The Legs Are the Last to Go (2 page)

But that doesn't mean I can't be the style-conscious shopper I've always been. That's just too much fun to give up.

Superficial, you think? Deeply!

But that's showbiz, and that's me.

CALL ME CRAZY, BUT I UNDERSTAND NORMA DESMOND,
the silent-screen diva who the world passed by in
Sunset Boulevard
. Norma Desmond drives a Rolls-Royce. Norma Desmond has a penchant for spending lavishly. She knows the magic of makeup and the thrill of casting spells over millions. She is a character who remembers what it's like to be adored when young. She also knows the savagery of show business.

And so do I.

Not that I've had it bad. How many actresses receive a call at fifty to play an overdressed black bitch on an international hit show like
Dynasty
? People still manage to keep me in mind, even now, twenty years later. I get my share of calls to sing in lovely venues, and still know the pleasure of standing on a well-lit stage performing. Sometimes, I am invited to accept an award. But that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of days when I feel completely passed over and passed by. Well, I
imagine that's how many people feel when their high-powered careers slow down. Performers, of course, have to deal with droughts and doubts all the time, even when young. It's a tough field. You're in, you're out. You're right for something, you're wrong. You have to learn to live with rejection and curdled ambition on a daily basis, especially if you happen to be female.

Norma Desmond took her discomfort to an epic level. Yet what actress of a certain age would not cringe at the famous Rolls-Royce scene? Norma has finally gotten the call she's been longing for from an accomplished director. She prepares for weeks for her meeting with him—massages, facials, exercise—everything she can do to set back the clock and dazzle when she returns to the lights and cameras. When she finally arrives on the set, in all her glamour and glory, she is quietly hit with the terrible, insulting news that the movie studio has only called her because it wants to use her car, not her, for a movie. It has come to that. Her car is more in demand than she is.

When, in 1994, my agent called to tell me I'd been invited by the producers to audition for Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's
Sunset Boulevard,
I was familiar with the rhythms of a life in which the phone didn't ring as often, at least not with offers for major roles. I was, after all, in my sixties at the time, and fully aware of the limited shelf life of any acting career. Happily, my emotional footing was far more secure than Norma Desmond's. I knew I wasn't being handed the role. I'd have to work to get it.

I started preparing with even more diligence than usual. And a few days into it, I was told that Sir Andrew was actually going to be at the audition. It was very nerve-racking. Auditioning always is. You have to find the character in your head, and worry if what you find will complement what the director, producer, and writer envision.

I go through this every time I audition. Even after NBC hired me to play Julia, a nurse and single mother, Hal Kanter, the creator of the show, had reservations. He was a charming and outspoken white Southerner who'd been a writer for
Amos 'n' Andy,
among many other projects, and he had a firm sense of what Middle America wanted for its first African-American sitcom star in 1968. And despite the network's faith in me, Hal was not completely convinced that I was the right woman for the role. He felt my image was too worldly and glamorous.

Well, I had won a Tony for playing a chic model in Paris for Richard Rodgers on Broadway, and I had done several Hollywood films with Otto Preminger. I performed in luxurious venues in New York, Las Vegas, and Miami, and had appeared on beautifully produced television specials for years. I was one of those fortunate performers—and there might have been only a dozen of us in total—who went from show to show—
Ed Sullivan, Dean Martin, Judy Garland
—holiday specials, shows about everything from Broadway to black humor. I was even chosen in 1967 to costar with Maurice Chevalier in the first collaboration between French and American television. Every appearance was more lavish than the next.

Hal Kanter knew all about my jet-set lifestyle when NBC told him he was to meet with me. I knew about his hesitancy, so for our first meeting, I dressed carefully—to look modest, and though it was a Givenchy, the line was so simple, I knew it would work—and walked into the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

I was told later that he didn't recognize me. “That's the look I want for this character,” he told a colleague. “A well-dressed housewife just like that woman.”

Then I came over to the table and he discovered that “that woman” was me.

