the time and something the moviegoing public wasn't prepared to look at. Both Dad and Zanuck realized the film wouldn't be shown in many states—indeed, it was never exhibited south of the Mason-Dixon Line—but they went ahead and made it. Right-wing publications damned it as hysterical “Commie” propaganda, but
Ebony
magazine, the most influential black publication in the country, praised it as the first honest film ever made about contemporary black life. Ossie Davis was also in the cast and gave a wonderful performance. His wife, the hugely talented Ruby Dee, joined Sidney in making her screen debut.

After the film finished shooting, Dad asked to see Sidney. He gave him an office address in New York and told him to go there and say he was sent by Joe Mankiewicz. The office belonged to Zoltan Korda of the famous British film family. Dad knew Korda was about to make
Cry, the Beloved Country
and thought Sidney would be perfect for the lead role. He asked him to fly Sidney to London and test him. He was confident he'd get the part. Korda did exactly that. Sidney starred in the film, which was wonderfully received internationally, and the rest, as they say, is history. I recently sat on a panel at the Motion Picture Academy with Sidney, Martin Landau, and others, celebrating a new print of Dad's film
Suddenly, Last Summer.
When Sidney was introduced, he got a standing ovation from a packed house in the main theater. He thanked the audience, then noted: “Were it not for Joe Mankiewicz, there's a good chance I wouldn't even be on this stage tonight.”
No Way Out
represented the best that was inside Dad, the kind of courage he showed fighting against the loyalty oath at the Directors Guild. At times like that, I was so proud to be his son.

At the end of
No Way Out
, Widmark lures Sidney to a house to kill him, but is himself accidentally shot in the dark. His leg is gashed wide open, the blood flowing freely. Sidney applies a tourniquet and delivers the last line of the film: “Don't cry, white boy. You're going to live.” Thirty years after the film's release, I attended a wake for William Holden at Stefanie Powers's house. Sidney and Widmark were both there, fast friends, having made at least one other film together. The three of us were talking at the bar. Widmark took a handful of peanuts and tossed them down his throat. He gagged, horribly. They'd gone down the wrong way. He coughed violently as Sidney pounded him on the back. His eyes glassed over. Suddenly, the obstruction cleared. Sidney smiled and said: “Don't cry, white boy. You're going to live.”

Julius Caesar
(1953)

Generally regarded as one of the best adaptations of Shakespeare ever put on the screen. Marlon Brando played Mark Antony. He had never performed Shakespeare before, not even in acting class. This daring piece of casting resulted in an Oscar nomination and his actually winning the British Academy Award. Dad was particularly proud of that, since in his opinion the Brits would rather have committed mass suicide than given an American actor their Oscar for performing Shakespeare in the 1950s. Almost thirty years later I was having lunch with Marlon in London while we were doing
Superman.
I asked him how different things were making films now than earlier in his career. “In those days you knew whose set you were on,” he replied. “It was Kazan's set, your father's set. Today, sometimes I work with directors who actually ask me if I think they're doing a good job.”

It's crucial, as I found out later, for a director to be able to control his or her set, especially when things start to get out of control, as they often do. Marlon told me about the day they were filming Caesar's entrance into the Colosseum, when he meets the soothsayer who gives him a warning. Dad was up on a crane, shooting down at the actors. The problem was that they were all waiting for a “day player” who had two lines. He'd ducked out to relieve himself and hadn't come back yet. Marlon: “This was a pretty amazing cast standing there, waiting: James Mason, John Gielgud, me, Deborah Kerr, Greer Garson, Louis Calhern, and Edmond O'Brien. Being actors with nothing to do, we started kidding around, making pee jokes. Gielgud ‘confessed' that he'd peed in his pants twenty minutes ago, sacrificing himself for his art. I asked Deborah when she peed, did she have to take off her whole fucking toga? It started getting boisterous. Joe was looking down from the crane, the ever-present pipe in his mouth, silently fuming. Suddenly, the guy came running back onto the set, totally out of breath. He looked up at Joe apologetically: ‘I am so sorry, Mr. Mankiewicz. No one told me they'd be ready this soon.' Joe nodded. The guy took his place. We were still stifling laughs about pissing when the buzzer sounded. Everyone put on their game face. ‘Rolling!' ‘Speed!' It was totally quiet. Joe took the pipe out of his mouth and stared down at the guy: ‘You don't have nearly the talent, young man, to keep this company waiting twenty minutes.' We all snapped to, straightened up like a bunch of schoolkids. We were doing Shakespeare. It was an important scene. Joe had just taken his set back.”

