Moose Murdered: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Broadway Bomb (3 page)

There wasn’t any tea or coffee on the tea wagon. Instead, there was a loosely-bound copy of
Moose Murders
crammed with dozens of post-it notes in a variety of colors. It looked like we were in for a long afternoon.

Eve adjusted her glasses and opened the script to the first bookmarked page. “Ah, yes,” she said. “Stinky.”

I could feel myself blushing. The character “Stinky” was the teenage son of Hedda Holloway, the starring role Eve would be playing. Essentially a 60s throw-back, Stinky was a smarmy pothead who had the hots for his mother. The script was full of his blatant sexual innuendos and tasteless bits of stage business. I wasn’t surprised that this was where we’d begin our discussion.

“The three of us,” Eve explained, “feel that ‘Stinky’ is inappropriate.”

“Oh, God,” I thought. “She doesn’t just want to clean up his act, she wants to cut him out of the play altogether.”

“We think ‘Icky’ might be more suitable.”

“Oh,” I said, caught completely off guard. “Why?”

Eve raised her eyebrows all the way to the top of her head, as if I’d just dropped my trousers and taken a piss in one of her dragon vases.

“For one thing,” she said, “we saw
Sophie’s Choice
the other night. Did you know there’s a character named ‘Stinky’ in this movie? It’s very popular and getting lots of exposure. People may feel the name’s already been used.”

What I
thought
at this moment was that, yeah, and Ibsen had “used” the name Hedda, and Fanny Brice had “used” the name
Snooks
(another character in
Moose Murders
), so what exactly is the point, here, but what I
said
was: “I think his name is ‘
Stingo
.’”

Eve stared at me with a perfect absence of expression.

“You know,” piped in Glenn, “I think he’s right.
Stingo
sounds right.”

“What’s more,” said Eve, ignoring Glenn for the moment, “at the end of the play when my son-in-law Nelson asks me for Icky’s real name, and I answer…” (she paused here to check her notes) . . . “‘Damned if I know’—we thought that I could say ‘He was named after his uncle Ichabod!’”

Johnny Carson once said in an interview that the best comeback line to use in situations like this is “you may be right.” That way you manage to assuage your antagonist without actually conceding anything. Unfortunately, I didn’t see this interview until many years later. Despite the apparent fact that Eve had no problem whatsoever being mauled, fondled, and groped by her drug-crazed eighteen-year-old son, and that all she really wanted me to do was to change his damn name, I, Playwright, presumed to lecture this venerable comedienne on the fragile nature of comedy.

As my voice gradually rose an octave, I explained to the triumvirate on the Big Couch that the line ‘Damned if I know,’—although not exactly what any of us could call a real ripsnorter—was still probably a little more
unexpected
, a little less contrived, and therefore just a little
funnier
than “He was named after his uncle Ichabod!”

When I’d finished, Eve lowered her glasses and looked straight at Dennis, who may very well have said something to the effect of “you may be right”—whatever it was, it worked, and Eve turned to the next bookmarked page of the script and read aloud:

“‘I want to get into your pants, angel puss.’”

She waited for me to say something, but I was still cooling off from the last scrimmage.

“I don’t think I’d say that line,” she said.

“That’s usually something a man says to a woman, isn’t it?” said Brooks.

“But I
do
think I should wear pants—at least in the second act,” Eve said. “I just don’t know if they should be leather pants.”

“Maybe a leather vest,” said Brooks.

“Yes,” said Eve, “a leather vest. And if it’s only a vest, there’s no need for me to say ‘I’ve got more leather finery upstairs.’ Because I don’t think I’d say that line, either.”

There were lots more lines she didn’t think she’d say, and we proceeded to slog through them all, one by one. Unfamiliar with Old Hollywood protocol, it took me a while to realize that the “she” who wouldn’t say these lines wasn’t so much Hedda, the character, as she was Eve Arden, the commodity. So I politely acquiesced a little, and just as politely (in my mind) held my ground a little, as Eve’s frustration increased—along with the number of times she lowered her glasses and smiled imploringly at Dennis.

Without saying a word, Dennis was managing to bond with Eve very nicely.

She threw me a curve every so often by asking about something that had nothing to do with Hedda’s dialogue. As planned, Dennis answered the more demanding (and far less interesting) questions, and I helped out wherever I could, fibbing as little as possible. There were some questions that neither of us knew how to answer—like “how will the rain storm be handled?” and “exactly
where
do I get stabbed?” and “how will the harness for Snooks be made?”—and we had to ask her to bring all these up with John once we got into production.

“Oh, Christ!” she said, after I’d passed the buck about what part of her body would be attacked by a butcher knife. My heart sank for a second until I realized she’d gone back to her list of lines she didn’t think she’d say. “Oh, Christ!” was Hedda’s last line before the first act curtain.

Thank God—only one more act to go.

“That could offend some people, although I myself say it all the time,” said Eve.

“Oh, yes!” said Brooks, laughing.

“Nooo!” said Glenn, unintentionally (as far as I know) imitating Floyd the Barber from
Mayberry RFD
.

“But I think it would work better were I to say ‘Oh, shit!’ instead.”

By this time Eve and I had come to an understanding of sorts. I had learned not to ask why, and she had learned that most of my script was etched in stone.

“You see,” she said, “it’s taken me several years to bring myself to the point where I can say ‘Oh, shit!’—and I think my fans would get a kick out of hearing me say it. It would be something…
unexpected
.” She smiled at me sweetly. “And I believe you were educating us a little while ago on just how funny that can be!”

By so neatly helping me hoist myself on my own comedy petard, Eve won this one hands down. In full view of the others, I wrote “Oh, shit!” in big red letters on my note pad.

