Somebody Read online

  At first Bud seemed a most unlikely candidate for her discourses. Always trying to set himself apart from the crowd, he noticed that his fellow students dressed with great care. With his usual perversity he came to class in ripped jeans, a dirty T-shirt, and well-worn sneakers.

  “Who’s the vagabond?” asked Stella on the first day. They circled each other warily for a month but he was soon her favorite. For one thing, whatever the assignment, he performed it with gusto and originality. In a famous instance, everyone in class was ordered to act like a chicken after it has learned its coop is about to be bombed. While the rest of the class clucked frenetically and searched for shelter, Bud calmly crouched in a corner, miming a hen calmly laying eggs. Asked whether he was just being different for the sake of being different, he replied, “No, I’m just doing what a hen would do under the circumstances. What the hell does a chicken know about war?” Stella beamed. Yes, that was exactly how a hen would behave. The bird would do what it had always done, what nature had programmed it to do.

  Over the next few weeks Bud did impressions of cats, dogs, people, even inanimate objects like a cash register, bugging his eyes out to represent the numbers and presenting his palms as the drawer, always to the amusement of the class and the pleasure of the instructor. “One afternoon,” Elaine Stritch remembered, “Stella told us to come to class with an impersonation. The next time we met, I impersonated Stella—all her mannerisms, her walk, her posture. I got a lot of laughs, Stella loved it, and I thought, No one can top this. Then I heard the scratchy sound of a record. It began to play ‘Clang, clang, clang went the trolley,’ Judy Garland’s song from Meet Me in St. Louis. And on came Marlon in drag, boobs, shaved legs, the whole thing. He was gorgeous. And he was hilarious. He was absolutely the best, that day and every day. Marlon’s going to class to learn the Method was like sending a tiger to jungle school.”

  Physically, Marlon was coming into his own just then; his hair had darkened and his brooding and unusual presence seemed to fill up whatever room he entered. Stella was in her early forties, married to Clurman but ever-flirtatious and proud of her appeal to younger men. She began to address Bud familiarly as “my darling,” and “Marlon, dear,” and it was not long before she invited him to her apartment on West Fifty-fourth Street. There, over time, he met Jacob’s widow and the rest of the Adler children, and stepped into a worldly society far beyond anything he had ever experienced. “One day,” Stella told the family, “this puppy thing will be America’s finest actor.” Marlon was Bud no longer. He made some passes at his teacher; she shrugged them off. This provoked him all the more. But he was not in love with her. He was in love with something she represented.

  Eastern European Jewish refugees, coupled with landsmen from Germany who had been in the United States for generations, were energetically remaking the city. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia was half Jewish; Herbert Lehman, the grandson of southern peddlers, was governor of the state. The big department stores, Macy’s and Gimbels, were owned and operated by Jews. The musical theater was predominantly Jewish, from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II to Jerome Kern to the Gershwins and Irving Berlin. Paul Muni, a stage and film star, had made the leap from the Yiddish theater to Broadway. Uptown at City College, brilliant Jews argued the world, Bolsheviks versus Trotskyites versus New Dealers—while an ocean away Jews were being slaughtered in Nazi death camps, and this, too, was the subject of debate. Last year such subjects were terra incognita to Marlon. Now he was immersed in Jewish culture, in discussions and arguments about politics, art, literature, love, sex, history. For a youth from Omaha and Illinois, this, too, was the Other. As he was taken with black jazzmen and dark-skinned women, he became philo-Semitic in the company of Stella and the members of her circle. Marlon was permanently captivated by their insatiable curiosity and their dazzling conversation. No topic was forbidden to these people; everyone had an opinion and was encouraged to express it.

  Heady stuff to a young man still in his second decade of life. Looking back, he felt himself “raised by largely these Jews. I lived in a world of Jews. They were my teachers; they were my employers. They were my friends. They introduced me to a world of books and ideas that I didn’t know existed.” Once admitted to their circle, he realized the depth of his ignorance about art, politics, philosophy. He listened at first, then began asking questions. The circle who met at the Adler apartment became his college and, in time, his graduate school. The members of that exclusive group “gave me an appetite to learn everything.”