Guys and Dolls
(1955)

The only film Dad ever made that was the top grosser of the year. He always said, “I'm so happy I worked when I did, because every film I'm best known for would never get a green light today.” He loved that musical—it lived and breathed New York to him. Another daring piece of casting with Marlon. Dad cabled him in Europe: “How'd you like to play Sky Masterson in
Guys and Dolls
?” Marlon cabled back: “Very nervous. Have never done a musical before.” Dad cabled back: “Don't worry about it. Neither have I.” Frank Sinatra was cast as Nathan Detroit. Jean Simmons as Sister Sarah. Dad retained many players from the stage version, notably Vivian Blaine and Stubby Kaye.

It was a wonderful concept for a film. There were no exterior scenes. Everything happened in stylized interiors. Dad thought of it as a fable and shot it that way. The choreography by Michael Kidd was brilliant. Dad wanted the actors to sing for themselves. He hated the usual practice of dubbing in other voices when they burst into song. This was obviously no problem for Sinatra, and Jean Simmons turned out to have a lovely voice. Brando did the best he could, his singing usually pieced together from multiple recording takes, sometimes line by line. He was fine with the ballads but suffered more in the driving “Luck Be a Lady.” Sinatra had desperately wanted to play Sky Masterson. In Las Vegas, where he performed many nights, commuting by private plane from the set, he was Sky Masterson and made a point of including “Luck Be a Lady” in his act. I was on the set often during summer vacation. I still have a picture of me behind the camera, squinting through the barrel, with Dad's inscription: “Son, didn't I tell you you peaked too soon? With my love, Dad.”

Enchanting in the movie, enchanting in real life, at the time of
Guys and Dolls
, Jean Simmons was married to Stewart Granger, the swashbuckling star of
Scaramouche
and
King Solomon's Mines.
He was devastatingly handsome but somewhat of a prick and treated her badly. I was to run into him later in life. Jean and Dad had a huge affair during the shooting of the film. Granger must have known but thought, what the hell, I'm not working that much anymore and she always comes home to me. Twenty years later I found myself a frequent guest at Jean's home. Divorced from Granger, she had married the writer-director Richard Brooks
(Blackboard Jungle, In Cold Blood)
after costarring with Burt Lancaster in his film version of
Elmer Gantry.
Richard was a tough, no-nonsense guy, extremely talented and prickly. I was introduced to him by Gene Kelly, who was a good friend of his and a sort of self-appointed godfather to me. The mutual attraction was tennis. Gene and I played all the time. I wound up playing at the Brookses' house on a regular basis and was often invited to watch movies in their screening room at night.

I was totally besotted with Jean. She was so beautiful, sweet, and caring. I winced privately when Richard barked at her every time she made a mistake on the tennis court while playing doubles. She wasn't that good, but she was doing the best she could. She seemed to have an affinity for men who didn't treat her well, although Richard was a big improvement over Granger in intellect and talent.

One night when Richard was shooting on location, Jean asked me up to the house for a screening. After the film ended and the guests were leaving, she silently signaled me to stay behind. I did. She made me a drink and then gently placed her hand on my crotch. I turned scarlet. She looked into my eyes: “Oh, dear. I'm asking you to do something you don't want to.” Didn't want to? I was terrified. For Christ's sake, this was Jean Simmons and the wife of Richard Brooks. We had a drink and I left. I sensed a real loneliness in her and couldn't understand why. She was so enchanting in every way. Perhaps it was because of the reciprocal radar I had with troubled or unhappy women (especially actresses), but one thing eventually did lead to another.

One night later she asked me to escort her to a formal dinner for Princess Margaret of England who was making a state visit and stopping in Los Angeles. It was almost a command performance for every celebrated Brit in Hollywood. Richard was still on location. I rented white tie and tails and escorted her. We sat at a table with people I knew: Leslie and Evie Bricusse, Tony Newley and Joan Collins, Michael Caine, and others. During the meal I got up to go to the men's room. As I was about to enter, I saw Gene Kelly following me.

“Cut it out, Tom,” came the warning.

“Cut what out?”

“You know what I'm talking about.”

