My Days Read online

  I never knew what each day would bring, which, of course, added more to the excitement of it all. Every morning we would all be sent over to the hair and makeup departments, where our locks would be so trimmed, curled and styled, our lips would be so built up, and the arch of our eyebrows would be so changed that we could have passed our mothers on the street without being recognized.

  While it felt the way Hollywood was supposed to feel—with all the primping and pampering—it always seemed that whenever I was getting a tad bit full of myself, something would happen that would knock me back down to Earth.

  I remember one day, while I was under the hair dryer, being prepared for a photo shoot, I found myself feeling rather smug about life and, specifically, my current place in it and where I was headed in the near future. I then casually turned to glance over at the girl under the dryer next to me, and it was as if the floor fell out from under me. She had beautiful features, perfect skin and, even from under a hair dryer, exuded a palpable charm in the way she gracefully and balletically positioned her arms, legs and hands. My noticing all those things hit me with lightning speed—within three seconds, the first second of which I realized my dryer mate was Audrey Hepburn.

  I had known Hepburn was on the lot, filming scenes for Roman Holiday, but I had yet to encounter her. Along with knowing she was working on the lot, I knew she and I were not far apart in age. And so, while I may have been feeling smug about being a Paramount contract player and a member of the Golden Circle just moments before, that smugness evaporated in a flash as my rapidly beating heart began to ache. I remember leaning back into the dryer while looking at her legs and hands. There she is, I thought to myself. A few months younger than me and she has already starred on Broadway in Gigi and Ondine, for which she won a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play, and now she is starring in the role of Princess Ann in Roman Holiday.

  That, I recall, was one of only a few occasions in which I allowed an emotion that was usually foreign to me—depression—to well up within me. I also remember how, as soon as my hair was done, I maturely handled my down and dejected soul: I went right out and bought two candy bars, sat myself down on a bench, ate them both, felt guilty for a few moments, and then began to feel better as I made my way across the lot to report to Wardrobe.

  Yes, the gorgeous and oh, so well-poised Miss Hepburn may have gotten her petite and perfectly shaped leg up on me, I thought as I traversed the lot. But look where I am, as opposed to thousands upon thousands of aspiring actresses—on my way to have one of the most famous costume designers in the world dress me for my shoot.

  My time at Paramount coincided with the Edith Head era at the studio’s wardrobe department. She had established herself as one of Hollywood’s most important costume designers by the time I arrived, and thus it was a bit heady (if you’ll excuse the pun) to go up to her salon and have her work with me in the same businesslike, no-nonsense way in which she consulted and dressed Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Shirley MacLaine, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor and, yes, even Audrey Hepburn.

  And so, while I may not have been in possession of an impressive résumé or had laudatory hardware on my mantel (hell, I didn’t even have a mantel), on any given day I, by all means, was made up and dressed to look like I could have, with my perfectly coiffed hair, arched eyebrows and Head-selected frock.

  That was the way all the Golden Circle girls looked, and while I was always very self-conscious that I was a character actress who didn’t possess the natural beauty or sexy glamour of the others, I would halfheartedly join in with them when they secretly reveled (and giggled) when male heads would turn in our direction as we walked in and sat together for lunch at a big circular table in the middle of the commissary. Of course, our heads would turn, too, whenever one of us would notice and then excitedly share the information that Cecil B. DeMille was sitting in a little alcove across the room from us or that Marlene Dietrich had just swept in the door.

  It was always a bit of an odd feeling being a contract player—like I was lost between two worlds. I was made up to look like I was somebody, but unlike Hepburn or Dietrich, or anyone of that status I dreamed of becoming, I knew when it came to physical beauty, I was not in the league of the other girls. I was always very confident of my acting ability, but as for my membership in the Golden Circle, I often felt I was out of place, like I was a part of a group I didn’t really belong in or even want to be a part of, this contingent of beauties whom I sometimes just saw as glamorously adorned set pieces, not unlike the well-appointed furnishings, beautiful paintings or fine silk drapery you would find in the studio’s executive offices.

  I should make it clear that when I say I didn’t want to be a part of the Golden Circle, it was not just because I felt physically inferior to the other girls; it was also because my goal was to work—to act. Yes, it was nice to be draped in all manner of finery and have my hair and makeup done, but not just to be paraded around the lot, to serve as a photographer’s model, or to be sent off to some publicity event. I did harbor the strong feeling that, unlike the other girls, I was a serious actress, well trained, with substantial stage work under my belt. I didn’t look down on them or feel I was better than them. I think I was just constantly compensating for my lack of glamour and internally justifying to myself why I was a part of the circle.

  I got along well with the other girls, who all seemed to get along well with me and one another. We were pleasant, cordial and professional toward one another, but there was always an underlying sense of competition and, whether I or they were willing to admit it, a dose of jealousy when one of the group would be tapped for a small job or be fussed over by someone.

