Eighty Is Not Enough: One Actor's Journey Through American Entertainment (16 page)

The four of us lived together in an apartment on 55
^th
Street. Burt was about ten years older than me and working in a play called
The Sound of Hunting
. The play bombed, but Burt received excellent reviews, which helped launch his career.

Burt was a quiet and reserved guy, though very nice. While living together we pretty much went our own ways. He did tell me that he was an acrobat. In fact he had just returned from performing a circus act on a USO tour. It was there he met Norma, and when I moved in, Norma was pregnant. Later I recall them telling the newspapers they had adopted a child. In those days it was a way to avoid any kind of scandal. Soon afterward, they moved to Hollywood.

My coming of age in New York also involved the acquisition that was most important to me. I had spent a good portion of my youth at a racetrack, and now I was going to see it all from a new vantage point.

Early in my run with the Lunts, I became the youngest racehorse owner in America. That had been one of my dreams, and now that I was making $750 a week, an enormous sum in those days, I decided it was time to buy my own horse. With my mother’s reluctant acquiescence, I took a train to Lexington, Kentucky, where all the big horse auctions were held.

I saw a yearling colt at the auction—a beautiful bay, meaning he was a rich, dark brown color. He was Jersey bred and best of all, he only cost $900. His name was Penetrator. We took him from the auction and shipped him by train to the stables at the Aqueduct in Ozone Park, Queens, where it cost $8 a day to keep him.

My father was also excited about my owning a horse. He came to my first race at Jamaica racetrack. Proud that his son had a horse in the race, he said to me: “I don’t care who is in the race, I’m betting on Penetrator.” But I knew the horses far better than Dad, and Penetrator didn’t have a chance. So I argued with him: “Forget about Penetrator, play the seven.” That was a horse named Mist O Gold. But my father was adamant. He wouldn’t change his bet. He said he just couldn’t bet against his own son’s horse.

Mist O Gold won, and my father missed an excellent payday. I couldn’t wager myself because you’re not allowed to bet against your own horse. But I would have liked to see Dad win a few bucks, even if it did mean betting against his son’s horse.

Penetrator nearly brought me a touch of immortality. There had been racing at Monmouth Park in New Jersey from the 1870s until it was shut down twenty years later in the 1890s. Then, just after I bought Penetrator, the racetrack opened again. The first races were held on July 19, 1946, and we entered. I was lucky to have a jockey named Ronnie Nash, who was one of the top riders. I remember being the youngest guy in the owners’ box as they went through the ceremonies commemorating the reopening of the track after fifty-three years.

When the ceremonies finished, they started the first race of the day. This was Penetrator’s race, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. As they took off, he was out among the leaders. As they came into the stretch, I was all excited. But there was another horse, Blind Path, also in the mix. In the homestretch it was just the two of them—a photo finish! But, we lost. The next day, even the
New York Times
covered the opening race, noting that Blind Path “got on the inside going into the stretch and withstood a challenge by Penetrator.”

About five years ago, I went back to Monmouth Park. I hadn’t been there in over fifty years. I saw above the entrance a big picture of that very first race run at the new Monmouth Park. I looked up, and there’s my Penetrator—getting beat by a nose.

To make it even worse, at the bottom of the photo, it named the jockey, the owner, and the trainer of the winner in big black print. Penetrator and I could have been immortalized.

I’ve mentioned scouting for Alfred Lunt, but I also scoured the streets of New York to satisfy my own penchant for oddities, often by heading over to Hubert’s Museum on 42
^nd
Street where they frequently featured a variety of freak shows. I can still remember the names of all the stars at the Hubert: Robert Mervin, the boy with two faces; Betty Lou Williams, the girl with four legs; Francesco Lentini, the man with three legs; Coo Coo, the bird lady; and, of course, Zip and Pip, advertised by the Hubert’s barker as “the human pinheads, whose heads were no larger than the size of my fist.”

