I also had to pop up and see my little Wdg (sorry Susan!). Very sweet and soft and I stole a kiss behind the racks of costumes. The wardrobe mistress, her boss, has obviously been told the news of our night out together, and gives me looks which are both fierce and benevolent. âDon't hurt my baby,' she implies.
I took a spare copy of the shooting script home, from rehearsals, and I'm going to study it very carefully tonight. Work before pleasure â but Saturday night seems far away.
WEDNESDAY, 1 AUGUST
MM was very late this morning. I phoned Plod to find out what was the matter but he knew nothing. Neither MM nor AM had come downstairs yet, and no one had had the courage to go up and knock.
âCould they have committed joint suicide?' I asked.
âNo.' There had been bumps.
âWhat sort of bumps?' I heard Plod grin down the phone.
âOh no. Surely not.'
I can't repeat
that
to SLO. He is extremely grim. It doesn't bode well for the 6.45 a.m. filming days. Tony B is fuming. Dear Tony, he always mirrors SLO so closely it is touching. He genuinely feels SLO's emotions as soon as SLO does. And his wife Anne is so like Vivien â in manner, of course, not in looks. Did he choose her like that, or did she become like that to please him?
The rest of the cast seem quite relieved. Esmond Knight paid us
a visit â even though he is half-blind.
50
No one seems to know how much he can or can't see, but he's very kind and nice.
Rehearsals went on, punctuated by hilarious theatrical jokes, mainly from Dicky Wattis. What a pity MM can't join in this sort of âactors' band'. I'm sure it is much more relaxing than the method group in New York. But perhaps you have to be a professional, as these actors are, to be able to join in and relax.
At noon MM did turn up with Paula and Milton. I wonder if they are fighting over her. She seemed confused and frightened. The script might as well have been
Alice in Wonderland
.
She had trouble in following the other parts and so failed to come in when her cue came. No one could be cross; they were just embarrassed. Paula had gone off to âconfer' with Milton, so Dame S went and sat by MM and coaxed her through. I wish Dame S was going to be in every scene but she is only in about 15%. Something definitely seemed the matter with poor MM so perhaps it will pass. It could be her monthly period, I suppose, but she was clearly very upset. By the look in her eyes she has been taking tranquillisers. She went to lie down in her dressing room at lunchtime and Paula came tiptoeing out after a few minutes so she must have gone straight to sleep.
At 2.30, when she didn't appear, SLO told David and David told me to go to get her. Milton opened her dressing-room door, grinning, and said she'd be up in 10 minutes. I could see, and smell, a champagne bottle open on the table. My heart sank. I didn't mention what I'd seen to SLO. Not booze as well as pills?
Actually MM was much better in the afternoon. I suppose the tranqs had worn off and the champagne had cheered her up. SLO left her alone to do what she could and Paula sat silently in a corner glowering.
Milton must have won a round there, I guess!
THURSDAY, 2 AUGUST
MM arrived early,
for her
, at 10.30 a.m. Paula and Hedda Rosten and AM were with her in the car. (No room for Plod!) Tension seemed high to me but MM was quite jolly.
AM and Hedda just looked round the studios a bit and went back to Parkside. Paula took a firm grip of MM on one side and Milton, who had been waiting outside, took a firm grip of the other. They hardly bother to conceal their battle for control. And not just them â AM wants control too.
There is no doubt MM is a huge star. Everyone is simply hypnotised when she appears, including me. Everything revolves around her, whether she likes it or not, and yet she seems weak and vulnerable. If it is deliberate, it is incredibly skilful, but I think it is a completely natural gift. All the people round her want to control her, but they do so by trying to give her what they think she wants. What a paradox. Only Dame Sybil, with a heart as big as a house, can bypass all this nonsense. She can get away with being natural with MM because she is so naturally nice. Which none of the rest of us are, of course.
We are all really thinking of what we want underneath. âOh what a nice pot of gold you are. Can I help you, pot of gold?' etc. Dame S simply is not interested in gold.
