Eighty Is Not Enough: One Actor's Journey Through American Entertainment (14 page)

On August 8, 1945, with the war in Europe over and England safe, the Lunts came home to the United States on an American military transport. Arriving at La Guardia field in New York City, wearing U.S. Army uniforms with insignias reading, “Camp Show,” Alfred and Lynn modestly rejected the idea that they had been heroes in Europe. Alfred spoke to the
New York Times
about their performances amidst the bombing: “You take your cue from the audience in that kind of situation. They are sitting there all through the storm, quiet, intense bending forward…readier with applause and laughs than any other audiences ever were. That’s the opportunity of a lifetime for an actor.”

Maybe so, but their humility aside, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne and the entire English cast and crew of
Love in Idleness
demonstrated true courage under the most difficult circumstances imaginable for any theatrical production. Everyone on Broadway was proud of its emissaries abroad, and when Alfred and Lynn brought Terence Rattigan’s play, once again re-titled as
O Mistress Mine
, to Broadway, everyone awaited with tremendous anticipation. And when word got out that they would be looking for a new actor to play the coveted role of their son Michael Brown, every young actor in America was desperate to land the part. I know because I was one of them.

*  *  *

The Lunts were certainly taking the audition for Michael Brown very seriously. As veterans of the theater, they recognized that a role like Michael Brown “could elevate a young actor to stardom.” Lynn Fontanne was particularly sensitive to the pitfalls. Discussing the difficulties in the audition process, she wrote to her friend: “It could easily turn out to be a disaster for the young actor who plays it. It could convince him at the start of his career that he knew all there was about acting, and he’d never learn another thing. There is a great responsibility in giving a sure-fire role to an unseasoned player. We must pick someone who will hold his head.”

I remember going with Mom to the Shubert Theater for the tryouts. I was sixteen at the time, a relatively young age since Michael Brown was seventeen, and actors typically play characters who are younger than they are. But I was glad to be at the Shubert where I had first stepped on a Broadway stage ten years earlier in
Tapestry in Grey
. It seemed like there were thousands of young men there, although there were probably about forty or fifty.

Among them were at least two future stars, Marlon Brando and Roddy McDowell. It’s ironic that Brando had just finished the Broadway production of a play called
I Remember Mama
, about a Norwegian immigrant family in which he played the oldest son, Nels, the same character I would play when the show was made into one of the earliest television situation comedies in 1949. Marlon had received high acclaim for his portrayal of Nels in
Mama
, and, according to Jared Brown, Alfred Lunt wanted him to take the part in
O Mistress Mine
. Brando was four years older than me and, therefore, three years older than the character, but, as mentioned, such an age difference is not at all uncommon.

The initial reading was onstage with Alfred Lunt. That alone was thrilling. There are people who today can tell their grandkids that, for a few minutes, they read a part with the great Alfred Lunt. We all came in through Shubert Alley and waited inside the stage door as one by one we were called in to read by John C. Wilson, the Lunts’ renowned producer. Regardless of all my experience onstage, I still remember the thrill of that first reading. I can’t say I was nervous. For some reason I felt very comfortable, with the role and immediately I knew that whether or not I actually got the part, this would be a fun audition. No doubt, Lunt’s effortless style made it a little easier for all of us and may have helped to offset any nervousness that would be natural to feel in such an auspicious moment. I’m sure that as Marlon Brando rose to a stature similar to that of Lunt and Fontanne, there were many young actors who felt the same sense of awe working with him that he, no doubt, felt as a young man that day onstage with Alfred Lunt.

When all the readings were done, Alfred asked three of us to stay in the theater—Marlon, Roddy and myself. Wilson brought us to one of the dressing rooms, where we awaited the arrival of Lynn Fontanne. When I first saw Lynn she looked like a queen. She had a regal bearing that was stunning. As I told Jared Brown, when she came into the room, heads went up. Each of us read a scene with Alfred, while Lynn watched from the audience.

