Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [50]
Cary led the way, which was good, because I was a walking zombie. Pretty soon, we found ourselves at the Empire State Building. “This way,” Cary said, and we took the elevator to the observation deck. Cary draped his arm around me and held me close.
“Dyan,” he said, “take a good look around.”
“Okay.”
“Now, show me where the theater is,” he said.
I looked in the general direction of West Forty-fifth Street, but from that height I really couldn’t make it out. “There?” I said uncertainly.
“Here’s the thing,” Cary said. “Look at the size of this magnificent city. Look at how much is going on. But what do we do? We focus on one small thing. And we worry it to death. Why don’t you just get out there tomorrow night and enjoy yourself? No matter what happens, it’s neither the beginning of creation nor the end of time.”
Then he kissed me, right there in full view of everyone on the observation deck. The city below melted away, and looking into his big brown eyes, I felt like I could conquer the world.
The next morning, we had an early breakfast before Cary left for the airport to fly to Paris to meet with Stanley Donen and Audrey Hepburn. A few things about Charade hadn’t sat well with him, though most had been resolved. What continued to bug him was the age difference between Audrey Hepburn and him. “I still don’t like the idea of chasing Audrey around like some dirty old man,” he said, “but I think we’ve come up with a solution.” Audrey was ten years older than me, and Cary’s continuing obsession about the age difference made me want to bark like Bangs. He went on. “We’re thinking about making Audrey the aggressor. My character knows he’s too old for her, but she pursues him, and she eventually wears him down.”
“No danger of life imitating art, is there?” I said. He seemed to not hear me. At least he pretended not to.
“Good luck tonight, dear girl, though you won’t need it,” he said as the driver put his luggage in the trunk. “Just relax and give it your best. Your best is the best of the best. You’ll be great.”
That made my confidence swell, which was a good thing, because as the hour of our debut drew near, somebody opened Pandora’s box. Theater people are fond of their superstitions, and to a certain extent I was one of them. The fact that I felt like a castaway by the time I got to the theater on opening night . . . it must have been a sign about the fate of our production.
I took the elevator down to the lobby and, when I looked outside, was surprised by the thunderstorm that had unleashed a torrential rain on the city. My room at the Wyndham had a view, but it was of a brick wall, so I had no idea what the weather was doing. I had the beautiful chiffon dress I was going to wear to Sardi’s for the after-party draped over my arm.
Finding a cab in New York in the rain—forget it. I ran down the block to the Plaza Hotel and beggared my way along an endless line. “I’m starring in a Broadway show, and I’m late!” I cried. You couldn’t really blame anyone for not buying it. I offered people theater tickets, which only enhanced their supposition that I was either lying or crazy. Finally, a middle-aged couple took pity on me and let me share their cab. They dropped me off a half block from the theater, and by the time I got to the stage entrance, I looked like I’d been dredged out of the Hudson and my chiffon dress looked like melted icing.
The house was packed; the response was . . . polite at best. Not even my dad could bring himself to suffer in silence. When the scene came in which Jane and I appeared in bikinis—the producers had calculated that if all else failed, flesh would carry the day—Dad expressed his displeasure by unceremoniously leaving the audience.
After the show, we went to Sardi’s and waited for the reviews. The critics wrote with rare vitriol and elegant savagery. You’d think every single member of the cast had personally insulted each of their mothers. We soldiered through the Sunday matinee, and then The Fun Couple was put