  His appetite could take some very odd turns. Darwin Porter’s Brando Unzipped is a derogatory and credulous examination of Marlon’s amatory adventures in New York. Porter lists numerous romances with young actresses, some proven, some not, as well as rumored homosexual liaisons. One, Porter writes, was with a Shattuck classmate who visited Brando in Manhattan, the other with playwright Clifford Odets. According to Robert Lewis, a cofounder of the Actors Studio, “Clifford broke down and confessed everything to me about the affair. He’d fallen for Marlon, and he thought Marlon loved him back. But he’d failed to understand Marlon’s mercurial personality.” The problem was that “Marlon could be there for you one day, giving you the greatest time of your life, and then he’d be gone the next day. It didn’t mean that he was mad at you or even that he found you unfulfilling. In those days, and perhaps for the rest of his life, he was always moving on to some new world to conquer. Perhaps he’d decided that Clifford was never going to write that Broadway play for him.” Or perhaps he had to seduce and keep seducing to prove, first to himself and then to the world, that he was not the worthless son Dodie had neglected and Marlon senior had derided for eighteen years.

  2

  In the spring of 1944, Dodie and Marlon senior separated again. Their avowals had come to nothing: He remained a serial adulterer and she kept on drinking. When the accusations and counteraccusations grew intolerable Dodie packed some belongings and the family Great Dane into a car, slammed the doors, and drove to Manhattan.

  At that moment, no greater contrast existed than the one between the bulletins from overseas and the local news from New York City. Allied aircraft were pounding the cities of Leipzig and Russian troops were poised to recapture Odessa and Sevastopol. Hitler ordered the invasion of Hungary but it was clear now that he was playing a losing hand. In the Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur was advancing toward the Philippines. German and Japanese supply lines stretched thin, causing the soldiers to fight with desperate ferocity. Casualties mounted. Rumors said they would rise anew as soon as the Allies mounted their invasion of France. According to the papers it could be a matter of weeks.

  On the streets of New York, though, war jitters had almost vanished. Children still took the air-raid drills seriously when a school siren wailed on cue. They herded into wardrobes or ducked under desks until the “All Clear” sounded, just as if they were Londoners undergoing the Blitz. But everyone else just went through the motions of civil defense. Emergency shelters, marked with a luminescent S, were ignored by pedestrians, “brownouts”—the dimming of lights in the evening—had become a thing of the past, and the flourishing black market in meat, butter, and gasoline went on undisturbed. It would soon be unnecessary; meat rationing was on its way out. The one constant reminder of World War II was the presence of men in uniform. They were everywhere, crowds of them on the midtown streets, sailors in whites, marines in tunics, soldiers in khaki ogling girls, looking for fun in nightclubs, laughing a little too loud sometimes, kids on their way overseas, probably to action, possibly to injury and death. The butt of comedy was the 4-F, the guy turned down by the Selective Service because of flat feet or asthma. In 1944, the biggest comedy hit was Hail the Conquering Hero. The central character was a military reject, unable to serve because of hay fever. The part of Woodrow Truesmith was played by Eddie Bracken, a skilled comedian who specialized in portraying losers. Woodrow has sat out the war in a defense plant far from home, sending letters that suggest he’s bee
n a soldier just like his father, a veteran of World War I. A group of marines run into Woodrow and persuade him to return to his little town, getting him up in a uniform complete with medals and accompanying battle stories. He receives a hero’s welcome and ends up reluctantly running for mayor before the entire fiction unravels.

  It was all very amusing onscreen; to be placed in that position in real life was something else entirely. Movie stars like Clark Gable and James Stewart had enlisted and seen action; heavyweight champion Joe Louis and baseball stars Bobby Feller, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio were in uniform, forcing the major leagues to hire the equivalents of Woodrow Truesmith to play ball, including a squad of superannuated pitchers and a one-armed outfielder. Marlon junior put on his customary mask of bravado and indifference and carried on as before. He was uncomfortable, though, and the stares of military personnel…what were they thinking, he wondered, when they saw a well-built, healthy young man walking along without a limp, without a bad eye, without any visible disabilities at all? Maybe he should enlist, get it over with. Maybe he should get out of town, get lost somewhere in the heart of the heart of the country.

