Pink Triangle: The Feuds and Private Lives of Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and Famous Members of Their Entourages (Blood Moon's Babylon Series) (64 page)

Laurence Oliver finally agreed
to read the Tennessee Williams play,
A Streetcar Named Desire
. Putting it down, he told Vivien the drama was repulsive. “What are we dealing with here? Homosexuality? Nymphomania? Insanity? Incestuous rape? Have you ever heard of the Lord Chamberlain? Unlike on Broadway, stage morals are still censored in Britain. Have you forgotten that?”

Olivier was right.
Streetcar
would eventually be denounced in the House of Commons as “low and repugnant.” The Public Morality Council called it “lewd and salacious.”

An official of the Royal Household, the Lord Chamberlain had licensed plays in England since 1737. Licensing actually meant censoring them. Such a policy was abolished in Britain in 1968.

The Lord Chamberlain later decreed that on stage Blanche could not reveal to the audience that she’d learned that her young husband had been the lover of an older gentleman.

“Dear boy, the great man of the British theater, I must override your objections to
Streetcar
,” Vivien said to Olivier. “Bloody hell! This is the stage role of the decade for an actress. You must not stand in my way. I’ve given you the limelight long enough. I never thought in my lifetime I would find a role to equal Scarlett O’Hara. At long last I have, and cannot allow your pettiness to block me. I will immortalize myself in this role, especially when I scheme my way to do it on the screen.”

Her friend, Alan Dent, tried to persuade her to turn down the role. “It’s not for you to play one of Tennessee Williams’ walking and wandering casebooks, sluts, inconstant nymphs, the victims of men who could be sadistic and even cannibalistic.”

A Streetcar Named Desire
had opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947 to rave reviews. It had starred Jessica Tandy in the pivotal role of Blanche DuBois. The play had made an overnight sensation of its young male star, Marlon Brando, who was hailed on stage as “lightning on legs.”

Vivien still exerted considerable emotional control over Olivier, and he agreed to direct her in
A Streetcar Named Desire
, opening at the Aldwych Theatre in London on October 11, 1949.

Although a bit leery of the subject matter within
Streetcar
, Hugh (Binkie) Beaumont had negotiated with its producer in New York, Irene Mayer Selznick, former wife of David O. Selznick and the daughter of Louis B. Mayer. For Irene, her producing
Streetcar
was the biggest achievement of her career.

[A theater manager and producer, Binkie was known as the “
eminence grise
” of London’s West End Theatre world. He often worked with Noël Coward and John Gielgud on productions, and may have done a lot more with both actors. Gielgud’s friendship with Binkie survived even after he stole Gielgud’s lover, John Perry, from him
.

Binkie was one of the first in the British theater to promote Tennessee’s work, and he was especially fond of performers, notably one named Richard Burton.]

“I am doing this play not because I want to but because Vivien demands that I do it,” Olivier told Beaumont. “As you know, Blanche DuBois is led off to the madhouse at the end of the play. There is a strong possibility that Vivien as Blanche will be driven into total madness. I warned her of the risk of her scheme to play Blanche. At first I was going to say her ‘mad scheme,’ but I censored that tongue of mine at the last second.”

As he signed on to direct
Streetcar
, Olivier became convinced that this was Vivien’s last chance to erase the haunting ghost of Scarlett O’Hara. Whenever her role in
Gone With the Wind
was brought up, Vivien in the late 40s and early 50s had taken to saying, “Damn you, Scarlett O’Hara,” Olivier said.

[Publisher’s note: That phrase was so ingrained into the psyche of Vivien Leigh, and by extension, into the psyche of her husband, Laurence Olivier, that it was adopted as the title for Darwin Porter and Roy Moseley’s award-winning 2010 biography of the famously troubled couple
, Damn You, Scarlett O’Hara, The Private Lives of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh
© 2010, Blood Moon Productions.]

“I thought,” said Olivier, “that if her critics have one grain of fairness, they will give her credit now for being an actress and not go on forever letting their judgments be distorted by her beauty and Hollywood stardom as Scarlett O’Hara.”

