Notes on a Cowardly Lion (59 page)

This will be his first time on the English stage. There have been many days of waiting; but Lester has just confirmed the deal, although no papers have been signed. “At this point, John, I don't care if I go or don't go.” But the apartment looks like a campaign headquarters. The trunks are open and on Jane's bed things are being laid out in profusion: his tails, top hat, two hair pieces, a portfolio of sketches in case there are TV shots, extra batteries for his radio, his walking cap, two pairs of ankle-length boots that he had made in Spain at four times their actual value, pictures of the family, good-luck charms …

He is happier now. After so many days of indecision and waiting. Moving Bert Lahr to England is like moving a sideshow.

“Did you call Cele?”

“No.”

“Write that down so I can remember to do it.” Then he writes the memo himself. Mother laughs. Despite his efforts at consideration, she will have to make the calls, check for the limousine, and probably make sure he gets his card to enter the Garrick Club—a social event he has been looking forward to with pride.

He rolls some cellophane in his right hand and relaxes in the chair. The television is off. He is thinking, smiling, pondering. So many things to do. He is warming to the part.

“Some awfully funny lines in that script … Do they understand the word ‘scratch'? What should I use. How about ‘lolly'? Does that mean the same thing. You know it's kind of low class around there.”

“Yes.”

“Write that in the script, Mildred—lolly.”

“I hope they like it over there. Tynan is a big fan of mine; and
S. J. Perelman, well, the Marx Brothers' movies have made him some kind of saint. I just hope we go over. Knock on wood.” He raps the table.

“Now, when I get there, I can't spend too much time going places. This is a tough show. I'll need to rest. I saw Maurice [Chevalier] today, he said they'd love me over there. I hope so. And even Maurice, he's seventy-nine, said to me, ‘Bert, I'm fine but I have to rest between shows now.' You should see him, not a wrinkle on his face” (touching his skin). “Now, I just have to rest and watch my weight. No nuts. If I can make some friends over there … If I can just make some friends. People annoy me; and I just stay away. I can tell when somebody really likes me—like Maurice—well, then I'll approach them. Now your mother, she likes everybody.

“Let's do the lines. I know my first scene already. Let's do it, Mildred.”

Mother puts down her sewing and wearily holds up her Samuel French copy of the play. “Take it from Hyacinth Laffoon …”

Dad interrupts the reading. “Do they know Barry Goldwater over there? How about
Lolita?
Do they know what
golem
is? Well, we'll have to change that; but S. J. will think of something.”

Lahr stops again. “I'll have to find another word for ‘bomb.' I think ‘stink' is better.”

When we tell him that “bomb” means “success” in England, he adds with the conviction of a Jesuit, “Yes, I'll have to change that line.”

Sitting in the chair, he toys with the gestures of Hyacinth Laffoon. His eyebrows point heavenward, he preens himself. His pursed lips become an expression of her fastidiousness. He squints, his shoulders jostle to and fro like a woman getting comfortable in her girdle.

He misses a word and his hand reaches up to his forehead. His index finger rubs against it as if it were cushioning a pool cue. He repeats the line trying to find the right intonation. Finally, he has had enough.

“I'm getting paid the most money that any American comedian has ever earned over there—550 pounds a week. They're letting me take it out because I'm giving work to a lot of English people.”

He won't listen about the English tax structure, which will take nineteen of every twenty shillings he earns. We tell him about the English theaters, how the public supports its theater, how cheap the seats are in comparison to Broadway prices. He worries for a moment about the tight money squeeze in England. Would it affect his show?

Looking up from the script on his desk, he adds—“We'll certainly miss you kids.”

The trunks have been on the docks for a week; but the English producers delay sending Dad his ticket. On the phone to England, he is politic but adamant. The producers apologize and assure him the fare is in the mail. It never comes. Finally, two weeks after the scheduled departure, his agent calls with news that the show had been canceled. The English producers could not raise the money. They had been stalling. The news came late in the evening, and when we visited the next morning, Dad had already left the house. A bottle of Sherry was set on the living room table, and a blue towel draped over the back of his favorite chair.