Although Marlon was better known at the time, I thought the real competition was Roddy. He had an English accent, which I believed was an asset for him. I later learned that the Lunts felt that since the character had spent so many of his formative years in Canada, too much of an English accent might not be credible, particularly with an American audience. After we finished reading, Alfred, Lynn and Wilson went outside to the lobby. Suddenly, I noticed that I was the only one still there. They must have sent Marlon and Roddy home while I was back in the dressing room. I began to get very excited. If they chose me, I would be working with the greatest stage actors of the time, and the wait while they were out in the lobby seemed like eternity.

After about twenty minutes, they came back inside. Alfred Lunt walked up and spoke to me. I remember his exact words: “We like you very much. We recently worked with another young boy named Montgomery Clift, who was wonderful, and we hope we can have the same result with you.” He then asked if I would come out to their farm in Wisconsin to study the part with them.

I was ecstatic—and so was my mother. To be chosen for this part with these people was overwhelming. It was also tremendously flattering. Later I learned that Fontanne had written to her English friend Habetrot Dewhurst: “The American cast is on the whole an improvement on the English one…. The part of the boy is taken by a young American. He is really very wonderful. Only seventeen and a brilliant young actor. We are very pleased and excited about him.” Such praise from a woman considered by many to be the greatest stage actress of her generation is something I will forever treasure.

Shortly after being selected, I packed my bags and boarded a train for Milwaukee where I was picked up and driven to Alfred and Lynn’s beloved summer retreat, Ten Chimneys, in Genesee Depot, Wisconsin. Upon arrival I was struck by the rustic character of their life on the farm. It reminded me of the times I had thought, myself, about the life of a farmer. Ten Chimneys was full of animals, and every day Alfred was up with the roosters, tending to all the animals and working the farm. He talked as much about farming as theater. In an interview with the
Wisconsin State Journal
in 1947, Alfred explained his rigorous daily routine on the farm: “I get up about 4:30 or 5 o’clock. I don’t milk—we have four cows—but I run the separator and bottle the milk…. I’ve got a pig pen out there—three pigs—that’s more spic and span than this dressing room.” Through the years I noticed that when the time for a break from the show neared, Alfred and Lynn became visibly excited about getting back to their beloved Ten Chimneys.

Today, Ten Chimneys is a museum. Even though it’s located far from Broadway, there are many travelers and theater enthusiasts who stop in to see the home of American theater’s first couple. Sadly, there are not many of us around anymore who saw the Lunts onstage, and each year the number is dwindling. This year I scheduled a trip to speak at Ten Chimneys, but my plans were interrupted by heart surgery. Hopefully, I’ll get back there soon.

In 1945, I spent three weeks living on the farm and working with the Lunts on
O Mistress Mine
. I stayed in the bedroom reserved for their close friend Noel Coward. Each day we rehearsed the play for several hours in their living room. Later I went swimming in their pool, and in the evening Alfred, who was a master chef, cooked us dinner. When I think back on those weeks at Ten Chimneys, I’m astonished at how fortunate I was. Imagine a sixteen year old actor today being invited to live with and rehearse every day with someone like Anthony Hopkins, Kevin Spacey or Meryl Streep. I learned more about acting in those three weeks than I ever imagined possible. They taught me their technique of overlapping lines, and after intense practice sessions I began to get the hang of it. It was all about timing the lines so that it appeared we were talking at the very same time, but never in a way that disrupted the clarity of the words.

After taking the play on a short road trip in the winter of 1945,
O Mistress Mine
opened in New York at the Empire Theater on January 23, 1946. Although I generally don’t get nervous before a performance, I remember being anxious that first night on Broadway as every single critic in the city came out to see the Lunts triumphant return. I think I also felt more of a responsibility than ever before. This was a special moment for both Broadway and for the Lunts, and a great deal was riding on my performance. If I did poorly, it would ruin this wonderful moment. Fortunately, it all went well.

