Silver Screen (Jun-Oct 1940)

76 Silver Screen for October 1940 Cary Plays the Game His Own Way [Continued from page 2 5] determined to become an independent producer. He started by buying the movie rights to a best-seller called "The Tree of Liberty." He believed it would make a great picture. He went to Cary, who was a big name, yet was a free-lance star, not tied down to any one studio. Lloyd said in effect, "We've been friends a long time. Long enough, I hope, for me to ask a big favor. I'd like you to read this story. And, if you agree with me that it has the possibilities / think it has, I'd like you to write me a letter, saying so — adding that you would be interested in appearing in it, 'if future commitments permit.' " Cary wrote the letter. All that Lloyd had to do to interest studios in loaning him players was to produce the evidence that Cary Grant — a very particular gent about stories — was willing to consider the lead. Lloyd went to New York bankers to get a loan. They respected his reputation as a producer, but they wanted to know who would star in the picture. He said, "Somebody as popular as Cary Grant" — and produced the letter as proof that Cary, himself, might be available. The bankers took a confidential poll of exhibitors, anent the extent of Mr. Grant's popularity. The poll must have made them happy. They gave him what he asked. That made him go after Cary in earnest. When you know this story, you have an inkling of how Cary happened to have the chance to go serious in "The Tree of Liberty," which became "The Howards of Virginia." (Exhibitors were also polled about that change of title.) But you still don't know how Cary happened to take the chance. And the puzzle is further complicated by the fact that right now he is making another comedy — "The Philadelphia Story" — co-starring with Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart. Cary, himself, is the only one who can unravel the puzzle. So we go in pursuit of Cary. That doesn't look like an easy assignment. There are rumors that the set — being a Hepburn set — is closed to any and all interviewers. But the rumors turn out to be false. Hepburn isn't as difficult toward the Press as she is reputed to be. At least, we get inside. We find Cary in his portable dressingroom, at one end of the big sound-stage, behind some scenery for a garden party. He is sitting on a couch, recovering from a nap. "Fell asleep going over my lines," he explains whimsically. "That's no reflection on the lines. God forbid. It just shows I'm a man with an easy conscience. I knew my lines last night." Helping himself to a limp cigarette from a squashed package that he draws out of a pants pocket, he wants to know what he can do for us. We tell him he can explain the aberration that tempted him to go serious, right after two comedy hits. We say nothing about the story told above. We want to hear what he has to say. He regards us with those brown eyes for a moment, as if we are the one with the aberration, not he. He shakes his head, like a man who can't understand other people. Then he grins persuasively, and starts talking. "In the first place," he says, stressing the words, to make it clear that this was what started the whole thing, "I've always had terrific admiration for Frank Lloyd. He's one of the really great directors. I've always wanted to make a picture with him. For that reason alone, when he offered me the role, and started telling me about it, I listened. And the fact that it was a serious role made me listen hard. "It would be almost a year, he said, before he started shooting. I knew then what my line-up of pictures would be for the next year. All comedies. First, 'His Girl Friday' and 'My Favorite Wife,' and then, after a lapse, 'Passport to Life.' Somewhere along the line, I needed a change of pace, a different type of picture. "Personally, I like doing comedy. Particularly in this day and age, with laughter getting scarcer by the minute. But you can overwork a good thing. You can tire audiences by never being different. "That little thought was what made me do 'Gunga Din' and 'Only Angels Have Wings' after doing four comedies in a row. And that same little thought was what made me listen when Frank started talking up this role." Cary cUps one hand over one ear, comically pantomiming how intently he listened. "Not only was it a serious role. It was different from anything I had ever done. It presented a challenge. Could I get away with it? "You've been in a theatre when a trailer would flash on the screen, advertising some coming attraction with someone known for comedy. And you've heard audiences laugh in anticipation, even before they saw the guy do some silly little thing. Well, that had begun to happen to me. I had done so many comedies that audiences were all set to laugh at any character I played. Would they refuse to take me seriously in a serious role? "To show you how smart Lloyd is: He foresaw that hazard, and he had ideas about getting around it. If people expected to laugh at me, we'd give them the chance, with little comedy touches at the beginning of the picture. Like a scene showing me squeezed into a wooden tub, taking a bath. And a scene showing me getting out of some tight boots. Little things like that. We'd let them get used to this character gradually — this big, blunt backwoodsman. After they got into the story, they'd take him seriously, forget to laugh." Cary rummages on his cluttered dressing-table for an ashtray. Unable to find one, he carefully consigns his cigarette ashes to his trouser cuff. "There was a further difficulty," he continues. "And, to me, this is an interesting angle. Up to now, I had made a point of being a natural, normal, handin-pocket modern male. Now, suddenly, I was going to be in Colonial costume, with my hair tied in a knot behind. How was I going to behave?" He grins wryly. "Maybe you've noticed what happens to actors when they put on costumes and wigs and do period plays. They go in for flourishes. Wide flourishes." Cary suddenly leaps to his feet, flings both arms wide, and, gazing stupefied at the ceiling, says, with exaggerated ardor, "I love you, milady." As suddenly, he subsides on the couch. "That sort of thing. Actors have been getting away with it for years, on the grounds that men of other centuries behaved differently from men of today. I claim that if men had ever made love like that, they would have been burned at the stake. "I faced the problem: Should I follow good old theatrical tradition, or follow my own personal belief? My own personal belief is that men of yesterday were just as natural as men today. It's true, they didn't say things like 'Swing it, toots' or 'Hiya, kid.' But they had their colloquialisms. They didn't talk poetry, any more than you and I do. They didn't strut, and they didn't stride. They walked the way you and I walk. They sat the way you and I sit. They crossed their legs the same way, I assure you. "I told Frank how I felt. He felt the same way. He said the trouble with most period plays is that the costumes get in the way of naturalness. We decided we'd play the thing as if we were real people, not characters in a period play. Maybe we've started a theatrical revolution. But maybe it's time for one." Still unable to find the ashtray, Cary frantically regards his cigarette, finally squashes the stub on the bottom of his shoe. "In the book," he continues, "Matt Howard had red hair. We tried a red wig, but I photographed like nothing human. So my hair's still black, with a touch of iron-gray toward the end. At the finish I'm forty-five." He shakes his head. "And I don't look any better at forty-five than I do now. I've still got to worry about the future." He grins, self-deprecatingly. He's silent a moment. Then suddenly he flips up his left hand in a hold-everything-maybethis-will-be-interesting gesture. "I almost forgot to mention one of the things that made Frank think of me for the part," he says. "The character had to talk with a dialect — the dialect of an English countryman. And Frank knew that I knew all the English dialects. How I know them is hard to explain. I just do. Picked them up, barnstorming around England. I had an ear for them, maybe. You hear of people like that. "It's lucky for me," he adds with conviction, "that I did pick them up. They've come in handy. Given me breaks I wouldn't have been able to handle otherwise. This isn't the first one. Five years ago, George Cukor remembered I knew [Continued on page 78]