Mother said he sat up all night. He mentioned nothing about it that evening.

We go with him to the Ed Sullivan show. He's doing his “Cop Act.” The television studio is crowded; the lights hang down from the ceiling like stalactites. Technicians scurry in front of the audience getting ready for the eight o'clock show. Above the stage are four large screens. The audience can see the action better from the screens because a labyrinth of wires and cameras clutters the stage. Sullivan comes before the show. “Look kids, we've got the Dave Clark Five on tonight. Now I don't mind if you carry on when they come out, but remember there are other stars on the bill.” He disappears behind a screen. The lights come up; the technicians flap cue cards toward Sullivan and ready the first act a few feet from where he announces what is on the program. He forgets to mention Dad, who is last on the bill.

We know the cop act by heart. Watching above on the screens, the camera loses his motion in close-ups. Dad has to rush through the sketch because the show is running late. He can't wait for responses. The audience laughs; but they know the joke almost as well as they know the face. On stage, the atmosphere is cramped and antiseptic; linoleum floors, white light, the audience stacked up on raked seats in front of the performing area.

After the performance, we sit with Dad while he packs his equipment—one policeman's hat, one blank revolver, and a badge. We mention that Sullivan didn't announce him; he is surprised. “Oh, this
guy's like that. You never know. We're all absentminded.” He keeps his make-up on. On the way out, he stops to thank Sullivan. People cluster around; and my father notices a young girl standing to the side of them.

“Little girl—miss—did you want my autograph?”

She hands him a pad, hesitating a moment to look at his face. He continues toward the elevator, where he recognizes one of the show's producers.

“Hello, Cy.” The man is wearing sunglasses and a diamond ring on his little finger.

“Another one in the can, Bert. Eighteen years. Fifty-two weeks. Oi.”

“That's a fortnight, isn't it?” smiles my father.

When we walk out into the cold evening air, the children rush screaming toward him. His pen won't write. “Just put an X,” says one girl, anxious to catch the Dave Clark Five.

At home, he is perplexed about Sullivan's omission. “Well, that's the way he is. We're good friends. Maybe he just forgot. He does that.”

“Bert, you weren't even billed—it's disgusting …”

He calls his agent. No answer: taking his magnifying glass he inspects the television listings. Mildred is right.

“Well, I got the booking last week. At my age, I'm in this business for the money,” he adds, taking off his shirt so that his gut dips over his belt. “Anyway, who cares?”

He rarely attends public occasions; but tonight the family is going to a gala premiere of a grade-B movie,
Cast a Giant Shadow
. As we pull up, a policeman tells the chauffeur, “11:30, driver.” People are cordoned off from the opening; they strain to see the faces. A man stands on top of the television truck spotting the famous people as they enter and positioning the television crew.

“There's Bert Lahr. Bert Lahr. Dolly in, for chrissake! Dolly in. Keep it coming …”

Hands reach out pulling him toward the white light of the TV cameras.

The camera light is merciless. It makes Dad look old; it uncovers blemishes on female faces usually well disguised by make-up. The television announcer standing smooth and dinner-jacketed calls my father to the podium. We try to listen to what he is saying; but with the screaming and the bustling television cameramen, his voice fades
out. He talks with his hands in his pocket. He seems relaxed, uncaring, smiling wanly his professional smile. He pushes his way inside. Radio newsmen clutch at him as he walks slowly past. They are young and eager. As they talk, their eyes flash toward the lobby doors for the next celebrity. They talk to him with a professional nonchalance. They thrust the microphone up to his mouth, asking him the first question that comes to their mind. They know nothing about him; they don't care. There is no understanding, simply business.

“Will you please not block the aisles! Please go to your seats.”

The usher approaches my mother. “Lady, will you please get out of the way.”

“I'm waiting for my husband.”

“All right, lady, will you please step aside.” He tries to push her.

Another woman squirms past, clearing space for herself with a pointed elbow. “I don't care, George, I just want to take one look …”

Dad comes toward us; but a Marine sergeant begins his patter. “It's Bert Lahr, ladies and gentlemen, Bert Lahr. How are you, Bert?”

