George Cukor: A Double Life by McGilligan Patrick

Author:McGilligan, Patrick [McGilligan, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Entertainment &#38, Performing Arts, BIOGRAPHY &#38
ISBN: 9780816684915
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2013-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

For A Double Life, the Kanins took as their premise a seasoned actor playing Othello who gets into his role not wisely but too well. The actor, Anthony John, becomes so carried away by his murderous identification with the role that he strangles a pretty waitress. A press agent in love with the actor’s ex-wife, who is playing Desdemona, has a hunch that helps solve the crime, trapping the killer onstage during the climactic Shakespearean soliloquy.

The script was originally meant for Laurence Olivier, who proved unavailable for the part. Therefore, the dulcet-toned Englishman Ronald Colman was approached by Cukor and the Kanins and asked to play the lead role. Colman was insecure about performing Shakespeare. To convince him, Cukor told him, “Gar and Ruth Gordon have written an Academy Award–winning part. We think you would be marvelous in it, and we’re going to design the entire production around that target.”

Realizing that Cukor was at his best when he was freed up to concentrate on performances, the Kanins brought in editor Robert Parrish to join production designer Harry Horner as part of the team. Horner was in on every stage of the production.2 “He [Horner] arrived in early mornings,” said editor Robert Parrish, “and proposed setups for every shot. Cukor came in—approved or disapproved—then disappeared into Coleman’s dressing room to work with him.”

Parrish was also present on the set, and after Cukor approved (or changed) Horner’s setup, Parrish would suggest to Cukor just how much of each scene should be covered in each setup. Cukor was therefore “cutting in the camera,” according to Parrish. Just like in the early codirecting days of sound: The Kanins and team were active in all phases, but all decisions were Cukor’s.

In real life, Colman was the prototypical English gentleman, so Cukor had to work hard to help mold his performance. To put the actor in a homicidal mood, the director talked to Colman at length about his struggling early days as an actor in the United States, kindling the memory of hardship and bitterness, bringing out the Jekyll-Hyde transformation.

For his Othello scenes, the leading man was coached by the noted classical actor Walter Hampden. The Shakespearean interludes were carefully rehearsed and filmed in continuity, apart from the rest of the scenes, and later interwoven.

In addition to Colman, A Double Life was blessed with two strong actresses in rewarding supporting roles: Swedish actress Signe Hasso, as Anthony John’s refined leading lady; and, more in the category of earthy sexuality, Shelley Winters—another of those performers Cukor graduated from screen tests—as the doomed waitress.

Cukor had seen Winters as a teenager dating back to the Gone With the Wind talent search, and Kanin had recommended her after meeting her in a Walgreen’s drugstore.

Before testing her, Cukor advised Winters to take off her bra and girdle, unpeel her false eyelashes, let her hair down, and scrape off her makeup. Without alerting her, he filmed her rehearsal. “I know those magic words Roll ’em terrify actors,” Cukor told Winters, “so I synchronize the sound and camera without the actors being aware of it.

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