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I was eighteen, living in New York, and trying desperately to get work as an actor. It was 1943. I had been drafted, and the plan was to do my time, then study with the help of the G.I. Bill. I’d spent a summer doing Shakespeare but had just been fired from a production where I played a gross, blustering football star. I was a polite boy from Brookline, Massachusetts, and I just couldn’t work myself into the character: smacking men on the back, smearing a chocolate bar on my camel-hair coat. I realized that I had to learn the technique of acting. Everything I’d done so far was instinctive.
The day came for my physical. I went through the routine like an automaton, distancing myself from the hundreds of young men who stood self-consciously in their underwear. One of the doctors took a long time examining my ears. “Perforated eardrums,” he said.
I was free. I got a scholarship at the New School for Social Research, which had a prestigious drama workshop. On my first day, the registrar gave me my schedule: Theory of the Theatre, Acting, March of the Drama, Movement, and Makeup. I signed papers all morning, and then she took me to my group, which was already in session. Ten students were seated at small tables in front of standing mirrors, applying cosmetics to their faces. They stopped and stared as I walked in.
“Alan is joining your class, and I hope you’ll make him feel at home,” the registrar said.
Several boys got up to shake my hand; the girls said hello. One extremely handsome boy, who had drawn a line from the center of his forehead down to his chin, and who had made up half his face in garish war paint, walked over to me. I put out my hand, but he glared and walked out the door. Everyone giggled, and the registrar said, “Don’t mind him. That’s just Marlon trying to get attention.”
One of the boys lent me some makeup, and I sat applying it, looking in the mirror. I wondered if I’d made a mistake. After all, I had experience in a touring company, in summer stock. I’d put on makeup dozens of times. No, I thought, I’ve got to study—that crazy boy with the war paint had just brought me down.
Stella Adler, the most important acting teacher in the country, was coming to lead a class. I was terribly excited. She had been with the Group Theatre, the pioneering New York drama collective, and had actually studied with Konstantin Stanislavski, the originator of Method acting. I had been reading his book “My Life in Art” as if it were the Bible, but I still couldn’t make sense of the Method and how to do it. I was sure Stella Adler would teach me.
She was a half hour late, but no one seemed surprised. Everyone had been talking, sprawled on folding chairs or perched on a raised platform that took up one side of the room. Suddenly, it was quiet. The students shifted their positions and looked toward the double doors, like animals sensing an approach.
There was a waft of expensive perfume, and Miss Adler appeared. Hands rushed to take her umbrella, her bag, her fur coat. “Darlings,” she said, kissing and hugging the students closest to her. They guided her into an armchair, and she reached above her head. “What do you think of my chapeau?” she asked. It was a frothy black cap from which feathers danced whenever she moved. A girl said unctuously, “It’s beautiful, Miss Adler.” She was ignored as Miss Adler shed a suit jacket that revealed a filmy satin blouse. She looked at me. “You must be the new boy,” she said. I felt her eyes peel back the layers of my clothes. “Yes, Miss Adler,” I said. She reached out her hand, and I stumbled over to take it. “I hope you’re very talented,” she said. I stood awkwardly as she looked me over. “Sit down, darling,” she said, and I staggered back to my seat.
For half an hour, she discussed her clothes with the class. “Do you really think this suit is more becoming than the one I wore last week?” Then she listened to everyone’s comments about whether she was better in green or in blue. Finally, she said, as if we had delayed her, “Let’s get to work. Marlon, you lazy boy, get in that chair.”
Marlon hadn’t turned up in any of my other classes, but I had seen him sitting in the hall, playing bongo drums, surrounded by a coterie of admirers. He made a point of not looking at me. One of the students told me that his last name was Brando. The rumor was that he was being kept by a rich, older man and that he had a girlfriend named Blossom Plum.
The class watched as Marlon slumped across the room and fell into a folding chair. He looked as though he had crossed the desert without water. “Now, Marlon, peel an apple,” Miss Adler said. Marlon pantomimed the knife slipping under the skin, then began to peel. He did it so convincingly that it seemed to be in one long piece that kissed the floor. “Now, Marlon, I’m going to say some words to you, and I want you to react accordingly,” Miss Adler said. “Cold . . . hot . . . hungry . . . tired . . . depressed.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. Marlon continued to peel the apple, but each time he heard a word he seemed to change. The metamorphosis was nearly imperceptible, but he actually became cold or hot or hungry. I thought, My God, I’ll never be able to do that. The class applauded. Marlon slumped back to his chair.
“Our time is up,” Miss Adler sighed. “Now listen. I believe that every actor should be able to do something in addition to acting—like singing or dancing or telling a story. So next time, I want you all to come in with a story, or a poem, or whatever, and perform it as if you were in a cabaret. Is that clear?” There were murmurs of agreement, and then a shuffle of chairs as actors rushed to help Miss Adler with her coat. I sat for a moment in my seat. I knew what I would do: my rendition of “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” the short story by Stephen Vincent Benét, for which I’d won a speaking prize my senior year in high school. I’d show them Marlon wasn’t the only talented one.