“Hal,” I said. “I know I can do this. I'm an actress. You saw me come through that door and I convinced you that I could be a housewife. Well, guess what? I
prepared
to be a housewife for this interview. And I think this is how Julia would dress.”

I have to say, preparing to audition for Norma Desmond was less of a stretch. Although I've always considered myself more of a worker than a diva, I could relate to the character of an extravagant actress in the twilight of her career. I felt so much pressure for my
Sunset Boulevard
audition. I knew I was the first black actress to be considered for the role, and worked very hard to keep that thought out of my head as I rehearsed with my pianist. I was intent on nailing the character of a sixty-year-old woman living in complete denial, no matter what color she is.

In situations like that, one question rises to the surface above all others:
What the hell am I going to wear?
The day of the audition, I changed outfits several times and left clothes all over my bedroom, as if I were a teenager on a first date.
Finally I decided that the most dramatic look (that wouldn't come off as being stark raving mad) was a white ensemble—white trousers, white blouse, and to really push it, a white Burberry raincoat. Then, to take it up another notch, I added a white fedora. It was very dramatic, if not completely obsessive. But then, I am one of those people who cannot leave the house without overthinking an outfit. I looked anything but casual.

I made a decision that I would drive myself that day rather than use a driver. I arrived at the Shubert Theater in Century City to be greeted by the pianist I was to work with, a lovely young man named Paul. “Miss Carroll, it's so wonderful,” he said. “Sir Andrew is in town and he wants to hear you sing!” Now I knew some of the history of this production. I knew that Glenn Close was playing Norma Desmond in Los Angeles, and that Betty Buckley was playing her in New York. I also knew that Faye Dunaway had cost the producers a good deal of money in a role that ended up not being right for her. Lastly, I knew that the job I was up for was not in the New York or Los Angeles productions, but in Toronto. If I got the part, I'd be living there at least a year.

It didn't matter. I wanted to play Norma Desmond.

The agreement for the audition was that I would work with the pianist provided by the producers for forty-five minutes so that we could find our way through the song I had chosen to sing, which was the beautiful main ballad from the show, “As If We Never Said Goodbye.” Usually I bring my own pianist, with whom I've prepared extensively. This was a different situation, one that made me a little uncomfortable. But I started
to work with Paul, and it was going well, when the door to the rehearsal room burst open. It was Sir Andrew himself. He strode up to us, waved his hand at the pianist, and said, “I'll take over, I'll do this with her.” My heart started pounding. The pianist looked at me and I looked at him with complete terror in my eyes.

Sir Andrew threw himself down at the piano and played a chord or two. Then he looked up at me and said, with his arch and intimidating English accent, “So sing something!”

“Sing something?” I repeated.

“Sing anything. How about ‘Melancholy Baby'?”

I said, “‘Melancholy Baby'? Why?”

“Why not?” he said.

“Is this a show about a saloon?” I found myself continuing. “Can we maybe try a love song instead, something that isn't too difficult, like ‘More Than You Know'?”

“No, I don't know that,” he said.

I could instantly see that he was not to be spoken to like that, worker to worker. So even as I tried to remain calm my nerves started fraying. I'd worked with composers my whole life, and they were almost always wonderful to me, nurturing and open-minded, treating me as if I were a colleague, not an employee. I had never come across anyone who behaved like the “star creator.” Harold Arlen, one of our greatest composers, was so modest and sweet. He never tried to impress or impose.

After a few disagreeable minutes of having to hold my ground and not sing a saloon song, Sir Andrew said to me, “Well, what is it that you came prepared to sing?”

I told him it was the ballad “As If We Never Said Goodbye” from his show.

“All right, then why don't you go ahead and sing it?”

He played a few bars. I could tell the key was not in my vocal register.

“I'm afraid that isn't my key,” I said.

“Well, give it a try anyway,” he said. “Let's hear what you can do.”

