Amanda LePore – The WOW Report

From Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Paramount Pictures, via YouTube

October 30, 1896– Ruth Gordon:

“To be somebody you must last.”

Gordon has been such a major part of my life for so long, it is hard for me to remember a time when she was not busy being my muse.

A quote from Gordon: “Never Face The Facts” has been the motto for much of my life, painted on my walls by my husband and tattooed on my body. Gordon’s point was, if she had owned up to the fact that at 4 foot 11 inches, not really pretty, and with her drama teachers telling her that she had no talent… well, she would never have become Ruth Gordon.

I treasure, having read and re-read, her three volumes of memoirs Myself Among Others (1971), My Side: The Autobiography Of Ruth Gordon (1976) and Ruth Gordon: An Open Book (1980). I know it all started for me with Inside Daisy Clover (1965), a film that had a strong impact on me at 11-years-old when inexplicably, my parents took me to see it at a drive-in theatre.

My admiration for Gordon was cemented with her Academy Award winning performance in that great horror film Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and then with Harold And Maude (1971), the most influential film of my youth.

The daughter of a former ship captain, Gordon knew what she wanted to do with her life after witnessing a performance by stage actor Hazel Dawn in the musical The Pink Lady (1905) in Boston as a child. Over the initial objections of her father, Gordon decided upon a stage career for herself, studying at the American Academy Of Dramatic Arts in NYC. In 1915, she made her Broadway debut in Peter Pan starring Maude Adams. “Ruth Gordon was ever so gay as Nibs”, wrote influential critic Alexander Woollcott, who became a valued and powerful friend to Gordon, doing what he could to encourage her and promote her career. But, the next year, in her first starring role, in Booth Tarkington’s Seventeen, Gordon received scathing reviews. The New York Tribune’s critic Heywood Broun wrote: “Anyone who looks like that and acts like that must get off the stage”. Thankfully Gordon only read her good reviews.

From NY Public Library Archives

Gordon took whatever acting gigs she could find, mostly touring the provinces in past seasons’ Broadway shows. To gain stature physically, she had a doctor break and reset both her knees to correct her bowlegs. She worked on her voice and fervently researched every role she played, developing a wide range.

With such stage hits like Serena Blandish (1929), Gordon became one of Broadway’s biggest stars in the 1920s and 1930s. She became the first female American actor to perform with England’s Old Vic Company, where she was the toast of London in Ethan Frome (1936) and a comic turn in the Restoration comedy The Country Wife (1675). Back in NYC the next year, she won raves as Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. In 1940, Gordon went Hollywood when she was cast as Mary Todd Lincoln in Robert Sherwood’s Abe Lincoln In Illinois opposite Raymond Massey.

Privately, however, her life was in shambles after the sudden death of her husband, actor Gregory Kelly after just six years of marriage. She then had a scandalous affair with handsome Svengali-ish producer Jed Harris, with whom she had her only child, a son, Jones Harris without the benefit of matrimony.

New York Harold Tribune theater critic Walter Kerr wrote that Gordon’s Natasha in Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters (1949) was the best performance he had ever seen, and the other sisters in that production were played by theatre greats Judith Anderson and Katharine Cornell, plus Natasha isn’t even a leading role.

She created the role of Dolly Levi in gay writer Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker (1956), a role written for her, and the basis of the musical Hello, Dolly!.

But, for 23 years, from 1943 to 1966, Gordon did not work as an actor in films. In 1942, she married the bright playwright Garson Kanin, who was 16 years younger than her. It was a union that lasted more than four decades.

Gordon collaborated with Kanin on writing projects, with delightful results like the Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn comedies Adam’s Rib (1949) and Pat And Mike (1952), as well as the Judy Holliday vehicle The Marrying Kind (1952). Gordon finally returned to film acting for Inside Daisy Clover. She was discovered, or rather, rediscovered, by film fans of my own generation with her role as the sinister elderly neighbor in Rosemary’s Baby.

Here is a sweet anecdote: Director Roman Polanski wrote how he was walking on to the set of Rosemary’s Baby for the first time and he suddenly became aware of a short girl in a miniskirt with an amazing ass and hot legs. Polanski:

“The girl turned around, and it was Ruth Gordon!”

It makes sense. One of Gordon’s greatest gifts was an ability to be both young and old, or homely and beautiful all at once.

When accepting the Academy Award for her performance for Rosemary’s Baby, the 72-year-old Gordon brought down the house by stating:

“You have no idea how encouraging a thing like this can be.”

Gordon was unforgettable in two other films from my high school years: Where’s Papa? (1970), in which she played the obscenely senile mother of George Segal who poured Pepsi-Cola on her Lucky Charms cereal, and of course, my much-loved Harold And Maude, as the free spirited soul mate of a death obsessed young man perfectly played by Bud Cort, who remained her lifelong friend in real life.

I saw Gordon on stage only once, in a revival of George Bernard Shaw’s early feminist play Mrs.Warren’s Profession on Broadway in spring 1976. I was enthralled with her funny, spry performance and then turned around to watch it again the next night.

The story of Gordon’s early life is smartly told in her own hit plays Over 21 (1944) and Years Ago (1947), plus in the film The Actress (1953), directed by George Cukor, with a screenplay by Gordon. She was portrayed by Jean Simmons and Spencer Tracy played her father. I came upon it again in 2014 while bedridden.

She was never fussy or old fashioned. Her husband, Kanin wrote:

“Her great joy was hanging around young people. She was always very much involved in the new stuff. I remember when we went to see the Broadway musical Hair (1967) at a preview. Richard Rodgers was there and he walked out after the first act. So did David Merrick. All these Shubert executives left. But Ruth just went bananas. She thought it was just terrific. She went backstage to congratulate the cast and went back to see the show many, many times.”