  And then Dodie showed up. Booking herself into a midtown hotel, she changed clothes and went to call on her children. As far as she was concerned, all three were living in squalor. The following week Dodie signed a lease for a sprawling ten-room apartment on West End Avenue in the Seventies and invited the trio to move in with her, gratis. Money was still not an issue; Marlon senior had agreed to foot the bill—anything to be rid of Dodie for a while. Much to her relief and surprise, they agreed. Jocelyn’s husband was overseas and she was raising a small child on her own and was only too glad to have a built-in babysitter. Frannie transferred her easel and art supplies; and Marlon moved his few belongings into yet another part of the flat.

  The stage was set for Bohemia West. Dodie welcomed the few people she knew in New York. Her daughters invited their colleagues, and her son regarded the place as a branch of the Travelers Aid Society: Acquaintances, lost souls, girlfriends, classmates were all invited to visit and, if they liked, to stay all night. Dodie’s place was sparsely and haphazardly furnished, but at least it was neat. A maid, paid for by Marlon senior, tried valiantly to keep the apartment, in her words, “above dust and dog hairs.” Many years later, one of Bud’s colleagues at the New School, Janice Mars, remembered the solipsism of that period, when unstable egos fed one another, totally ignoring current events, politics, or anything outside their narrow orbit. “Flouting all the conventions, we were like orphans in rebellion against everything. None of us had emotionally secure family backgrounds, but we gravitated to each other and created a family among ourselves. Orphans of the storm clinging together.”

  One of those orphans was Wally Cox, Bud’s childhood pal from Evanston. The two had run into each other quite by accident, when Bud was out shopping with Frannie. He was trying to persuade his sister to get into a shopping cart so that he could give her a ride around the city. She told him to grow up. He raised his voice. They were just about to get into a heated sibling argument when Cox showed up. The men hadn’t seen each other in a dozen years, but Bud immediately recognized the wry little figure. Without a second’s pause he remarked casually, “Hello, Wally,” as if they had never stopped being neighbors. He complained about his sister’s refusal to take a free ride and Cox impulsively jumped into the cart. Abandoning Frannie with the groceries, Bud pushed him down the sidewalk and onto Seventh Avenue, weaving through traffic at insane speeds as taxi drivers applied their brakes and let loose with thunderous invective. As they lurched around town Bud learned that his old friend had been living in New York for months—another 4-F. During that time he had become something of an expert silversmith and craftsman of fine jewelry. His large horn-rimmed glasses and slight frame gave Cox the demeanor of a timid woodland creature, a persona that would be useful to him in the coming years. But it was not the real man. Cox was knowledgeable, witty, acerbic—as verbally threatening as his friend was physically imposing. They resumed their friendship, each supplying what the other lacked.

  Even with the advice and counsel of this new pal, Bud relied mainly on his own instincts and a kind of animal grace. He knew he was attractive to women, but, as one female friend wrote to him many years later, “You had a perverse need to humiliate, to see just how far a female would go to indulge you. For you, sex had as much significance as eating a Mars bar or taking a pill.” A onetime romance observed, “I felt your power as a palpable aura, a magnetism you knew how to use manipulatively but also protectively.”

  Bud broadcast a general indifference to women’s feelings, but, as in the days of his boyhood excesses, he suffered intermittent pangs of guilt. In time they vanished, and back he would go to the routine of pursuit, conquest, rejection, and remorse. Cox introduced him to a world of literature and once, when he read a passage by Alexander Pope, he took the message personally, slamming the book shut after he read the words:

  Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,

  As to be hated needs but to be seen;

  Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,

  We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

  3

  As the summer of 1944 approached, a fresh optimism spread across America. The Allies had rung up a string of spectacular victories: The Marshall Islands were recaptured, the troops of D-Day had smashed through the German defenses, and now General Eisenhower’s men were racing toward Paris. Shortages of rubber, nylon, meat, and canned goods gradually eased, and War Production Board members spoke openly of “re-conversion” to peacetime products. Time magazine eavesdropped on a barbershop conversation and caught the spirit of the country:

  “Yep,” said the man in the second chair. “I got a $10 bet that this little show will be over by Labor Day.”