One day at the Hubert, they announced a coming attraction: “Albert/Alberta—the world’s only living hermaphrodite on exhibition today.” That was just the thing to get my juices flowing. I was performing before thousands of people every night at the Empire with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, yet after hearing that announcement all I could think about was that upcoming freak show with a half man/half-woman.

The big day finally came. I watched as Albert/Alberta stepped onstage and announced: “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m half man; and I’m half woman. As you can see on this side, I have the lovely complexion of a woman. And over here, I have a beard.” He/She spoke with a thick French accent: “Over here, you see I have no breasts. Over here, I have these beautiful breasts. I’m a very feminine woman.”

I was amazed. I went straight back to the Empire that night, knocked on Lunt’s dressing room door and exclaimed: “Mr. Lunt, you won’t believe what I just saw at the Hubert—a half man/half woman.” I kept going on and on, and Alfred Lunt kept listening intently, just saying: “Hmm. Hmm. Yes. Yes.” I knew I had him hooked for the next show.

But things didn’t go as planned. A few days later, I went to a double feature at the New Amsterdam Theatre. I should mention here that my father had always told me there might come a time when a man would make an advance toward me. I remember his exact words: “If you are ever in a place like a movie theatre, and somebody sits next to you and you feel their hand on your body, just say in a very loud and clear voice: ‘Stop what you are doing. Stop what you are doing immediately.’” He assured me the person would stop, but he stressed that I had to say it loud and clear.

Sitting in the New Amsterdam, I noticed the balcony was empty. Suddenly a man came in and sat right next to me. It sounds like a cliché, but he was actually wearing a trench coat. I thought it was creepy. Sure enough, a moment later, I felt his hand on my knee. With that, I remembered what my father told me and was just about to say very loud: “Stop what you are doing” when I glanced over at him—and it was Albert/Alberta!

I was stunned. I just couldn’t bring myself to yell at this great celebrity. Instead, I got up and left. The worst part was that I was totally disillusioned. The great hermaphrodite, Albert/Alberta, was a fake. I went back to Alfred Lunt, and he had a big, long laugh at my expense.

I also saw the great boxing legend, Jack Johnson, at the Hubert Museum. The first black heavyweight champion, Johnson’s rise to the title set promoters on a desperate search for a white contender. When no one could touch him in the ring, they coaxed Jim Jeffries out of retirement, calling him “the great white hope.” Their fight in 1910 was one of the biggest sensations in boxing history. And to the disappointment of the promoters, and many others, Johnson demolished him.

Jack Johnson was no ordinary champ. He was truly great—in fact, one of the greatest heavyweight fighters in boxing history. But he also refused to play the role of a submissive black, grateful for being allowed to participate in a white-dominated business. On the contrary, Johnson was a supremely confident, even arrogant, man who, at a time when Jim Crow was the law of the land, refused to bow to the prevailing racism. For that, Johnson paid an enormous price, both professionally and personally.

Johnson came out onstage at the Hubert wearing a brown suit with a white shirt and tie and his trademark navy-blue beret. Self-assured and well spoken, he pointed to a picture on the wall of himself lying on the canvas in Havana, Cuba, after losing to Jess Willard in 1915. At the time of the fight, Johnson was under indictment for a Mann Act violation, accused of bringing a woman across state lines for illicit purposes. He was literally a fugitive, exiled from his country and on the run, and also under enormous personal and financial pressure.

Johnson told us that he took a dive for a cash payoff. He wanted us—and the world—to believe that Willard had not actually beaten him. Taking a pointer, he directed it at the picture of himself lying on the canvass. “If this were a true knockout,” he explained, “I wouldn’t be shading my eyes from the sun.” And it’s true, in this famous picture of Johnson on the canvas, his hands are raised in the air as if shielding his eyes from the brutal Havana sun.

