Must You Go_ - Antonia Fraser [73]
27 October 1985
Los Angeles. Bel-Air Hotel (where Betty Bacall insisted we stay, which was a mistake because I felt isolated). The real thrill was seeing my youngest daughter Natasha, who was aged twenty-two, living and working in LA. She looked like a Stuart beauty with her lustrous black hair, white skin and huge blue eyes: Charles II would have gone mad for her.
30 October
Harold went for broke, no, went for bankrupt. David Jones told him in the interval, ‘Be wicked’ – and he was. His humour, his confidence, apparent or real, made Deeley’s sobbing at the end of the play extraordinarily compelling: as a result Liv was even more incandescent than she had been with Gambon, performing amazing gyrations with her black sheeny legs and Nicola found full authority, especially in her last speech. Afterwards Duncan Weldon, the producer, asks Harold what other parts he wants to play. We got into jealous males such as Robert in Betrayal and James in The Collection. Harold kept saying: ‘I am too old’, but at this moment he could play anything. First-night party at the Polo Lounge. Waiter to Harold: ‘So you are in a play? Claudette Colbert is in a play.’ Harold: ‘Well, I’m not Claudette Colbert, in case you think I am.’ Later the waiter is brought back by head-waiter. He apologizes gravely for mistaking Harold for Claudette Colbert.
31 October
Hollywood! Went with Duncan Weldon to a performance of Aren’t We All? with Rex Harrison and, guess who, Claudette Colbert. Backstage before the performance there was a party of Mr and Mrs Frank Sinatra, Mr and Mrs Kirk Douglas, Mr and Mrs Gregory Peck and Mr and Mrs Roger Moore. Then they were joined by the stars who were supposed to be performing in the play. It was by now 7.55 p.m. Thanked God Harold was on a stage elsewhere, not directing these insouciant creatures.
I couldn’t really enjoy Los Angeles, despite meeting the famous as above, until I started to work on my new book on Warrior Queens in the library of UCLA. I simply wasn’t used to a life of doing nothing in a hotel and it produced melancholy, even though Natasha was there as a solace and drove me about in a stately fashion in her large dusty, second- (or third-) hand Mercedes. It was a city, we found, where people worked hard on films and went to bed early; it didn’t suit our way of life of roistering and relaxing after the theatre. In fact the tour was cut short, thanks to the illness of one of the cast. Harold, having proved to himself that he could act again, said that he was happy to return home.
18 November
Met Faye Dunaway after the play because Harold hopes to direct her back in London in Donald Freed’s thrilling, menacing play Circe and Bravo. Quite lovely in the flesh: daffodil hair, masses of it, pale face, white mac, yellow jersey, slender legs and body. These stars! Nobody knows the stars I’ve seen. These ladies size me up at the first meeting with their shrewd (and beautiful) eyes and give me a character. After that I obediently stay in the character whenever I’m with them. Betty told me I was so funny (although she is really the funny one) so now I’m quite hilariously witty with her. Liv told me I was serene so naturally I compose my features into a tranquil blancmange whenever I’m near her. We shall see what character Faye gives me.
The fact was, once I had got over – or rather coped with – my obsessional need to work, I found being the wife of an actor an exceptionally happy role. Although actors sleep late, writers (or me anyway) get up early. Writers then have a cheerful day working incredibly hard, at least in their own opinion, before joining the actor after the show for an invigorating supper.
Sometimes I went to the theatre or the opera