The next class with Miss Adler had the palpable charge of opening night. No one would tell anyone what they were going to do. It was all a surprise.
After a show of hands, Miss Adler chose a lanky, blond girl to go first. I had learned her name was Elaine Stritch and that her uncle was high up in the Catholic church, in Chicago. She was wearing a trainman’s overalls and her hair was pulled back. She sat on the floor and strummed her guitar, singing in a haunting, simple voice: “I wonder as I wander out under the sky, how Jesus the Saviour did come for to die.” The class didn’t wait to gauge Miss Adler’s response. Everyone applauded loudly.
I waved my hand in front of Miss Adler’s face. “The new boy seems very eager,” she said. “All right darling, you go next.”
I stepped up onto the platform and was relieved to see that Marlon had left the room. I felt as if I were performing in front of the Queen and her courtiers. It had been two years since I had won the speaking prize, but I remembered every word of the Benét story. I was nervous in the beginning, but I felt a new authority as I acted out several different parts, all with different accents and personalities. I told the story of the Devil’s battle with Daniel Webster to possess a man’s soul. I grew more and more impassioned. I felt transported to the New England farm where the story took place, and I became very moved when Webster finally won at the end. I had hardly finished when Miss Adler’s voice trumpeted, “Excellent!” and the class applauded. I went to my seat feeling a camaraderie with the others for the first time.
As soon as I sat down, Miss Adler gestured in my direction. “Now, let’s not be confused that what he did was acting,” she said. “He told a story and put on voices for the different characters. That’s all right for cabaret, which was the assignment, but we mustn’t mix it up with real acting.” Everyone agreed. I didn’t see why it was necessary to diminish my performance in that way.
There was a sudden flurry of activity. The curtains on the platform were drawn and the lights went out. I could make out one of the actors dropping the arm on a record. As the music began, the actor rushed over and pulled the curtains. Standing in the center of the stage, in a pool of light, was a gorgeous woman in a velvet evening dress and long white gloves. The class gasped—it was Marlon in a blond wig. As Judy Garland began to sing—“Zing! Went the strings of my heart”—Marlon began to lip-synch. I realized the record was on at twice the speed so that the sound was comic, as if Marlon had Betty Boop’s voice. The class went to pieces. The students screamed and applauded; several of them slid off their chairs and rocked with laughter on the floor. Through it all, Marlon played it straight. Miss Adler collapsed in her chair. “The Devil and Daniel Webster” had been completely forgotten.
The cabaret incident was the last time I saw Stella Adler. She won a role in a play called “Pretty Little Parlor,” and coaxed her brother Luther into taking over the class. He had also been in the Group Theatre and was a renowned actor, having appeared many times on Broadway. He was in his forties, stocky and short, though he wore lifts in his shoes. He was all business but very warm and helpful. I was finally going to learn the Method that was beginning to be the basis of all good acting.
On his first day, Mr. Adler gave us an exercise in improvisation: we were all to be chickens in a barnyard. We would hear on the radio that war was declared, and we had to react as chickens—to decide whether we were married, leaving our chicken families to go off to war, or whether we were single and awaiting the draft. I looked around. Students started clucking as they moved on their knees toward each other. Some of the girls grabbed boys and acted as if they were their husbands. I had always been uncomfortable with improvisation, so I decided that I was a loner who didn’t like the other chickens. I sat and sulked and managed to get through the ordeal.
Around that time, auditions began for the big student play of the year: Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” This was very exciting. I’d acted in “Much Ado About Nothing” in Boston, learning the rudiments of doing Shakespeare, and I’d got my scholarship by reciting one of his soliloquies. I went to the audition feeling confident, but discovered that all the boys were trying out for Duke Orsino, the part that I wanted. Everyone had to read for the director, Erwin Piscator, who was also the head of the workshop. He was a slight man, around fifty, beautifully dressed and with meticulously combed silver hair. He had been famous in Germany for doing epic theatre, a movement that stressed the political content of drama. He had escaped the Nazis and now sat hunched at the front of the auditorium.
I was startled to see Marlon, who hadn’t been around much. I’d heard that he’d been raving about “Good Night, Sweet Prince,” a biography of John Barrymore, the renowned Shakespearean actor, that had just been published. He was laughing at rumors that Barrymore, a known alcoholic, had peed on the floor of his dressing room when people came to praise a performance. I thought it was sad that a great actor resorted to such low tricks for attention, but I wasn’t surprised that Marlon was taken in by them. As usual, he looked right through me as we waited in the wings. I couldn’t understand why I annoyed him, but I put it out of my head. I could hear the boys who went before me, and none of them seemed exciting. Marlon was the worst. He mumbled his way through, making no sense of the words or the iambic pentameter. When my turn arrived, I forgot about the others, succumbing to the thrill of being onstage, the pleasure of reading such beautiful lines. Piscator thanked each of us. A few days later, a cast list was posted. I was Duke Orsino.