“They came like a whirlwind to the Empire last night,” wrote Lewis Nichols in the
New York Times
. “The theater is cheerful again. The Lunts are back.” John Chapman of the
Daily News
exclaimed, “The most celebrated married couple in the modern history of the stage returned from the war in Britain in a comedy which permitted them to make unmarried love to each other.” And Vernon Rice of the
Post
simply declared: “Good old-fashioned magic returned to the theatre last night.… Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne are home again.”

And, thankfully, they liked me as well. Ward Morehouse wrote, “Dick Van Patten plays the rebellious Michael, the adolescent Hamlet, and he moves right along with the stars. He has force and a sense of comedy values and his scenes with Lunt are enormously amusing.” In the
Times
, Nichols reminded his readers of my history onstage as a child and acknowledged that I had moved on: “Dick Van Patten, who used to be Dickie as a child actor now has grown into fierce young manhood. He is serious and intense: some of the best passages are where the minister knows the boy as a viper and the widow knows him not at all.”

My performance aside, Nichols was right that Rattigan’s play was particularly good when Sir John sees through Michael’s high-minded posturing. A number of times Michael would spout off quotations from the writings of the contemporary British socialist, Harold Laski, and Sir John would scoff at his pretentions. But, Olivia, being his mother, was blind to her son’s conceit. Much of this dialogue was part of the rewriting that Rattigan had done at Alfred’s insistence, expanding Lunt’s character and, in the process, improving the play.

The review I enjoyed most came from Robert Garland, the renowned critic of the
New York Journal American
, who wrote that “Dick Van Patten…brings a boyish likability to a priggish, puritanical part.” I liked that because it’s always a challenge for an actor to make a villain appealing. And while Michael Brown was not quite a villain, he was, at least for most of the play, pompous and insufferable. Yet, the Lunts had stressed to me that the audience must find something to like in his character, or they will find it hard to join in the laugh. I had made a conscious effort to strike that balance and was delighted to see that Garland had noticed.

This was, by far, the high point of my stage career. In a little over ten years, and with the relentless support of my mother, I was now playing on the biggest stage with the greatest stars. Looking back I don’t think anything can compare with the electricity of that first night and then the enormous satisfaction—and no small relief—in reading the wonderful reviews the next day. Montgomery Clift had called me after I first won the part and assured me there was nothing like working with the Lunts. He was right. And this was no ordinary part. One columnist noted that it was the longest juvenile role up to that time on Broadway. Michael Brown’s part took up ninety side sheets—meaning a full ninety pages in the play book. It was a role that could really spark a career and, as Lynn Fontanne anticipated, such situations inevitably bring new opportunities and hard decisions that have to be made.

It was interesting that John Chapman in his review in the
Daily News
captured a bit of the dilemma. He started with an extremely flattering review, but ended with an admonition: “There is an uncommonly good performance by an ex-kid actor named Dick Van Patten, who last season was playing child stuff and called himself Dickie. Mr. Van Patten is growing up fast and growing up very well in the theatre, and I hope to goodness, he stays here and does not flit off to the movies.”

The Lunts had the same concern. It greatly increased, when shortly after the opening, I was contacted by several Hollywood studios—Warner Brothers, MGM, and Twentieth Century Fox—each offering me a standard seven-year deal to get into the movies. But there were strings attached. Basically, they said I could go to Hollywood, and they would pay me for six months while I worked. But they were under no obligation to actually use me. If, for any reason, they weren’t satisfied after six months was up, they could just let me go. Those were the terms.

It would, thus, be taking a risk and, frankly, I wasn’t sure what to do. At the time, I did recall the advice Tallulah Bankhead gave me when I considered leaving
The Skin of Our Teeth
to try out for the role opposite my sister, Joyce, in
Tomorrow the World
: “Don’t ever leave a hit for something uncertain,” Tallulah advised.

The Lunts also played a key role in my decision. They called both my parents in to talk in their offices and expressed their strong opposition to any such move. What’s interesting now is that I still remember Alfred using the same word the critic John Chapman has used, “Don’t let him “flit” his career away in Hollywood.” Alfred told my parents: “Dickie has a future here on Broadway.”