Meanwhile life goes on. Filming starts on Monday and everything needs to be ready. Studio A is now bursting with technicians, preparing the equipment. The first shots on Monday will be unimportant â just there to make sure everything works, camera, lights, sound etc.
Jack Cardiff has to have the right lights hanging from the grid. It looks a total muddle but it has a pattern which only the gaffer and he understand. The lights get very hot â I dread to think what the temperature is up on the gantry. Whenever possible the lights are all switched off. âSave the lights' is the cry, and there is a great clunk and what seems like darkness for a moment. But actually there
are work lights which always stay on. They make everything look tawdry and pathetic. Carpenters are hammering, scene painters are finishing back-drops, curtains (drapes) are being hung and ornaments are being selected to decorate the set (props).
Roger Furse is meant to be in charge of the scenery but his assistants hardly seem to have time to listen to him.
Bumble Dawson is clearly close to a breakdown. She has all the costumes to worry about and some aren't to her liking.
51
My little Wdg, who works for Bumble of course, is too busy to give me anything but a smile, but we do have another date for Saturday night.
FRIDAY, 3 AUGUST
Tony B is incredibly nice. It seems he and Anne have rented a large house near Ascot, at Runnymede, where King John signed the Magna Carta. They want me to come to live with them there while filming is going on. It is much nearer the studios than London, of course, and not far from Tibbs and Englefield Green. Since I have to be at Pinewood by 6.40 a.m. every morning from now on, that is very good news.
But the real joy is to be invited to be part of âthe family'. Tony B and Anne are very much part of SLO and Vivien's âfamily' and now I will be too. I always have a tendency to feel lonely unless I am with people. It is an absolutely lovely idea and I accepted with much gratitude.
Rehearsals ended at lunchtime and all the cast dashed off for the weekend.
âNot you,' said David sternly, and we stayed to see the last person leave. I don't mind. My mind is firmly fixed on tomorrow night.
I will go out to Tony and Anne at Runnymede on Sunday afternoon.
SUNDAY, 5 AUGUST
This is a glorious Edwardian mansion, with leaded windows, mahogany furniture and large Turkey rugs. The garden is very green and lush as we are near the river. The house is dark and cool. Anne is enchanting â slim, pretty, vivacious. She has filled the rooms with flowers and put the excess bric-a-brac in the attic. Tony is gruff and jovial. He brings generous drinks before dinner. I feel I have landed in Paradise! Anne cooked a delicious meal and the conversation sparkled.
My poor little Wdg is rather heavy going. Not a brain in that pretty little head. Anything that wouldn't go in a woman's magazine goes straight over it.
Lack of sophistication can be so attractive, and yet it's also rather tiring. Last night was delightful but I'm not sure that I can keep it going. What she likes is Romance. Well, I'm a great romantic, but she sees it only in terms of clichés. One step away from these simple terms and she is startled; one original remark and she gets suspicious. Alas, one cannot just kiss all evening. It might be different if we were sleeping together â then there is always something to do â but of
course
we are not.
Tomorrow we start to make a film.
The strain on SLO is going to be terrific. He has to direct as well as act. His confidence in his co-star and partner is minimal. Already late, already prone to be detached from reality, MM is the sort of star he just does not understand. It's no good treating her like âa pretty little thing' who must do what she is told. When he does talk to her directly, she just gazes at him with those huge eyes, and it is impossible to tell whether she is even listening or not. I've never heard her reply. So SLO is forced to go through Milton, and he is sometimes forced to go through Paula. We must all be very careful not to take sides, or we will make things worse.
I feel as if this film has really become my life.
MONDAY, 6 AUGUST
I am officially 3rd Ast Dir at last.
âYour most important duty right now,' said David, at 9 a.m. in a crowded Studio A, âis to get me a mug of tea and a piece of bread and dripping.'
We had all been there for over two hours by then, and we were very hungry indeed. A sort of NAAFI wagon appears in the concrete corridor at nine and my task is to queue for David's breakfast (and my own).
The studio is usually pretty dark except for the âwork lights', not to save electricity (money is no object in this film!) but to stop the set getting too hot. There is a real danger of the actors breaking out into a sweat â which is especially embarrassing if the action is set on a cold day.