  “Well, boys,” the big man said, “I guess it’s all over now but the shouting. I wouldn’t be surprised to see those Heinies fold up tomorrow.”

  In varying forms, this scene was repeated all over the U.S. last week. The signs were not only in the headlines. Whole communities sniffed the new optimism and reasoned that this would be the last summer for at least the European war.

  In some ways it seemed almost like a prewar summer. After two and a half years of war the hardest things to get were Kleenex, Camel cigarettes, and shirts from the laundry.

  The euphoria was already part of the city zeitgeist. In Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, a luminous history of the home front during World War II, Richard Lingeman observes that “In the eerily blacked-out Broadway district, patrons queued up outside the clubs, waiting for a table; headwaiters would prowl the line, telling strange faces bluntly that there were no tables and beckoning to old patrons to jump the line and come in.” Most of the big spenders were G.I.’s out to impress their dates, along with newly prosperous workers. Owners were only too glad to take their money, but many places had to close because there was a shortage of waiters and busboys. They were willing to hire anyone who could carry a tray, regardless of ability, no matter how young or old. As Lingeman writes, one café owner lamented, “It’s getting so I don’t even know 5 percent of my customers and 25 percent of my waiters.” At the “21” Club, a sign over the bar warned: be courteous to our help; customers we can always get.

  Drama students at the New School embodied the spirit of the day; in a burst of exhilaration they lobbied for their own summer theater, collected funds for that purpose, and took a lease on an abandoned venue in Sayville, Long Island. Piscator agreed to go along as director and chaperone. He insisted on decorum, every lady and gentleman in his or her bed every night. This was dismaying to the students, especially the males, who had been planning saturnalias between rehearsals. But as Stritch pointed out, the professor was afraid “there’d be affairs and pregnancies and we’d get thrown out of Sayville. The concern was the local reaction, the townspeople. Remember, this was the 1940s.”

  To Marlon, of course, the rules
about propriety were there to be flouted. In this he was not alone. His fellow predator was another draft-board reject—largely because he had already become a substance abuser with a budding heroin habit. Although he billed himself as Frederick Stevens, his real name was Carlo Fiore. The street kid had been hired for the summer as a company novice. Both men fancied themselves as mad, bad, and dangerous to know, and spent many an off-hour in pursuit of female cast members, ever willing to share their quarries—on certain occasions, if Fiore is to be believed, side by side. The adventures came at a price. The company was under-rehearsed for its first major production, Twelfth Night. Few actors knew their parts, and hardly anyone remembered the blocking. To aggravate matters, scores of curious visitors had ferried over from Fire Island to see this new company’s first production. On opening night a full house of sophisticated playgoers were on hand. They witnessed a bedlam of forgotten lines and mistimed entrances.

  Dodie had come from Manhattan to see her son in the part of Sebastian, the romantic Shakespearean lead. She was mortified by his lack of preparation, his amateurish speeches and movements. The next morning she lit into him: “Take acting seriously or go into business with your father.” Before he could reply she walked away. Pouting, Marlon complained to Fiore, “This is the first time I’ve goofed off in a play, the first time, and she cuts out. Just like that.”

  He resolved to reform, to learn his lines and maintain a professional routine. The other actors were also chastened by their public failure. Two productions followed, both of them disciplined and well received. In one, Signarelle, Marlon played the title role of a simple woodcutter. The second made greater demands on his talent. In Hannele’s Way to Heaven, Gerhart Hauptmann attempted to reconcile naturalism and fantasy. Described by the German playwright as a “dream-poem,” this weighty, symbolic tragedy depicts the imaginings of a workhouse girl. Marlon played a dual role. In one part he was a decrepit schoolteacher tending to the abused child after her suicide attempt; in another he was the shimmering young Jesus of her fantasies. Watching him prepare, Stritch saw the Adlerian instruction come to life: I watched this creation. I watched a man change into another man. Onstage Marlon was “absolutely breathtaking; you knew you were in the presence of an acting genius.” In the audience was at least one person who agreed with her: Maynard Morris, an MCA agent who prided himself on discovering new talent. He made a note to call the promising young actor after Labor Day.