Screenland Plus TV-Land (Jul 1959 - May 1960)

Why Greg Peck Walked Out continued from page 12 "We used to wonder," one studio veteran confided, "if they'd ever finish the picture. It never occurred to us that they might not start it." This foreboding stemmed from an awareness of fundamentally differing attitudes that Greg and Marilyn had cultivated toward their art. "Peck's very precise," it was pointed out. "He comes on time. He's serious about his work, and expects others to be just as serious. Marilyn, of course, may take it into her head halfway in the picture not to show up. It's always possible with her that she may not turn up on any given date." "/^ REG worries a lot," my informant VJT observed. "He has changed a good deal, and so has Marilyn, as everyone knows. Peck now rehearses a lot. He doesn't want anyone on the set seeing him rehearse. He didn't used to be that way." Marilyn, of course, has been that way for quite a while. She is famous for her attacks of jitters while a picture is in production. It was a fear of two touchy people too much involved with their own phobias. The fear, in short, was that a time bomb was ticking away and that it would likely go off somewhere around mid-picture. There was no suspicion that actually it was a pineapple with a short fuse, and that it already was burning merrily toward the point of detonation. When Marilyn reported for work, she was well fortified. One flank was protected by her drama coach, Paula Strasberg. The other was grimly walled off by her husband, playwright Arthur Miller, who would seem as compulsively caught up with Marilyn's welfare as with the woes of the world. Arthur and Marilyn took one look at the working script — the blue script as they call it at the studio — and hastily confirmed Marilyn's earlier diagnosis. Her part, if not her anatomy, needed firming up. Miller put his Pulitzer prize hand to it, and the happier Marilyn got with the revisions, strangely enough, the gloomier Peck got. Not that Peck, who is justly known for his magnanimity, wasn't magnanimous in the beginning. He conceded that Marilyn's part, in the original script, could stand some enlargement without damage to his prestige. And this despite the fact that he, not Marilyn, had script approval. However, even when the please-Marilyn campaign seemed to him to get out of hand. Peck was not one to make a scene. His announced reason for bolting was that the delayed start in shooting — delayed, incidentally, by pro-Marilyn changes in the script — would extend the agreed upon stop-date by one week. Under these circumstances. Greg maintained, as if nothing else was bugging him, he could not finish in time to meet his next com58 mitment, "The Guns Of Navarone", which is to be filmed in Greece. Peck admittedly was on firm contractual ground, but there was little doubt that an accommodation of conflicting dates might have been worked out if Greg cared to go ahead. It was just about the time the picture's title was changed to "Let's Make Love". Peck's tart rejoinder was, "Let's not." No one familiar with the backstage pouting was naive enough to question what really triggered his exit. Promptly thereafter Hollywood repaired to its joyous post mortem sport of choosing up sides. Oddly enough, Marilyn found more support than might have been expected within the palace walls — a palace whose offerings she has repeatedly spurned and whose nourishing paternal hand has felt the bite of her ungrateful teeth more than once. "Arthur Miller did work on some scenes," I was informed by an objective studio source. "The studio felt they were not serious changes. Peck felt they were, so he bowed out." The consensus of opinion among disinterested studio observers who had seen the script revisions was that they did not substantially alter the picture or downgrade Peck's part. This inescapably left the door open to the suggestion that Greg may have felt, since he did have script approval, that he should have been consulted and/or that being only human he resented being taken for granted while Marilyn was being fawned over. There was nothing to support a case of personal feuding or fussing. The one time Greg and Marilyn met was during a PRECISE, punctual and serious about his work, Greg expects others to be the same. dance rehearsal, and they were entirel cordial. Even if they eventually migb have gotten on each other's nerves, the didn't have the opportunity. As far as the public is concernec Marilyn is more crisis prone than th seemingly imperturbable Peck. Her swore crossing with Sir Laurence Olivier durin the shooting of "The Prince And Th Showgirl" was an internationally reports sample of what might be expected fron the new and more assertive, but apparentl; still insecure, Marilyn. There were rum blings of script concessions to Marilyn 01 "The Prince And The Showgirl" and sh didn't exactly get the short end of th writer's stick on "Some Like It Hot". Marilyn, lovable and cuddly as she is can be a problem. It is true that fundamentally Peck i as reliable as ever. In many respects, hi doesn't seem to have an erratic bone ii his Lincolnesque body. But what is no generally known is that Greg has beei growing more demanding in the practio of his trade — albeit not unpleasant. IT was he who insisted on making th< script revision in "Beloved Infidel" witl Deborah Kerr. He had no qualms what ever over bending the image of the lat< F. Scott Fitzgerald to the convenience o his own personality and acting range. "No sir," the man at 20th nodded, "thi isn't anything brand new with Peck. H< made an awful lot of changes on 'Belove< Infidel*, and he's been persnickety abou his scripts for some time. In fact, it': been the talk of the industry in recen years. He and Willie Wyler had a helluvi thing on 'Big Country'. Apparently, hi has the impression he knows what h< wants to do in pictures. I guess as Ion; as he can make it stick, why shouldn't he; Of course, Marilyn's a bit of a pip, too.' Whatever the merits of the tempest there was no shortage of volunteers U fill in for Peck. The prospect of playin; opposite Marilyn, even as watered dowr co-stars, did not seem to discourage som< of Hollywood's most glittering males fron offering themselves as replacements. Within 24 hours, a dazzling list o: possibilities was being publicly considered among them Cary Grant, Charlton Heston David Niven and Rock Hudson. If an) were insulted at the suggestion of handlin; Peck's rejected skirmish with Marilyn they neglected to tell their press agents As this was written, Rock Hudson w& being most ardently wooed, and reported^ was so eager to take his chances with I Marilyn-oriented script that he was beg ging his studio to okay a loanout. Meanwhile, once out of it, Peck did hi: best to maintain a cheerful aloofness. H< was even philosophical about the arduou: dance rehearsals that had come to naught "At least," he grinned, "I learned to d( the buck and wing, the double wing, i time step, off to Buffalo and the fly away.' And considering private estimations o his displeasure, he executed the fly awa) very gracefully, indeed. SNK