Pauline Kael - Brian Kellow [77]
Pauline was all too accurate about the rewards for this kind of performance: The following year, Hepburn won her third Oscar and, for the first time in her career, found herself on an exhibitors’ list of the top ten box-office stars.
By the late summer of 1968, Pauline had decided to give up the flat at 670 West End Avenue. She and Gina found a large, high-ceilinged apartment at the Turin, at 333 Central Park West. The apartment was on the twelfth floor, and it had a spacious living room with a commanding view of Central Park. The Turin, which had been completed in 1910, was designed by Albert Joseph Bodker in the New Renaissance style. It was a famous building on the West Side because of the intensity of its social life, and many leftist writers and academic types lived there. The doyenne of the building’s left-leaning thinkers was a West Side socialite named Roz Roose, who threw regular parties and weekend brunches that became famous gatherings. Roose worked assiduously in trying to get Pauline to attend, but she succeeded only once, and then Pauline remained for only a few minutes, as she was bored by the other guests. “She hated that kind of thing,” said Jane Kramer, the distinguished writer who penned many of The New Yorker’s “Letter from Europe” columns. “Pauline was the least pretentious person.”
As she always had, Pauline turned the living room into the place where she wrote. She still worked at the drafting table she had brought with her from California. On the table was an inkstand filled with paper clips, ajar of pencils, an electric pencil sharpener, and, inevitably, the many little scraps of memo pads on which she took notes during movie screenings. She sat in a straight-backed chair with a pillow folded over on the seat. During her six months at The New Yorker, it was from this spot that she maintained a fiercely demanding schedule. Her rough copy was due each week on Tuesday, but she saw several films for each one she wrote about, and she might not see until Monday night the main movie she would choose to cover. Often she would hand-write several drafts, and that meant staying up all night on Monday, fortified with bourbon and cigarettes, to get her copy to The New Yorker on time. Jane Beirn recalled that “there was always a fair amount of drama in getting the copy out of Penelope Gilliatt,” but that Pauline was extremely strict and disciplined about observing her deadlines. One of the advantages to working all night, she said, was that she got to see some spectacular Tuesday morning sunrises over Central Park.
But Pauline’s routine was also punishing for Gina, whose job was to type her mother’s drafts before they were submitted to The New Yorker. As she went to bed, Pauline would leave her final handwritten copy in the living room, and by the time she arose, Gina would have neatly typed it. Sometimes Gina had to type more than one version and have it ready, usually with Pauline’s penciled-in last-minute emendations, by the time The New Yorker’s messenger arrived to pick it up. Gina turned twenty in 1968 and was still very much functioning as her mother’s right hand. Gina complained about her situation to a number of people, but she usually did it in a quasi-humorous way, so it was easy enough to dismiss. “Gina was a lovely girl,” remembered Tresa Hughes. “I always felt she was a slave—or rather, on a leash.”
Certainly those close to the family felt that Pauline made little attempt to encourage Gina to widen her horizons. It was obvious to everyone that Pauline loved her, but she had also grown accustomed to the steady, dependable role that Gina played—as secretary, driver, reader, sounding board—and she