That key he selected was more likely to showcase what I
couldn't
do. I could not believe this was happening. But I would not capitulate, either. I had not spent all these many years in my profession only to be denied what was due to me. I suspected that Sir Andrew was unhappy with me for being a singer who played Vegas more often than Broadway. And although I had not given it any thought, I suddenly couldn't help wondering if behind this complete disregard for the basic courtesy due a performer was a creator of a show who was perhaps a little dubious about casting a black actress as Norma Desmond. Let me be clear. Casting is a taste business, so any number of reasons can form a decision. And this was not obvious racism. I'd seen that at work. Obvious racism is when people yell terrible remarks while you're singing, as they did when I played nightclubs in my early years. Out-and-out racism is when the Count Basie Orchestra is not allowed to stay at a hotel in Las Vegas in the 1950s until Frank Sinatra himself has to explain to management that the Basie orchestra has to be housed at the hotel where he was living. Obvious racism is when the sponsor of a 1968 Petula Clark television special tries to delete a moment when she affectionately touches Harry
Belafonte's arm because bodily contact was deemed unacceptable between races.

Obvious racism is when a cabdriver noticed I was black after he'd stopped for me in front of my apartment on Riverside Drive many years ago, and started driving away with me holding on to the door handle. I was being dragged down the street. The doormen on both sides of my street came running over to my aid. When I stood up, they asked if I was okay.

“I'm fine, but I have to have his number to report him,” I said.

The doormen helped a moment before disappearing. Clearly, they didn't want to get involved. So I took off my kid gloves, got a pen out of my Kelly bag, and took down the cab number. As I was doing so, the driver said, “What are you going to do? Report me? All that means is I lose a day.”

“We'll see,” I said as I finished writing his number down.

“Why waste your time and my time?” he said, snickering.

Because he needed to see that I took his racism seriously, that's why. I took him to court downtown, a place I'd been several times before to report taxis that had not picked me up. And he was docked five days, an order I knew he didn't actually have to adhere to. But I felt much better knowing that cabdrivers in that courtroom that day realized that some people of color will not allow that kind of behavior.

Of course that was nothing compared with what I experienced years before, in 1957, when I was singing in Lake Tahoe at a hotel. It was early in my career and I was not traveling
with my own musicians. On our first night, the orchestra conductor began to get closer to me onstage. He backed up and was right alongside me. I looked at him as if to say, “Why are you standing next to me?” I was the star singer, and he was supposed to be conducting the orchestra, not moving closer to the audience into my spotlight. It seemed to me he was trying to tell me he did not want to be in the position of conducting for me. But I didn't say anything. After the second night of this same strange usurping of my space, I approached him after the show and asked what had happened. The entire orchestra was listening.

“What was it? Did you have trouble hearing me?” I asked.

He didn't answer. But the next night he did the same thing, backing into my spotlight again. I was performing in my demure gown and pearls, and he was in a white dinner jacket, shoulder to shoulder with me, waving his arms around, conducting. It was a complete distraction and completely unacceptable. While the audience was applauding me I turned to ask him in a stage whisper, “Why are you standing next to me? I don't understand.”

That's when he snapped, “These people don't want to hear a nigger sing.”

Then he turned to start the orchestra on the next song, and feeling winded, I took a breath and went on to sing my Ethel Waters medley.

Backstage later, I asked the members of the orchestra if they heard his remark.

“Yes, we did,” one musician said.

“We've been waiting for you to find out,” said another. “He can't stand the fact that he has to conduct for you. He's a nasty racist and he especially hates black people.” I stood there, stunned, reminding myself not to allow this ignorant man to force me to behave inappropriately, so slapping his face was out of the question! “Oh,” I said quietly in front of the musicians, who looked very uncomfortable. “Well, I'll have to see what I can do about this.”

Several musicians told me that anything I wanted to do, they would support. They had traveled around the country too often not to know there were all kinds of problems of prejudice that musicians had to face, not just as artists but as Jews, Italians, and Hispanics. And they did not understand how anyone in their own profession, a fellow artist, could be so provincial and hateful. I called the police and the union.