  There was a woman, Charlotte Clary, who was a Paramount drama coach that the studio put in charge of us. When we didn’t have a specific reason to be somewhere on the lot, we all spent time in her office. Outside of the Paramount lot, there didn’t seem to be much socializing going on among the girls. On occasion, Charlotte would invite us all over to her home for a little party. Most of the girls attended her soirees, but I did only a few times. Unlike the other girls, except for Carolyn Jones, who was living with Aaron Spelling at the time, I had a husband at home, which, along with my feelings that I wasn’t in their class physically, gave me yet another reason to feel very different from them.

  As the weeks turned into months, I still found it exciting to be on the Paramount lot, but my desire and my expectation were not just to be on the Paramount lot but also to be working on the Paramount lot. I had begun to get the sense that they (whoever “they” were) didn’t really know what to do with those of us in the Golden Circle. I had become very aware in a most uncomfortable way that while I was an employee of a major motion picture studio, which was providing me with the highest salary I had ever made, I had no real function. As more time went by, I became so uncomfortable with that fact, I began to make it a point to walk very briskly around the lot so I would appear to be late for something and always kept my head down so I would not have to make eye contact with anyone. I came to dread the occasion when I would be somewhere on the lot and would have an encounter with someone who would ask me if I worked there.

  Remember, this was the 1950s, and so when I told them that yes, I did work there, the next thing out of their mouth would always be the same question: “Are you a secretary?”

  I did often consider simply saying yes, that I was a secretary, but I was always in fear that they would ask me for whom or in what department and that I would get in some sort of trouble for not telling the truth. Instead, I would say, “No, I’m an actress, and I’m under contract here.”

  Perhaps I was a bit too sensitive, and maybe even a little paranoid, but whenever I said that, I always seemed to get the same response: a rather blank look, followed by a slightly uncomfortable nod. I always imagined the person who gave me that look and nod would then turn away from me and think to themselves, A contracted actress? A plain and shy girl like that? I think no
t. She probably is a secretary, who, one of these days, is going to get herself into trouble for not telling the truth.

  I can’t tell you how painful that was for me. I began to feel as if I was the only person on the lot who didn’t have a real job or purpose in being there. No one ever asked me if I had gone to college, if I had earned a degree in drama, or what plays I had appeared in. If I had, at first, felt as if I was living in two different worlds, one as Mrs. Meskimen and one as a Paramount contract actress, I soon started to feel as if I was also living in a third world—one of confusion and frustration.

  And yet my optimistic and determined streak—having always been far broader than my confused and frustrated one—saw me get up every morning and cheerfully return to the lot for another day, one in which I hoped my fates would change. I also always had positive feelings about what I was learning by simply watching what others were doing. From my first day at Paramount, I was extremely attuned to what was going on, especially when I had the opportunity to be near the set when filming was taking place. I was a keen observer, watching and learning everything I could about what various people did and said before, during and after the cameras rolled.

  I was, however, careful never to get in the way or, God forbid, ask any questions or try to cozy up to anyone. I had actually gotten that advice from Jack Weiner, who told me to always be professional, polite and interested in what was going on, but not to behave like some of the other young contract actresses, who, when encountering someone involved with a production, were known to bat their eyes, “accidentally” expose a bit too much leg, gush over even the slightest bit of notice, or just outright flirt. While I didn’t really need Jack to tell me that, being as none of those things would have been anything I would have ever dared to attempt, anyway, I did see other girls employ those tactics.

  I remember once, I went over to where they were shooting Stalag 17. The cast was taking a break, having just finished doing a scene, and there were all these guys from the crew just hanging around on the set. I was there for only a few minutes, and I immediately knew, by the looks I was getting and some of the comments being made, that I was in a place I should not be. I was aware that there were other girls who would have handled this situation much differently as a way to get ahead in the business, but all I knew was that I needed to get the hell away from there fast—which I did.

  I also remember one day, while I was sitting on a soundstage between takes, one of my Golden Circle colleagues came walking by, and as she passed me, I heard one of the crew members say, “I know her!” and then another guy glanced over with a sly look and said, “Oh yeah! I know her, too!” As they stood there laughing, I remember lowering my head, making believe I hadn’t noticed what they said, and thinking to myself, I don’t ever want anyone to say that about me. So, while I was always watching what was going on, I was also always watching out for myself—watching and wondering just what it was I was getting out of this experience. Yes, I was learning a lot about how the film industry worked, but I had this overwhelming feeling that I was drifting.

  I was certainly not doing anything to utilize my theatrical training, other than to act charming and gracious when the studio dressed us up and sent us off to premieres. And while that was a bit interesting the first time I did it, I quickly came to loathe going to them. They would send you up to Edith Head to be fitted with a beautiful gown to wear that had originally been created for one of the studio’s stars, like Joan Fontaine. They would then do your hair and makeup, team you up with one of the guys from the Golden Circle, and put you in the back of a shiny black limousine and whisk you off to whatever theater the premiere was taking place in.