Eve pretended to wipe away sweat, and then dramatically closed her
Moose
tome. “Well,” she said, “I think we should quit while we’re ahead.”

“You mean while
you’re
ahead,” teased Brooks. (I was beginning to really like Brooks.)

Eve did a classic double take and then playfully poked her husband.

“Ha, ha, ha!”

She quickly got serious again. “We can take this all up again with John in New York,” she said.

“We did want to talk a little bit about publicity,” said Glenn.

“We covered all that with John, didn’t we?” said Eve.

I was to learn later that certain rules regarding Eve’s press during her six-month commitment to the play had indeed already been discussed with John, including the stipulation that we would all do our best to avoid mentioning any portion of the star’s career prior to her Academy Award-nominated performance as Ida in the 1945 Joan Crawford vehicle
Mildred Pierce
. That meant, among other things, that we were not allowed to talk about her stint as a sketch artist in the Billie Burke and Shubert revival of
The Ziegfeld Follies
in the midthirties, or the 1937 film
Stage Door
in which she originated her signature role as the fast-talking, wisecracking sidekick. We could, however, freely talk to anybody about her most recent appearances as Principal McGee in the films
Grease
and
Grease 2
.

I also learned later that Eve had a solid tradition of secrecy regarding her real age, which explained her reluctance to have the press refer to her as a former Ziegfeld Girl. I never fully understood what all the fuss was about—as far as I was concerned she looked and sounded great, however old she was. Sure, if you put your nose right up to her ears you might be able to catch a glimpse of a little rough tissue, but I rarely had the occasion (or inclination) to be that intimate.

“I’m a little worried about candid rehearsal shots,” Eve confessed. “Are we going to have to use a burlap scrim?”

“We understand,” I said. “And we’re all going to be very protective.”

Dennis told me later that had we been offered any coffee, he probably would have done a spit take after I’d made this lofty remark. He was sure Eve agreed with him that the mere notion that somebody like
me
could ever manage to successfully protect somebody like
her
sped right past presumption and crashed straight into blind narcissism.

But my biggest faux pas of the afternoon, as it turned out, came after the “business” part of our meeting, when it looked like we were all free to indulge in some small talk before officially calling it a day. Brooks brought up
Anatomy of a Murder
again, and Eve told a story about her good friend Benay Venuta, a former vaudeville and musical comedy star I was personally unfamiliar with. (Although I loved the name “Benay”—especially the languorous way Eve pronounced it: “Buh naaaaay.”)

As much as I was enjoying listening to Eve say the name “Benay,” I was itching for some gossip about somebody I had actually heard of. I could tell both she and Brooks were getting ready to wrap things up, so I had to make a quick decision. Which of the dozens of stage and screen legends Eve had worked with throughout her career would I “casually” ask about? Jimmy Stewart? Robert Preston? Doris Day?

I decided to go for broke.

“Before we go,” I said, “you
have
to give us the scoop on Joan Crawford! Was she really the
monster
everybody says she was?”

Eve heaved a big sigh, and shook her head sadly. “I have nothing negative to say about Joan,” she said. “I think all this recent trash talk is undeserved. She was always very supportive, and she was absolutely instrumental in helping us with our first adoption. We couldn’t have done it without her.” (Eve and Brooks had four children, three of whom they’d adopted.)

My barefaced attempt to dish the dirt had obviously offended Eve deeply, so I tried to make it seem as though I’d only asked about Joan Crawford because of her indirect connection to one of the cast members of
Moose Murders
. The role of Eve’s twelve-year-old daughter, Gay, had been given to Mara Hobel, the little girl who’d portrayed the young Christina Crawford in the film
Mommie Dearest
a couple years back. I asked Eve how she felt about that.

“I’m sure the press will have a field day.” she scowled.

“We hear you’ve just come back from China,” interrupted Dennis. “That must have been exciting.”

Good save!

Once again in our comfort zones, we had a pleasant chat about the various pitfalls of traveling through foreign territory. Should Dennis and I ever decide to take on such an adventure, Eve strongly recommended that we take along a good supply of Ritz crackers.

“You never know how long you’ll be stuck on a train,” she said, “or exactly what you’re going to find at the end of the track.”

Good advice for us all.

Strongly sensing that we weren’t quite ready to exchange warm hugs and kisses, I reverently shook Eve’s gloved hand and wished her a merry Christmas while Brooks escorted us to the door.

“See you in New York,” he called out, as we climbed back up the hill toward the car. “Let’s hope we’re all in for a happy New Year.”

He waved cordially as we pulled away, reminding me once again of Vincent Price—this time in
The Fall of the House of Usher
. I half expected the Arden estate to explode and burst into flames behind him.

“So,” I said to Dennis, “how do you think it went?”

“I’d say you probably blew it,” he said.

“What do you mean? What did I do wrong?”

“You fought her over every point.”

“I did not! I gave in to lots of things.”

“Not without an argument.”

“I was just
discussing
.”

“You were
arguing
. She was very frustrated. You wore her out.”

“What should I have done? Just taken my orders like a good little soldier?”

“You bet. For now, anyway.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous. Look, I respect the fact that she’s a great Hollywood star, but I’m—“

“Nobody. You’re absolutely
nobody
to her. She’s got to get to know you, and trust you—and that’s not going to happen if you don’t at least
pretend
to let her have her way every once in a while. If you don’t, you’re going to force her to ignore you completely and to go to John for everything she wants.”

“That might not be such a bad idea,” I grumbled.

“Yeah, we’ll see how John reacts to that,” said Dennis.

As we made our escape out of the Hollywood Hills, the flames consuming the House of Arden burned red hot behind us.

We were to find out
exactly
how John would react to Eve’s “ideas” sooner than we thought.