Lauren Bacall - By Myself and Then Some

The pressure was constant. Rehearse all day – scenes, songs, dances; performance at night; drinks at the hotel, sleep; breakfast and start all over again. The routine out of town is killing, designed to finish actors off, but you keep going – on nerves, hope, and creativity. The adrenaline pumps on. An occasional call to my children to make sure all was well, but I felt, and indeed was, very removed from them. I’d have a weekend at home before Detroit, so they wouldn’t feel totally deserted.

The first day we did the new opening number, everything went wrong – lights crazy, sets not working, sound off, everyone off. Pure disaster.

Ron walked into my dressing room before the next Saturday matinee, looking down at the floor. I had become very sensitive to him, felt very close to him. He knew I still felt badly about Diane – he did too. I told him I still felt uneasy about replacing her – there ought to be another way, less traumatic. He said, ‘You think so? Just look in the fourth row center this afternoon. You’ll see Gower Champion sitting there.’ ‘So what?’ I said. ‘So I’m being replaced,’ said Ron. ‘What?’ I screamed. ‘Over my dead body!’ He had planned to go to New York during the matinee. I made him promise to stay, to come to my room after the performance and we’d take it from there. Five days ago we’d had a hit. One set of reviews, one negative word, and panic had set in. But there was no way I would continue with another director. Replacing Diane was awful enough, but replacing Ron was going too far.

After the matinee Ron was in my room when the door opened and in walked one of Broadway’s most successful producers, Alex Cohen. He hugged both of us enthusiastically. ‘You’ll all get Tonys! It’s sensational – the most exciting show I’ve seen in ages – your work is marvelous!’ Ron told him he was being replaced, whereupon Alex, after a few expletives, tore over to tell Joe Kipness the error of his ways. I took Ron to my hotel suite, Len joined us, sensing trouble, and we sat him down, ordered a drink for him, food for me, called Kippy and started raving. ‘He’s my captain – if the ship sails without him, it sails without me.’ I ranted on and on. Of course I had another show to do, and Ron was terrified I’d lose my voice with strain. Finally Joe said, ‘Gower just came down to visit, he’s passing through, we’re old friends – as a matter of fact, he’s meeting me in the bar in a little while.’ ‘Oh, he is, is he?’ I thought. My position was clear. I called my agent and told him the story: ‘If Ron goes, I go. Make it clear to Kippy!’ I was livid. The theatre – God! So much insecurity, so many people thinking change means better. Ridiculous! How in hell can you be talented one minute and, because of a critic or two, lose it all?

After I hung up, I said to Ron, ‘Let’s go to the bar and say hello to Mr Champion.’ Ron paled. We were all fragile people just then. Just before entering the bar, I put my arm through his – Len was on the other side – and in we walked. Big smile to Kippy and Gower. When Gower said, ‘Great show,’ I patted Ron on the shoulder and said, ‘It’s all because of him – I don’t know what I’d do without him.’ I did everything but flutter my eyelashes. And that was the end of that.

Replacing Ron would really have done the company and the show in. With his second wind, renewed faith, Ron plunged ahead. More changes, more meetings with Comden and Green, Strouse and Adams. The changes were concentrated in large numbers like the party scene, involving the whole company. As much as possible, scenes that Eve was not in. There was so much to do, it didn’t matter, except that we were unable to work in sequence. At last I got the word – Penny Fuller was to replace Diane. The day she arrived, Ron called me into his room to meet her. We got along immediately. She knew what a tough situation it was, what ambivalent feelings are involved in firing and hiring. Penny was great to work with. So skillful. Our scenes had another dimension, no question. It was very exciting. Funny how imperfection can be thrilling. It’s the possibilities of what may come, what might be, that make you tingle.

After Baltimore, Len and I drove back to New York. It was very late, but before heading for our respective homes we just had to drive by the Palace Theatre. There was my name up there, and the enormous logo above the marquee – bigger than I’d ever dreamed it could be. I felt like a kid again looking at that theatre – that theatre which had housed some of the greatest variety artists in show business. I might become part of its history. Unbelievable.

After a hectic happy day with my children I headed for Detroit. My mind was only on the show – I’d never thought I would look forward to Detroit with such enthusiasm.

We opened on February 19 and Ron read me the reviews. After the opening we’d had a cast party fraught with drink, manic gaiety, and some strain. Margo Channing was beginning to get to me. I had been too keyed up, so naturally now felt too let down. The insecurity of Margo was becoming mine and, added to my own, it laid me very low. The reviews were excellent, though not quite so glowing as I would have liked. I became full of doubts. ‘Maybe it isn’t there – maybe it’ll come later. Maybe, maybe…’ Ridiculous to have to be assured by a stranger that you’re good, but I wanted all those adjectives. Is it pleading for affection as in childhood? Or simply wanting approval, also as in childhood? I felt quite alone. Totally vulnerable.

At the end of four weeks we had made many changes in the show, rehearsing daily and playing at night. One night my voice went. I was terrified. It was clearly because of too much work and too little rest. I was taken to a throat doctor for treatment. When the star takes ill, everyone becomes very nervous – including the star. I didn’t rehearse for a day or two, but I didn’t miss a show and was back to normal by week’s end.

My spirits started to climb. With all the changes – a line, a speech, part of a song, a move – dressing room, quick-change room plastered with yellow paper delineating each change, act by act, scene by scene – how one head can retain it is a mystery. Except that somehow it becomes possible. You have to do it, so you do. There were six versions of the party scene. Len was given a new ballad ten days before we closed in Baltimore. A new version of a group number. And my final song went in with a new tag scene five days before our closing in Detroit. But at last the show was frozen.

Press interviews were interspersed – some good for New York, some not so good. One jerk wrote a piece having a conversation with me as though Bogie were present and commenting. I had refused to answer questions about Bogie. I made it clear before agreeing to an interview that it was to deal with Applause and me, nothing else. It was time. If they didn’t want to talk to me about me, the hell with it. I wanted my own life, my own place. Bogie had been dead for thirteen years, I’d had another marriage and a divorce, I had embarked on a new road. I had to stop looking over my shoulder all the time, and I didn’t want anyone looking over it for me!

By our last week in Detroit I felt there wasn’t a bad moment in the show. I’d never felt so good in a part, nor worked so hard, nor functioned so well. And emotionally I became Margo Channing more and more. The reality of New York – children, my own home, Len’s life there – was just around the corner, but fantasy was where I was living, and I wanted to stay in it as long as I could. The theatre is insidious. All my professional life I’d been warned not to confuse a part I was playing with myself. I was able to avoid it in films, less in the theatre, and out of the question in Applause . I was having a marvelous time, so why not? And when in hell had I ever heeded warnings? I was the only one who would be hurt – though I didn’t really believe it at the time. Lives take on a pattern in spite of your conscious effort to break it. Before Bogie my emotional life hadn’t worked – and after, God knows, it certainly hadn’t. Yet the hope remained – the ability to enjoy, to trust, to give. I refused and still refuse to believe that my first love – my happy marriage of eleven and a half years to Bogie – was the beginning and end of that experience. I demanded and still demand the possibility of another good relationship before my time is up. Having tasted the fruit, I flatly refuse never to taste it again.