Shortly after I saw him, Johnson died in a car crash in North Carolina. No one will ever know for sure whether he took a dive or legitimately lost the fight. Today most of the experts are against him. Some twenty years later in 1966, a film of the fight was discovered that seemed to show that Willard won. Either way, Johnson was one of the most charismatic men of the century, a legend both in and out of the ring, and it was fascinating and a little bit sad, to see him at the close of his extraordinary life working for fifty bucks a week at the Hubert trying to undo a wrong committed so long ago. On the other hand, there was also something uplifting about a man who, against all odds, kept on fighting right to the bitter end.

The national tour of
O Mistress Mine
closed in the summer of 1948. The play had been a tremendous success and helped to establish my reputation as a comic actor. As I looked ahead, I had no idea that my immediate future would see another turn to a new medium that would become one of the most important developments not only in entertainment, but in every aspect of life. Television had arrived in America.

To appreciate the stunning suddenness of the transition, it’s worth considering that when we entered World War II in 1941, there were just 7000 television sets in the entire United States. Most of these sets were owned by very wealthy people. Just eight years later, when
I Remember Mama
first aired in 1949, the number had grown to about 3.5 million sets. But even with this tremendous increase, televisions were still largely a phenomenon of the cities—nearly all of them were located in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other major urban centers.

But that was about to change. And it did so just as
I Remember Mama
took to the airways. By the time of
Mama’s
final performance in 1957, there were nearly 60 million television sets nationwide. Not only did television explode, but it exploded throughout the duration of our show.

Mama
was originally planned for radio. When I went to audition at CBS studios on Madison Avenue, it never crossed my mind that this would be a television program. At that point there were no situation comedies on television—the first was
The Goldbergs
, which debuted just six months before
Mama
in January of 1949. Most of the programming consisted of news and variety shows, often the latter would have a comedian, like Jack Benny, hosting. But the idea of a television sit-com was the furthest thing from our minds, and I recall being skeptical when told that the format was being changed from radio to television.

It turned out to be a brilliant decision.
I Remember Mama
, which was eventually known as simply
Mama
, was a groundbreaking show that helped push the brand-new medium of television forward. But at the time, I certainly wasn’t thinking about that. Television was untested, and we were all uncertain how this would turn out.

The
Mama
story was adapted from a best-selling novel,
Mama’s Bank Account
, written by Kathryn Forbes, about a Norwegian immigrant family who settled in San Francisco in the early years of the century. The actual time in which the first show took place was 1915, thus World War I was already underway in Europe, but the United States had not yet entered the conflict.

The show told a series of stories about an idyllic family, as it was later recalled by one of the children, Katrin, who was wonderfully played by my good friend, Rosemary Rice. Although the family life was idyllic, there was always a constant struggle with the small salary that the father, Lars Hansen, played by Judson Laire, was able to eke out in his job as a carpenter. Many of the storylines dealt with Mama’s imaginative ways to stretch their small income and make ends meet.

Before being tested for television,
I Remember Mama
had been a big hit on Broadway in 1944. Ironically, as earlier mentioned, the very first actor to play Nels Hansen, the eldest son, was Marlon Brando. In fact, it was Brando’s debut on Broadway and helped move him into the spotlight. His success in the role contributed to the reason why the Lunts were so interested in him for the role of Michael Brown in
O Mistress Mine
.

Thus, Marlon had played Nels in
I Remember Mama
before we both auditioned for the Lunts, while I played Nels after finishing with the Lunts. Of course, it worked out much better for Marlon, since he soon landed the role in
Streetcar
that launched him into arguably the greatest acting career in the history of American film.

But the role of Nels didn’t fall so easily to me. In fact, I lost out at first—something that would also happen years later with
Eight Is Enough
. The part first went to Jackie Ayers, a child actor whom I knew from The Professional Children’s School. I still recall the producer using those polite, but gut-wrenching words that every actor has heard: “You were very good, but we’re going in a different direction.”