On the first day of rehearsal, we were all a little nervous. Piscator had directed the greats of Europe, and we were just kids trying to find our way. He settled in the front row and looked up. “Alright, begin,” he said. I started to speak the opening lines, and Piscator jumped out of his seat. “No, no, no,” he shouted. “You Americans are so afraid of the poetry.” He came onstage and walked over to me. “You have one of the most beautiful speeches in Shakespeare,” he said. “It must be like a rhapsody. Your voice should sound like a cello. Now begin again.”
After weeks of rehearsal, we were ready. There were two opening shows: one in the afternoon, for the school, friends, and agents, and an official première in the evening. Around noon, I began putting on makeup backstage. My costume was stunning: a red doublet with a diamond pattern, red tights, a navy-blue blouse with puffed sleeves, and a silver cape. I was just finishing combing my hair when Piscator walked into the dressing room. “Good afternoon, Mr. Piscator,” everyone said. “Good afternoon,” he replied. “I just came to say merde.” The French word for “shit’” was traditional in the theatre for wishing someone luck. It made us feel very professional.
Piscator walked over and stood beside my chair. “There’s been a bit of a problem,” he said, “but I think we’ve solved it very well.” I asked him what it was. “You see,” he said, “Stuart’s mother is very ill, so he had to go to Washington last night, and he can’t get back in time for the performance. He’ll be here tonight, but we had to get someone to take his part this afternoon. Of course, it’s only eight lines, so it’s not that difficult.” I blanched. Stuart’s part was the priest—the hardest moment in the play for me. It was the scene when the Duke finds out that the woman he loves has apparently just married his manservant, who seems to be in love with the Duke. All hell breaks loose, and the priest is summoned to confirm the ceremony.
“Who’s going to play it?” I asked. The director beamed. “Marlon has been good enough to help us out,” he said. “It’s very nice of him.”
Of all the actors, I thought. “Can we rehearse before the curtain?”
“There’s no time, unfortunately,” he said. “He’s in the costume department now, but he knows his spot onstage. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
I went onstage, sat on my throne, and listened to the first swells of music. When the curtain rose, I filled my voice with an exhausted yearning. “If music be the food of love, play on . . . .” I nailed the opening scene, striking just the right balance between honest emotion and the beauty of the poetry. As I made my exit—“Away before me to sweet beds of flowers: love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers”—there was a tremendous sound of applause.
The rest of the play went splendidly. Near the end, when I discovered that Olivia, my love interest, had married Cesario, my servant, the priest was sent for. I was deep in character, acting out the conflict between my desire to kill Cesario and my suspicion that he was in love with me, when I heard the audience start to laugh. I turned to see the priest. There was Marlon in a pair of tights, into which he had stuffed a small drum that made him look pregnant. He beat out a rhythm as he mumbled lines that no one could hear. The audience went wild. They laughed. They cheered. They egged him on until he performed a frenzied drum solo. The other actors onstage laughed, too, but I was livid. It was as if the play were totally forgotten. When Marlon finally finished, he left the stage to an ovation, and I had to wait until everyone quieted down. As I spoke, the audience started to laugh again.
Somehow, we finished the play. I walked to the dressing room in a fury. I thought of my past year in New York: never having enough food; losing a tooth because I couldn’t afford a dentist; being self-conscious about my smile; never being warm enough in my thin coat; and waiting on tables for people who seldom even gave me a tip. All to be in the theatre that I loved. But this wasn’t the theatre that I had read and dreamed about. When I entered the dressing room, Marlon was sprawled on a chair with cold cream all over his face.
“How dare you,” I said. “How dare you ruin this play!”
Marlon said nothing. “Aren’t you even going to say you’re sorry?” I asked. Marlon looked away. My frustration was building. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep you off Broadway,” I said. I went to my dressing table and sank into my chair. Piscator whooshed in. “Wonderful, wonderful,” he said. I got up and walked over to him. “Are you going to say anything to Marlon?” I asked.
“My dear, it was wrong, but it was just high spirits,” the director said. “Tonight is the most important performance, and Stuart will be here for it.” I looked at him. He no longer seemed like a great international director. “If you don’t reprimand him for his unprofessional behavior,” I said, “I’m going to leave the school.” Piscator raised his hand in a deprecating gesture, then left the room.
I did the evening performance and never went back again. Marlon Brando was on Broadway within a few months. ♦
This is drawn from “The Star Dressing Room: Portrait of an Actor.”
Sourse: newyorker.com