In May of 1949, Irene lured Tennessee from Rome to meet her in London to watch Vivien in two Old Vic performances,
The School for Scandal
and
Antigone
. “Let’s see how David
[Selznick’s]
beloved Scarlett O’Hara is holding up after all this passage of time,” Irene said. “David told me she’s quite mad, at least part of the time. Cecil Beaton informed me she’s aged dreadfully.”

“If Beaton is not being his queenly self, then the aging part would be perfect for Blanche DuBois,” Tennessee said. “As you know, in my play, Blanche, too, has to deal with her fear of aging and has to confront her face in harsh light.”

Tennessee liked Vivien’s performance in
The School for Scandal
but thought she “is not really good in
Antigone
.” Nevertheless, in a letter to his close friend, Donald Windham, he claimed that “she might make a good Blanche, more for her off-stage personality than for what she does in repertory.”

Meeting her backstage after each performance, Tennessee found Vivien delightful. He noticed that she paid as much attention to his lover, Frank Merlo, as she did to him, which he thought was exceedingly kind and gracious on her part. She liked them so much she invited both of them to Notley Abbey, the 12th century manor house in Buckinghamshire, fifty miles northwest of London, which, at enormous expense, she, with Olivier, had renovated as a country retreat. There they would be joined by Olivier.

Tennessee’s visit to Notley did not get off to a good start, as he and Frank arrived late. “Sir Laurence had gone to bed,” Tennessee later said. “
Quelle insulte!”

He also noted that the other visitor at Notley, Danny Kaye, Olivier’s lover at the time, was “extremely quiet,” which was uncharacteristic for the comedian. Unknown to Tennessee at the time, Vivien, Larry, and Kaye had become embroiled in a catfight before the playwright’s arrival.

She had demanded that Olivier choose between Kaye and her. Insults were hurled for an hour or so, with no resolution. At breakfast the next morning, she seemed to have withdrawn her ultimatum and was charming and gracious to her guests, especially Frank. She was polite but cool to Kaye.

When Tennessee returned to New York, he told his agent, Audrey Wood, that he suspected Kaye and Olivier had become lovers. “Not on your life,” Wood said. “Larry could have his pick of the most beautiful men in the British and American theater. Why would he choose Danny Kaye? I know for a fact that when Kaye wants sex with a young man, either in New York or Los Angeles, he pays for it.”

Tennessee seemed adamant. “I know the ways of the human heart better than you, dear lady. Sir Laurence and Danny Kaye are lovers.”

At dinner on their second night at Notley, Larry presided like a country squire, directing his conversation to Tennessee or Kaye, and virtually ignoring Frank and Vivien.

“Vivien was very nice,” Frank recalled. “She included me in the conversation. After dinner, Kaye and Olivier excused themselves and went upstairs. Vivien looked disdainfully at their backs. Tenn retired to the library to write some letters, and Vivien invited me to go for a moonlit walk in her gardens.”

“Outside in the night air, she told me that she sympathized with me for living with such a great artist.”

“Tennessee must torment you at times the way Larry torments me,” she told him. “Having a relationship with Tennessee or Sir Laurence must be something to endure. For causing us so much pain, we should get back at them. The bungalow is empty tonight. Do you like girls just a little bit?”

“I love women, but not in bed,” he told her.

“Has the whole world turned gay?” she asked. “What are we poor girls to do?”

“Perhaps not hang out with men in the theater,” he said. “Men who like to paint their faces and dress up in costumes every night are not the straightest arrows.”

“That I have found to be true,” she said. “At least Tennessee is open about his homosexuality. Larry likes to keep his secrets buried.”

Her sudden sexual interest in Frank may have stemmed from the fact that before dinner Tennessee had confided in her that, in part, he’d based the character of Stanley Kowalski on Frank.

Later that night, he told Tennessee that Vivien had come on to him. “Don’t flatter yourself,” Tennessee responded. “She’s just getting back at Sir Laurence who this very minute is probably in his bedroom plugging that red-haired comedian, whose art form has always escaped me.”

When Tennessee came down for breakfast on the morning of his departure, he found that only Vivien and a house servant were up. Sir Laurence, Kaye, and Frank were still in bed.