Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [108]
Elvis had been to Los Angeles before, both for television and show dates, but now the City of Angels seemed to be one big play lot, offering up the opportunity to fulfill every dream he’d ever had. His producer on The Reno Brothers was David Weisbart, who had brought one of Elvis’s favorite movies, Rebel Without a Cause, starring his idol, James Dean, to the screen. Within four days of his arrival, Elvis would meet Nick Adams, a close friend of Dean and part of a Hollywood clique of talented but troubled young actors who embraced the “live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse” philosophy.
Elvis had cried when Dean died, and now it looked as if he were about to be welcomed by all of the late actor’s acolytes and brethren, the “in” crowd that included Dennis Hopper (Adams’s roommate at the time), Russ Tamblyn (another movie hood, then married to Venetia Stevenson, whom Elvis would later date), and Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood (who were still teenagers and going to school). It made his head spin, even though he didn’t know that the reckless Adams, who was said to use pills, and who was on probation after being arrested for speeding nine times in one year, hoped to trade on the friendship to win a part in Elvis’s film. In fact, Elvis had beat Adams out for the supporting actor role, and most of the larger studios were loath to touch him.
The picture, directed by Oscar winner Robert D. Webb, was cast very late, and though Joanne Woodward had originally been slated for the female lead, by now Elvis knew that Debra Paget had won the part. Elvis was ecstatic. Only months earlier, Elvis had told Milton Berle in a television skit, “Really, Mr. Berle . . . the type I dig is someone like that Debra Paget. . . . She’s real gone.” She, too, had nice things to say about him, even if she gave him a backhanded compliment: “I’ll admit that my impression of Elvis, before I met him, was the same as many others who don’t know him. I figured he must be some kind of moron. Now, I think the best way to describe his work is to say it’s inspired.”
They would circle around each other as principal photography began. In Robert Buckner’s screenplay, set in Texas at the end of the Civil War, Elvis plays Clint Reno, snared in a love triangle with his older brother, Vance (Richard Egan), and Cathy, the woman they love (Paget).
It was an odd role in which to make his screen debut, but Elvis gave it his all and tried not to be intimidated by his costars, who included the fine character actress Mildred Dunnock, twice nominated for an Academy Award, as his mother. Critics would pan the novice actor—he was, after all, an easy target—but Dunnock was surprised at his solid performance. “When I came back from making the picture, my friends saw it and said, ‘Why Millie, this boy can act!’ This rather threw me, because I said I had spent twenty-five years trying to learn how to act, and Elvis Presley hadn’t spent twenty-five minutes. So I do not in any way depreciate his value as an actor.”
The truth was, Dunnock, a fellow southerner, had taken a shine to Elvis, and when he confessed to her that he didn’t really know what to do, how to make the lines ring true, she took it upon herself to coach him. First the former schoolteacher had to educate him in the art of theatrical projection.
“Elvis would have a line like, ‘Can’t do it, Maw, can’t do it.’ And he would say [it] really pleasant and nice. But I’d tell him to say it like he really meant it. And after a certain number of tries he would finally say [with strong emphasis], ‘I can’t do it, Maw, I can’t do it!’ And Mr. Webb would say, ‘Shoot.’ ”
In one of the film’s most crucial scenes, the family was led to believe that the Yankees had killed Clint’s brother. “He really hadn’t been killed,” Dunnock remembered, “but my baby Elvis was