“Fine.”

“Those commercials of yours are just the greatest.”

“Yes, I was just saying to one of the other networks, after all these years in the business these commercials have finally made me known.” (He doesn't really want to say that.) It is what the public wants to hear and what they expect. It saddens him. He doesn't look at the Marine, who pushes closer to him.

“Do you have something to say to our boys overseas?” He moves the microphone under Dad's nose. “I'm sure the boys abroad would love to hear something from one of America's most famous comedians, a man who has made them laugh since they were kids …”

Dad thinks for a while. The Marine is insistent.

“Well—hello.”

The sergeant waits for more, then rattles on. “I snuck in last night and saw the picture.
Cast a Giant Shadow
, and Bert, believe me, it casts a great glow over this great country. It makes you proud to be …”

There is a sudden surge of new arrivals. Elbows shoot over Dad's ear. He cannot even turn to see who is pushing him. The Marine loses his guest and searches into the mass of perfumed faces for someone new, talking continuously into the microphone.

As we take our seats, no one is looking toward the screen. They are gazing around for famous faces, glancing at the show of diamonds and fall dresses. A woman in a sequined evening dress walks stealthily
behind my father. Dad doesn't see her. She is wearing a heavy diamond ring on the outside of her gloved index finger. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a small camera. She lurches at Dad, snapping his picture just as he looks up at the sudden movement.

After the movie, there is another crush to get out. There will be a banquet at the Hilton, where he will be introduced and photographed. He will see old faces and columnist friends. Perhaps he will have a good time. The pattern is always repeated.

As he leaves the movie theater, he tries to look inconspicuous. A little girl passes with her mother. “Look mommie—there's the potato chip!”

He glances at her and lowers his head through the crowd.

They haven't spoken in two days. It began when Mother asked Dad to stop taking his temperature every five minutes.

“There's a lot of things that you do which annoy me!” he said, and for forty-eight hours they have not uttered a word to one another.

Jane called to ask me to mediate. She tried to talk to him, but he sat like a Buddha with his back to Mother. “My temperature's up. I have to take my white pills. Where are they? Your mother's a nag … nag … nag!” Jane began to laugh. Now Dad isn't talking to her either.

Tonight, we sent them a one-word telegram:
TALK
.

Mother handed us each envelopes with goodbye letters as she boarded the plane with Dorothy McHugh for Europe. It was the first trip she had ever taken without Dad. At the airport, he was quiet; and even at Mother's melodramatic moment he said nothing.

As he turned away from the observation deck, he was crying. He wiped the tears from his eyes and turned to Frank McHugh.

“They'll miss us.”

He quit the Lambs Club today—the second time he's left it. This exit was final. The family is very upset; he's accepting no calls. “I need the Lambs like I need eight nostrils,” he keeps saying.

He has asked me down to the club many times—it has always been exciting to see his pictures among the memorabilia on the walls. He was a member when the club could boast the finest performers—W. C.
Fields, Bobby Clark, Bert Wheeler, Will Rogers. He has performed on the stage at the club. They have given him special evenings; and it was here that he read his speech—perhaps the only one he ever wrote himself—celebrating fifty years on the American stage. He was the corresponding secretary who liked to boast, “I'm the only secretary who never corresponded.” And there are two Flemish seventeenth-century landscapes donated by him.

He was going to put on the Lamb's Gambol—the annual production that raises money for the club. He enjoyed the idea. He had already lined up stars to perform and had commissioned new song material. Mayor Lindsay had even been contacted to make an appearance. All that effort is canceled. It was nice to see him making plans.

“I'm still Bert Lahr. I've still got a name. I'm still a great comedian. I've got my pride, you know. Doing things behind my back. I wanted to put on a show; they wanted a dais. For chrissake. They elected me Collie, and then they form an executive committee to overrule the things I want. Well, I'm not going down there and be humiliated by a bunch of amateurs. The phone hasn't stopped ringing. They're incensed at the club. They're incensed at what happened to me …”