Writing about psychic phenomena was a no-go, Part I.
Rave was deeply into a kind of spiritualism popular in Old Hollywood. Earlier she told a story of Mae West holding seances. In this story, although she begins with Tennessee Williams, she soon veers into a memory of one of her own plays that had themes from the spirit world and thus struggled to find support, even though audiences loved it. Spiritualism has an apt parallel in today’s Scientology that also has a strong grip on some stars, but is generally a turn-off for the big studios.
Rave’s frustration about being ahead of the trend on paranormal stories fits a pattern for her of lamenting how many times she had good ideas before someone else made them big. She also came up with the title “My Fair Lady” years before Lerner & Loewe used it on Broadway in 1956, and there was no consoling her over it. She would show it to me in her notebooks, See? I had it back in the ’30s. We sometimes discussed the concept of zeitgeist, and how an idea can pop into many minds at once because it is in the popular consciousness, but she dismissed this, feeling certain someone simply stole it from her. And who am I to say she was wrong? I wasn’t there when it happened, so I took her side, while secretly wondering whether she just happened to have early access to stars and ideas, thus creating a persistent and troubling illusion that “her” innovations were constantly being appropriated while the parade passed her by.
In 1947, New York City witnessed the opening of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” The author, Tennessee Williams, was already a Broadway _____, for he had seen “The Glass Menagerie” walk away with all the honors. I was working (for free) at Audrey Wood’s agency. Audrey had discovered Tenn in the early days of his writing career. Out in California, as a matter of fact. Audrey was being wooed by MGM to get aboard as head of the Writing Department, but she didn’t see much of a future there, whereas in NYC she was boss of her own agency and needed no studio’s assistance. but she had come out to California to secure a writing contract for Tenn, and MGM signed him up for $150.00 a week. (About $600 in 2022, editor.) He loathed the job — they had assigned him to write a screenplay for Lana Turner. He didn’t even know who Lana was loathed the entire pitch {that?} was made to him, and promptly flew back to N.Y. To keep Tenn in cigarettes and coffee, Audrey had me mail him $25.00 a week, wherever he was. She knew she had a good writer-in-the-making and the $25.00 was really a sort of bribe so he’d stay with her. (About $325 in 2022, editor.)
When he came up from Mexico, where he had vacationed in the sun (winters anywhere he loathed), he handed in his new play — titled “The Poker Night.” (Editor’s note, Rave had “A Gentleman Caller,” but she seems to have confused this with the original title of “A Glass Menagerie.”) Audrey told me to read it first (I had been just established her Head Play Reader, a really big job, for Audrey received almost 50 to 100 scripts a week). I had a helper (a Vassar graduate) who caught on to the art of play reading right away and we made a good team. William Inge was one of the writers we all felt was truly talented, and he signed with Audrey’s agency, along with Carson McCullers and a few more very good writers.
[Here Rave notes that she repeats herself about him sending a play after returning from Mexico. Rave sometimes went in circles, but she was usually quite sharp overall.] I told him I loathed the title. Okay, he didn’t mind changing it and I thin he came up with one of the most perfect titles any play could boast, “The Glass Menagerie.”
Then we all went up to [New England] to attend the rehearsals and a Boston opening, and then on to New York, where the reviews were valentines. NYC loved the play and loved Tenn’s modesty, and he was on his way. I stayed on in NYC until I left, going back to Beverly Hills, where my father was dying. And Audrey and her husband, William Liebling (an actor’s agent) would all get together when they came out to California. Bill Liebling loved Hollywood and the warm winter weather, and wanted to move out to Beverly Hills. But Audrey Wood was born and raised in NYC and wouldn’t live anywhere else.
She was my friend and my agent and sold a play titled “_______” (Editor’s note, I’m withholding the title so I don’t identify Rave) I had written. Margo Jones bought it for the opening of her new theatre in Dallas, Texas — a Theatre-in-the-Round — and it opened there in 194_. The play was a big hit and ran forever, but hard as we all tried, no Hollywood studio would buy it. I had written a play about psychic phenomena, and the subject (I was told) was a no-no in Hollywood. Now it’s all over the place — I could have 30 or 40 films, all successes, dealing with the subject of the paranormal. I was a good many years ahead of the style, and Audrey and Margo Jones were disappointed they couldn’t sell it for a movie, and I? I stopped writing, got married, and went to live in Sun Valley, Idaho. (To be continued in Part II)
