‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘And why would some little creep grab me when I’m getting out of the Rolls this morning and tell me my last film was shit?’ He laughed to smother the spark of temper.
‘Did that happen?’
‘You get used to it.’ He sighed and smiled. ‘We all get them. Even the ones who are not actually insulting feel free to criticize your voice, your face, walk, dress, car, acting ability, et cetera. And they are amazed if you’re not grateful for it! There is a widespread illusion, Peter, that film stars lead protected lives and urgently need members of the public to stride up uninvited and start being frank with them.’
I nodded sympathetically.
‘Well, I don’t need it, darling. No one needs it. No one needs insults. You don’t need insults to your writing and I don’t need it for my acting.’
I guessed he was still smarting from the US reviews of Tigertrap. Too, he was girding his loins for the London showing. ‘That’s how it goes,’ I said.
‘We have enough doubts and fears already. God knows I’m my own most bitter critic…’ He laughed. He got up to do the next recording. During our talk he was always ready to do each recording as the technicians had the loop ready. Post-recording can kill an actor’s performance. Alone in a dark recording studio it’s not easy to reproduce the power and spontaneity of a performance created under the lights with other actors, and with a director to prod and interpret and stand ready with a vital potion of praise. But Stone was able to improve upon his guide track: he was able to make the words carry the emotion a step further. On the other hand I noticed the way he corrected the too forceful gestures in his performance by flattening the phrasing of the words. Stone was a pro and he completed each loop expertly and quickly.
‘I’m a professional too, Marshall,’ I warned him. ‘I’m not going to attack you but I’m not going to omit whole sections of your life to leave just a history of your successes. For instance, I don’t want to dwell upon your divorce but I can’t just forget that you were ever married. Neither of us can forget it.’
He looked relieved, if anything. ‘Poor Mary,’ he said. ‘How could you imagine I’d want to forget our life together. I owe her a lot, Peter, more than I can tell you. The divorce affected her more than she will ever admit, even to you. Rejection can make any of us say bitter things that we don’t really mean. You must remember that when you talk with her.’ He stopped, and I saw in him a cruelty that I’d never suspected and at which Mary never did hint.
‘She’s a truly wonderful person,’ he added.
I said nothing. The masterful inactivity that is the working method of doctors, interrogators and journalists did not fail me.
He continued, ‘When a woman marries a man who is dedicated to an art, her first object is to find out how dedicated.’ He smiled as he remembered. ‘Mary saw my acting as a direct rival. She wanted me to be home early, only take jobs where we could be together and not talk too much about my work. Can you imagine? I was a struggling young actor. I would have signed a ten-year contract for a repertory company in Greenland. I was desperate to act.’ He laughed, mocking his foolishness.
‘I tried with Mary. I really tried. But when a woman wants to find out if she’s married a hen-pecked type of man she starts to peck. Jesus, the rows we had! Sometimes we threw things. Once we smashed every piece of china in the house and then she cut my face by throwing an egg beater at me. It was only this marvellous man I’ve got in Harley Street who saved me from being scarred for life. As it was, when Mary saw his bill she started another row.’ He poured more coffee for me. At first I had been angry with the way he talked of Mary, but then I realized that he was trying to disregard the fact that she was now my wife.
‘When I had this chance of going to Hollywood, I sent for Mary as soon as it was practical. I thought a new country would give us a chance of starting again. You know.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked away. When he turned back to me I saw that a tear had formed in the corner of his eye. It was a jet-black teardrop coloured by the mascara that he used on his lashes.
I said, ‘I saw your Hamlet twice. I’ve never seen its match.’
He brightened. ‘Schtik,’ he said modestly.
‘Skill! Your Yorick speech: the second time I was waiting for it, but it was still as natural as an ad lib.’
‘I delivered the previous lines tight on cue. But just after starting the Yorick speech I let them think I’d dried.’
He picked up the milk jug and twisted it in his hands. ‘“Let me see. Alas, poor Yorick.”’ He stared at the jug as if trying to read his lines there. He turned his eyes to me, hesitated, and then spoke in the lightest of conversational tones, ‘“I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times.”’ Stone smiled, as if he’d performed some puzzling party trick for an appreciative small child. He was happy to amuse me further. ‘“Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?”’
Stone put the jug down. ‘Schtik,’ he said, but he could not conceal his pleasure. I remembered the wonderful notices he’d got and the predictions that had been made about him. Few doubted that he’d turn his back on movies and the rewards of Hollywood. The London theatre cleared a space for him, the electricians readied his name in neon and theatre critics sharpened their superlatives, delighted that an errant player should discover the London stage to be the only true Mecca.
But the ‘fresh young genius’, the ‘modern Irving’, this ‘giant in a land of giants’ soon caught the plane back to California.
Stone caught my eye. ‘My prince was a fine fellow.’
I nodded. ‘It wasn’t schtik.’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
Marshall Stone did not go to lunch. He’d eaten none of the cream pastries, although after I’d eaten both of them he sent out for more, as if having them there to resist was important to him: but perhaps it was just hospitality. At lunchtime one of his men brought him a polished apple wrapped in starched linen, a piece of processed cheese from Fortnum’s and three starch-free biscuits. The recording boys took their allotted lunchtime and Stone sent his men away, so we were alone in the dim studio. It was then that he gave me a demonstration of his skill.
He had been talking about speech training and how poor his voice had been when he was a young actor. He quoted his piece from the Bible making the sort of mistakes he made then, and after that he gave it to me with everything he’d got. It was an impressive demonstration of speech training. His voice was held low and resonant, and his articulation was precise and clipped so that even his whispers could have been projected a hundred yards or more. There were no tricks to it: no lilting Welsh vowels or hard Olivier consonants. He didn’t point any lines or throw any away. He didn’t pause too long or try to surprise me with the use of the thorax. He just did everything he could to make the words themselves transcend the fact that they were too well known.
‘“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
‘“A time to be born, and a time to die: a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
‘“A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
‘“A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
‘“A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
‘“A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
‘“A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
‘“A time to love, and