“Gene, you don't think that Jean and I…”

“Yes, I do.”

“Gene, if there was anything going on, do you think I'd be dumb enough to bring her to a public event like this?”

“You bet. Dumb enough and young enough. So cut it out before you get in over your head, if you're not there already.”

Gene was right, God bless him. Everything out of bounds with Jean ended that night. She died recently at eighty. I never would have included any of this in a public memoir were she still alive. But she was the most ethereal, vulnerable woman I ever met. My feelings for her ran very deep. I felt I needed to mention her.

Suddenly, Last Summer
(1959)

One of the few pictures Dad made when he did not write the screenplay. Gore Vidal adapted the script from the Tennessee Williams play. It starred Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, and Montgomery Clift, and dealt with, among other things, mental illness, homosexuality, pedophilia, and cannibalism. The producer was Sam Spiegel (
The African Queen, On the Waterfront, Lawrence of Arabia)
, who liked to pop up occasionally on the set without warning. Dad called him “Suddenly Sam Spiegel.”

Dad had never worked with Elizabeth Taylor before and was apprehensive since he'd been told she was quite a handful. Kate Hepburn was an old friend. Montgomery Clift wasn't Dad's first choice to play the psychoanalyst. Clift was slowly disintegrating at the time, following a tragic car accident. It had happened after he left a party at Elizabeth's house. She and Clift were close friends, and she lobbied hard for him. He was still a wonderful actor, but the booze and drugs were taking their toll on him, resulting in a somewhat jerky and halting performance.

The interiors were shot at Pinewood Studios, outside of London. The exteriors were shot in Spain. The first day at Pinewood there was a 9:00
A.M.
shooting call. Dad was on the stage earlier, planning the day's work with the cameraman. An assistant told him they'd just received a phone call from London: Miss Taylor was just now leaving her house. Dad looked at his watch: it was 8:15. Pinewood was more than an hour away from London. That would put Elizabeth in the studio at about 9:30, assuming she really had left. Add an hour and a half minimum for hair and makeup—she wouldn't be on the set until well after 11:00. He thought, Christ, is this going to be a daily experience? Elizabeth arrived on the stage around 11:30. It was empty. There was a note left for her, taped to the camera, reading: “Dear Elizabeth. We were all here at nine. So sorry to have missed you. Love, Joe.” Dad waited all day for an angry phone call, but never heard from her. The next morning he arrived on the stage around 8:00 to set up the first shot. Already sitting in the corner in full hair and makeup was Elizabeth. She raised her wrist and tapped her watch, silently scolding him for being late.

They got along like a house afire after that. Elizabeth was nobody's fool. She was direct, smart, warm, and as I found out later for myself, extremely funny. She arguably gave her finest performance ever in that film. She and Hepburn were both nominated for Oscars. They “knocked each other off.” Dad and Elizabeth were in constant contact after the film, signaling to me that they'd almost certainly had an affair. The same harmony did not exist with Hepburn, however. Rightly or not, he thought she'd become a truly mannered actress over the years who was starting to give the same performance over and over again. In an interview, he described her as “the most talented amateur actress I've ever worked with.” That didn't help matters any. After her last shot, she reportedly spat at him. Years later I spent some time with Hepburn. She had only warm memories of Dad, at least for social publication. I found her to be one classy broad.

A footnote about Elizabeth (before we eventually get into
Cleopatra):
She'd been famously married to Mike Todd, the showman-producer who made
Around the World in Eighty Days.
A year or so before
Suddenly, Last Summer
Dad had been meeting with Todd about writing and directing a screen version of
Don Quixote.
Danny Kaye would play the title role, and the Mexican star Cantinflas would play Sancho Panza. Todd was going to fly across the country in his private plane, the
Lucky Liz.
Dad agreed to go with him to discuss the intended production. At the last minute he had to get back to New York on business and took the red-eye out of L.A. Chris and I drove out to Idyllwild Airport (now Kennedy) to meet him just as the news broke in headlines across the country: Mike Todd's plane had crashed, killing him. There was another dead man found as well. Since Dad's name was on the passenger manifest, some newspapers first assumed it was him. His death was announced in print directly under Todd's on the front page of the
New York Daily News.
It turned out that the other unfortunate human being was a writer, Art Cohn, who was doing a biography of Todd. Dad always kept the newspaper announcement in his files, however, as a reminder that from now on, he was living on borrowed time.