worse, however, by exaggerating the
stage directions. If she were instructed to walk across the room, she’d
hurriedly skip. If she were told to laugh, she’d become hysterical. Throughout
her life, she exhibited a tendency to go overboard in trying to please people.
In this instance, she had been told by producer Miller to act more animated. So
she became a clown. In addition, she was lightheaded from barely eating. The
combination made her appear on the edge, about to slip over into mania.
Kitty
Miller, the producer’s empathetic wife, sensed the insecurity raging within
Audrey, and insisted on taking her to lunch. “She just let me be,”
Audrey recalled. “She touched my hand a lot from across the table. I have
no memory of what she said, but I was able to eat a little bit of steak that
day, and I felt enormously better. I had lost nearly twenty pounds in a very
short time, and looking back, I guess I was starving myself as punishment for not
being the best actress ever to grace the stage.
“But
it’s funny: After I ate a little, I felt less judgmental. From then on, I was
able to concentrate on my lines and modulate them. My nervousness lifted. Once
that happened, I was able to give it my best shot.”
In
Philadelphia
,
where
Gigi
opened in its pre-Broadway
tryout, Miller dreaded the reviews. He was sure the critics would pan Audrey
and consequently kill his show.
But
she astonished Miller, and herself. In the pivotal scene where she rejects the
debonair Gaston, she was finally able to do so with authority rather than the
whiny petulance she’d shown throughout rehearsals. It was as if the character
Gigi had finally jelled with the actress Audrey to become a radiant entity.
Although
the critics were lukewarm about the play, they generally concurred that Audrey
was the acting find of the year. “She gives a wonderfully buoyant
performance which establishes her as an actress of the first rank,” wrote
the distinguished Henry P. Murdoch of the
Philadelphia
Inquirer.
She
went to
New York
feeling “buoyant” and renewed, ready to… well, if not conquer
Broadway, at least face it with equanimity.
Back
at the Blackstone Hotel, David Niven had taken the room next door to Audrey’s
while in town to open opposite Gloria Swanson in a play called Nina.
A
week before
Gigi
opened, Audrey
rushed into Niven’s room when something crashed on her windowsill, then fell to
the ground.
“He
was newly married,” Audrey recalled, “and his lovely wife Hjordis was
in the room, and God knows what I was interrupting, but I was too petrified to
care. It turned out that a poor guest of the hotel on a high floor had become
so despondent, he jumped. Well, as sad as this story was, when we found out
what really happened, that it was the sound of a body thumping, we couldn’t
stop laughing.
“It
was awful. There we were, the three of us, gleefully whooping it up over
somebody’s dreadful misfortune. But David was worried about his opening night,
I was scared to death about mine, and that awful suicide broke the ice. I knew
after that night, nothing was going to be so bad. I was going to make it, no
matter what.”
Gigi
opened in
New York
on
November 24, 1951
,
which happened to be Cathleen Nesbitt’s sixty-third birthday. And in the scene
where Nesbitt, as Aunt Alicia, instructs Audrey in the fine art of cooking and
eating a lobster and picking and choosing a man (pursuits that were not so
different in writer Colette’s view), Audrey was able to wish her costar and
mentor a happy birthday by whispering in her ear, without breaking character.
“I
knew then that I could do this thing called `stage acting,‘ ” Audrey said.
“I was no longer paralyzed. I could be myself and an actress, too.”
Although
she forgot several lines in her last scene, Audrey had already impressed the
critics to the point where they didn’t care about a few missed sentences. It
was the feeling that counted. And Audrey conveyed the
stage directions. If she were instructed to walk across the room, she’d
hurriedly skip. If she were told to laugh, she’d become hysterical. Throughout
her life, she exhibited a tendency to go overboard in trying to please people.
In this instance, she had been told by producer Miller to act more animated. So
she became a clown. In addition, she was lightheaded from barely eating. The
combination made her appear on the edge, about to slip over into mania.
Kitty
Miller, the producer’s empathetic wife, sensed the insecurity raging within
Audrey, and insisted on taking her to lunch. “She just let me be,”
Audrey recalled. “She touched my hand a lot from across the table. I have
no memory of what she said, but I was able to eat a little bit of steak that
day, and I felt enormously better. I had lost nearly twenty pounds in a very
short time, and looking back, I guess I was starving myself as punishment for not
being the best actress ever to grace the stage.
“But
it’s funny: After I ate a little, I felt less judgmental. From then on, I was
able to concentrate on my lines and modulate them. My nervousness lifted. Once
that happened, I was able to give it my best shot.”
In
Philadelphia
,
where
Gigi
opened in its pre-Broadway
tryout, Miller dreaded the reviews. He was sure the critics would pan Audrey
and consequently kill his show.
But
she astonished Miller, and herself. In the pivotal scene where she rejects the
debonair Gaston, she was finally able to do so with authority rather than the
whiny petulance she’d shown throughout rehearsals. It was as if the character
Gigi had finally jelled with the actress Audrey to become a radiant entity.
Although
the critics were lukewarm about the play, they generally concurred that Audrey
was the acting find of the year. “She gives a wonderfully buoyant
performance which establishes her as an actress of the first rank,” wrote
the distinguished Henry P. Murdoch of the
Philadelphia
Inquirer.
She
went to
New York
feeling “buoyant” and renewed, ready to… well, if not conquer
Broadway, at least face it with equanimity.
Back
at the Blackstone Hotel, David Niven had taken the room next door to Audrey’s
while in town to open opposite Gloria Swanson in a play called Nina.
A
week before
Gigi
opened, Audrey
rushed into Niven’s room when something crashed on her windowsill, then fell to
the ground.
“He
was newly married,” Audrey recalled, “and his lovely wife Hjordis was
in the room, and God knows what I was interrupting, but I was too petrified to
care. It turned out that a poor guest of the hotel on a high floor had become
so despondent, he jumped. Well, as sad as this story was, when we found out
what really happened, that it was the sound of a body thumping, we couldn’t
stop laughing.
“It
was awful. There we were, the three of us, gleefully whooping it up over
somebody’s dreadful misfortune. But David was worried about his opening night,
I was scared to death about mine, and that awful suicide broke the ice. I knew
after that night, nothing was going to be so bad. I was going to make it, no
matter what.”
Gigi
opened in
New York
on
November 24, 1951
,
which happened to be Cathleen Nesbitt’s sixty-third birthday. And in the scene
where Nesbitt, as Aunt Alicia, instructs Audrey in the fine art of cooking and
eating a lobster and picking and choosing a man (pursuits that were not so
different in writer Colette’s view), Audrey was able to wish her costar and
mentor a happy birthday by whispering in her ear, without breaking character.
“I
knew then that I could do this thing called `stage acting,‘ ” Audrey said.
“I was no longer paralyzed. I could be myself and an actress, too.”
Although
she forgot several lines in her last scene, Audrey had already impressed the
critics to the point where they didn’t care about a few missed sentences. It
was the feeling that counted. And Audrey conveyed the
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