Ruth Gordon remains very special to me. She is my muse. The picture below is of a wall of our bungalow in Seattle, painted by The Husband in the late 1980s as a gift.

gordon

“To get it right, be born with luck or else make it. Never give up. A little money helps, but what really gets it right is to never face the facts.”

When Gordon left this world in the summer of 1985, I couldn’t be too sad because during her remarkable career lasting 70 years in and around the worlds of stage, screen, television and publishing, Gordon manifested a fearsome will and an insatiable appetite for things new.

“Pan me, don’t give me the part, publish everybody’s book but this one and I will still make it! Why? Because I believe I will. If you believe, then you hang on. If you believe, it means you’ve got imagination, you don’t need stuff thrown out for you in a blueprint, you don’t face facts, what can stop you? If I don’t make it today, I’ll come in tomorrow.”

NYC Public Library for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center Archives

October 31, 1896– Ethel Waters:

“Only those who are being burned know what fire is like.”

When doing research for #BornThisDay, I have been struck by the cruelty, contempt and challenges that were foisted on minority artists and performers in the past century. That their work should be adored and rewarded, but the artist would still need to enter a theatre or hotel by the backdoor makes their stories especially painful. That these amazing performers persevered and gave us so much is a testament to the power of their art.

Ethel Waters rose to stardom from an obscure beginning, an alley in Philadelphia where she lived in poverty with her mother and grandmother. She faced unspeakable racism during her rise to fame. She was born as a result of her mother’s rape at 13-years-old. Waters grew up in a violent, impoverished environment. She never lived in the same place for more than a year. Waters:

“I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family.”

Despite this unpromising start, Waters demonstrated a love of language that distinguishes her work. Waters’ birth in the northern part of the USA, plus her vagabond life, exposed her to many cultures. Her childhood gave her an interpretation of the Southern Blues Music that brought a unique sensibility. She pulled together eclectic influences from all sorts of musical genres to make her remarkable sound.

Waters was a singer, dancer, actor, and an evangelist. She was never confined to a single identity. As a singer, she played with styles, doing what was called “race music”, while also doing white standards and show tunes.

Waters married when she was 13-years-old, but she soon fled her abusive husband and became a maid in a Philadelphia hotel, working for $5 a week. On her birthday, Halloween night 1913, she went to a party in costume at a nightclub in Philadelphia. She was persuaded to sing a couple of songs, and the audience was so impressed that a booking agent was able to get her a professional gig at the Lincoln Theatre in Baltimore. She earned $10 a week, but the agent cheated her out of the tips her admirers tossed on the stage.

Waters was a street kid with the high aspiration to become a lady’s maid. Instead, she found herself working in Black Vaudeville. She was billed as “Sweet Mama Stringbean” because of her tall, lean stature. Her signature tune was St. Louis Blues. Waters performed the popular tune in a softer, subtler style than her rivals, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith.

In the 1920s, Waters was booked in the better paying white Vaudeville theatres, and she became one of the most celebrated and best paid entertainers of the era. At Harlem’s Cotton Club, she introduced Harold Arlen’s great ballad Stormy Weather, composed by Arlen just for her. Waters:

“I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, the story of the wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted.”

Irving Berlin wrote Supper Time, a song about a lynching, especially for Waters.

She later became the first African-American star to have a national radio show. That’s how big she was.

She had a huge hit on Broadway in the all-black musical Cabin In The Sky (1940) with songs by Vernon Duke and John La Touche. It had a smart, witty script, which showed its black characters with rare dignity. It was made into a film in 1943, produced by Arthur Freed and directed by Vincente Minnelli, with Waters repeating her Broadway role, joined by Lena Horne and Louis Armstrong. It was a huge box-office hit and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe, composed by Arlen, with lyrics by Yip Harburg and sung by Waters in the the film.

Waters didn’t just do musicals. As an actor in projects like the stage and screen versions of The Member Of The Wedding (1950), adapted from the novel by gay writer Carson McCullers herself, Waters gave those traditional “mammy” roles real edge and depth.

The Member Of The Wedding had a cast that included Julie Harris and Brandon deWilde, a seven-year-old second grader at the time. It was made into a film in 1952 with the three principals repeating their Broadway roles. The film was directed by Fred Zinnemann. Harris was nominated for the Academy Award, but Waters was shamefully ignored.

Waters’ life was as diverse as her talents. She was a Catholic who would swear like a sailor. She was a lesbian whose loud fights with her lovers made the more proper lesbians, like singer Alberta Hunter, label her a disgrace to their tribe. She was a gentle soul with a terrible temper.

Waters surrounded by white ladies in 1957, Photographer unknown, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

In the 1960s, Waters joined The Reverend Billy Graham on his tours of the USA. Her signature song had been Stormy Weather, but once she joined the Graham Crusade, she never sang it again. Waters:

“My life ain’t stormy no more.”

This change was probably good for Waters, but bad for her fans. Her best known recording became her version of the traditional spiritual His Eye Is On The Sparrow.

Among the songs that Waters was the first to sing: Dinah, Takin’ A Chance On Love, Heat Wave, Am I Blue? and Cabin In The Sky.

Waters was only the second African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award, for the film Pinky (1949), directed of Elia Kazan. She was the first black female actor to have a lead role in a television series, Beulah (1950), playing another mammy role. She was the first African-American woman to be nominated for an Emmy Award (in 1962!) for a guest role on the popular series Route 66.

Waters took her final curtain call in 1977, taken by that damn cancer.