Jack stands in the middle of each set, gazing at the stand-ins and giving orders to his âgaffer'. Different lights are raised and lowered, switched on and off. Strange filters are added â âbarn doors' and âgauzes' â and fingers are burned.
Except for the areas the cast acts in, the floor is completely covered with cables, camera rails and other hazards, so âHave a nice trip?' becomes a much too frequent joke.
There are also a lot of people â electricians, camera assistants, boom operators, property men, make-up âartists', wig-dressers, carpenters, drapery men, painters, plasterers, set decorators, etc., some of whom are busy, and a lot of whom are just milling around in case they are needed.
A journey from one side of the studio to the other with two mugs of scalding tea and two pieces of floppy âBread and Drip' is a truly hazardous experience. There must be at least 40 people in the way now, and I'm sure it will get worse when MM appears tomorrow.
The crew are all very English, very professional and clearly not easy to impress. They, of course, can see me for what I am â the lowest of the low.
There is Elaine, the continuity girl, whose job it is to make sure that every scene blends perfectly with its neighbours. Without her, cigarettes would suddenly lengthen or shorten, or jump from hand to hand, doors would suddenly open, and dresses rearrange themselves. Elaine is cool and competent and I get the impression that nothing will frustrate her.
There is Denys [Coop], the camera operator, and his crew. I didn't realise but Jack never even touches the camera. Very occasionally he is allowed to peek through it while everyone gives him odd looks. The camera is usually at the end of a long crane, or on rail tracks or both. Denys sits behind it, on a little chair with his legs either side, and twirls wheels to move the camera around. He also has two young men to push and steer, despite the use of electric motors. The sound recordist is Mitch, a very quiet, very patient man, who is often ignored by everyone. He has a metal console, linked to a microphone on a boom and to another recordist in a soundproof room somewhere.
Actually Mitch and this crew are more dangerous than they look, as they demonstrated while we were waiting this morning. Mitch saw Roger Furse and his assistant hobnobbing in a corner. A nod to his boom operator and the âmike' was extended across all the obstacles until it was over Roger's head. Then a quick whisper to his recordist and the secret conversation was being played over the Tannoy system. Incredibly, even though their conversation was booming out from every loudspeaker, they didn't realise what was going on for over a minute. It could have been very embarrassing.
When we are ready to start filming David shouts âQUIET, STUDIO. Going for a take. LOCK THE DOORS.'
A claxon goes PARP, PARP, PARP. Red lights flash. Denys says âCamera rolling.' There are two little beeps from Mitch's console and Mitch says âSpeed.'
David says âMark it.' The clapper boy steps in front of the camera, names the film and the shot and the take number: â
The Prince and the Showgirl
(which is the new title) shot 3 take 1,' then he goes âSNAP'
with his clapper, on which the same information is written. Then the director â SLO or Tony â quietly says âAction,' and filming starts.
This is essential for the editor. It gives him all the information on the sound tape
and
the film, so he can join the two up very easily. But it must be awfully off-putting for a nervous actor or actress. I suppose they have to learn to ignore it. It's all very well for the director to say âAction' in soft and persuasive tones, but four other total strangers have just barked out their contributions, heedless of acting nerves.
As almost all scenes are very short, often just a few seconds, the director will be saying âCut' almost immediately and, nine times out of ten: âLet's do it again.'
The happiest words you can hear are âPrint it' â you only print the very best takes â but even that is often followed by: âLet's do it just once more, shall we, to be sure.'
Then Denys says âCheck the gate,' and his assistant opens the front of the camera and looks inside with a torch, to see that no fluff or âfilm debris' has got caught on the shutter mechanism, and scratched the film.
All this is part of an inflexible routine. It happens every time a scene is filmed, no matter how often that scene is repeated. I can't understand how actors put up with it. Do they do the same in Hollywood? David says they do, but David's âbark' alone is enough to frighten the lines right out of an actor's head. I suppose I will get used to it all, like any ritual.