  I know that all sounds like it would be very exciting, and like it was exactly what I had always dreamed of happening as a young girl, but all it did for me was compound my feelings that I had no real function in being at the studio, and no real reason to be at that, or any, premiere. All I could think about was whether I was ever going to get the chance to act in a film, and whether Edith Head would ever create a beautiful gown that had the name “Marion Ross” sewn into the collar.

  I understood that the studio gussied us up and limoed us off to these premieres for publicity purposes—to give the appearance that every time they released a film, the beautiful, glamorous and well-dressed people of Hollywood were just chomping at the bit to be the first to see it. The problem with this was that it was humiliating. Your limo would turn on to Hollywood Boulevard and pull up in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. You could see the crowd start to push in around your car, and members of the press would position themselves to get the best shot of you as you stepped out of your chauffeur-driven carriage. Then the car door would open, you would step out onto the red carpet, cameras would flash for a second or two, and then, in an immediate reversal, the flashing would stop, the photographers would lower their cameras and, inevitably, someone in the crowd would yell out the most dreaded words an aspiring actor will ever hear—ones that would elicit an audible groan from the huddled masses, who thought they were about to see a big star: “It’s nobody!”

  Chapter 10

  My Days of Successes and Struggles

  While I had initially felt that being offered a contract with Paramount was the exciting beginning of my career, as time went by, and more crowds welcomed me to premieres as a nobody, I began to question if what I was doing had any value at all. My original contract was for six months, and when I hit that milestone, the studio renewed it for another six months. It was during that time that I was tapped for a few unbilled roles of no significance in a few feature films, including Secret of the Incas and Sabrina, which starred my old hair-dryer mate Audrey Hepburn.

  Around this time, there was also a lot of excitement swirling through the Golden Circle over the fact that they were looking at one of us to play the role of the young actress Sally Carver in a film called Forever Female, which starred Ginger Rogers and William Holden. If there had been a “just below the surface” brewing of polite (and at times, not so polite) competition among the girls before that role was cast (and there most certainly was), it erupted into an all-out “each woman for herself” fight for that part. I felt that I had a real shot at it because it called for the talent of a real actress. Unfortunately for me and my colleagues of the circle, it was not to be. They ended up looking to Broadway and cast Pat Crowley, who would go on to win the Golden Globe Award for New Star Actress of the Year and in the 1960s would become one of television’s iconic moms in her role as Joan Nash on NBC’s Please Don’t Eat the Daisies.

  While neither I nor any other girl from the circle got the part we had all hoped for, Forever Female did provide me with my first real role in a feature film, as the main character’s friend, Patty. Forever Female was directed by London-born Irving Rapper, who began his career as an assistant director and dialogue coach for Warner Bros. in the 1930s. Within a decade, he had become a hot commodity in Hollywood by directing a string of successful films, beginning with 1941’s Shining Victory, which was followed by Now, Voyager; The Corn Is Green; Deception and Another Man’s Poison.

  Rapper seemed to take a liking to me. He always told me I reminded him of Greer Garson, and throughout the filming of Forever Female, he would ask my opinion on various things, always prefacing his query to me by saying, “Tell me.” Then he would say in his crisp English accent, “What do you think about this, Miss Garson?” In retrospect, I think he got a chuckle out of the fact that, unlike just about everyone else involved with the production, with the possible exception of Ginger Rogers and Bill Holden, I actually had opinions and was brave enough to voice them.

  It would happen over and over—that he would ask my opinion on something—and after a while I came to realize why: Everyone else on the set would seemingly just go along with his ideas or throw the question back at him, asking what he was thinking so they could then agree with him. Not me. I would render whatever opinion I had on this or that, and I believe he got a genuine kick
out of that.

  I really enjoyed working on Forever Female. Finally, I would think, I am actually working, instead of just being paraded around in makeup and finery Mrs. Head designed for someone else. I was also thrilled to be working with Ginger Rogers, who by that time had a long and legendary career as an Academy Award–winning actress behind her. She was always extremely kind to me, as was Pat Crowley. I may have been a nobody to those fans who showed up to glimpse big stars at film premieres, but while doing Forever Female, I felt for the first time since I had been put under contract with Paramount that things were really starting to happen for me.

  I specifically recall being on the set for a scene between the two wonderful character actors Jesse White and Jimmy Gleason. The crew had built a set on one of Paramount’s stages to resemble New York’s Sardi’s restaurant, which, in its heyday, was the epicenter of Broadway and the theater crowd. The set was so realistic, and there was a tremendous amount of bustling and activity going on with all the background people who were playing the part of diners. It was a great scene to watch, and I remember standing next to Pat Crowley as they were shooting it, feeling for all the world like I was very much a part of the production, the industry, and like I was on the path to becoming a somebody when I stepped out of a car (although Broadway was still my ultimate goal).

  Oh, how wrong I was about to be about that assumption.

  After Forever Female wrapped principal photography, it was back to the old circle for me, which was very difficult. I had gotten a good taste of working—being on the set, having a director ask for my opinion on things, interacting with big-name stars, doing my scenes in front of the camera, eating with the cast and crew—so being back in the land of nobodysville was hard to deal with.