MOVIE MIRROR

I walked onto the set of MARIE ANTOINETTE at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that first day with my heart in my throat. I had reason enough: this was the first time I'd ever been loaned to another studio, for one thing. The picture, a $3,000,000 production, was obviously an enormously important affair, and I had been cast as the lover, and I had only three weeks in which to do the part.

There were other things. They were having dressing room shortage trouble at Metro and I had to use one of the gals' places in Ladies Row, sandwiched between Myrna Loy and Joan Crawford, with Jeanette MacDonald within hearing distance. That left me wide open for a lot of strange ribbing, besides starting me off on a case of nerves. The room was very frou-frou-and suppose I left the door open some time while addressing a few loud remarks at a tie that wouldn't come out right? A dressing room is supposed to be the one place in which an actor can relax.

Additionally, there were all the rumors-some based on fact, I thought-that this was going to be one of the most difficult and nerve-racking films any young actor ever had the luck to hit. It was, above all else, Norma Shearer's comeback after two years-her first picture since the passing of her husband, Irving Thalberg-and everyone knew how difficult it would be for her to return to the lot.

I had met her once, and I felt that so poised and gracious a lady would conquer a difficult situation of that sort with consummate ease.

But there was another complication. Sidney Franklin, Miss Shearer's favorite director, who had seen her through most of her earlier success, fell sick just before the picture was to start shooting. The only other director at Metro available at the moment was W. S. Van Dyke.

Now Woody Van Dyke is one of the finest men in his profession, in addition to being a great guy. But, notoriously, he is the fastest shooter of them all. On straight films the rehearsal of a scene usually constitutes his first-and last-take. In that way he assures himself of spontaneity, enthusiasm in portrayal, and a shortened budget to match the shortened production schedule.

Immediately the great Hollywood tongue began to buzz. How would Miss Shearer, who extolled the leisured pace and the safety of many takes in production, react to Woody's speed methods. Everyone understood that she was now one of the largest stockholders in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and therefore powerful enough to argue all she wanted to, if, she wanted to. She would, thought Hollywood. 

MARIE ANTOINETTE was the one picture she had planned from the beginning with her husband; it was their dream of the perfect production, and it had been postponed several times because existing circumstances might have hastened it, and nothing, surely, would hurt her more than to see it rushed through in actual shooting.

And if she did stand up to Van Dyke about his ideas and methods, what then? Woody is sure of himself, as well he deserves to be, and insists on absolute control of the set on which he is working. Explosive and impatient, he has blown up often at some of the biggest stars on the lot.

The entire working company, as I cam into the sound stage that first morning, were all apprised of the situation and waiting for the fireworks. You could feel the tenseness in the silence there; the usual hammering and clattering sounded, but sharply and detached, whereas it is usually subdued by the murmuring of voices. Today there were no voices.

I sat down and waited. When Miss Shearer came in there was a moment's hush, while every eye observed her; she looked radiant, her loveliness more than ever accented by the high, ornate headdress she wore and the magnificent costume.

You knew at once that here was not only an actress who had been titled "First Lady of the Screen," but queen as well.

There was an interval, during which she walked to her dressing table. Then friends, old acquaintances and co-workers, approached her to wish her well. The silence was broken then.

But not the nervous tension that filled the set. That remained, as tangible as ever.

Essentially I was sure that there would be no explosions. I felt that both Norma Shearer and Woody Van Dyke would make small concessions to each other, mainly because serious dissension of any kind, on any score, would, in the last analysis, be fatal to the picture. Miss Shearer would not allow that. The whole production was too important to her; she had worked with too much determination for too long a time towards its success.

You must know that half a million dollars was spent on MARIE ANTOINETTE before it ever reached the cameras. Thalberg conceived the idea of the picture five years ago when he first read Stefan Sweig's biography of the tragic queen. Form that time on the endless resources and financial backing of Metro went into the preparation. Whole troupes of people rushed off to Europe, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars purchasing original antiques, jewels, old brocades.

When Thalberg died his wife carried on where he left off. Until, on the night I first met her, the picture had reached the casting stage. Norma Shearer was one of the few big stars in Hollywood I'd never personally seen or spoken to at that time. When I learned she would be at the same dinner party to which I was invited I was genuinely excited; and at dinner I found myself seated next to her.

I had expected dignity, the charm of a great sophisticate, the wise and unaffected conversation of a worldly woman. These didn't surprise me. But I knew of the tragedy she had passed through so recently and I had not thought she would come out of it so magnificently. She was not only beautiful, but as lovely as youth; she had a brilliant wit that kept me busy mentally trying to keep up. I couldn't catch a tinge of bitterness in anything she said or did.

She told me then about "Antoinette"-her plans for it and the work she had done, getting it ready. "I've thought," she told me, "ever since I saw 'Lloyds of London' that you were the person the play Axel, the Compte de Fersen whom Antoinette loved. You've read Zweig's book?"

I said I had.

"You're perfect for the role, as Zweig built it. What's more, I rather think I'll see if Metro can't" borrow you from 20th Century-Fox for it. Would you like that?"

There was nothing I could say. It would be a terrific break for me. But after that evening I put it from my mind. My schedule for the entire year was close packed at my own studio, and I was so new in pictures it seemed unlikely that M-G-M would go to the trouble of getting me from my home lot, with all the complications involved.

I remembered from the dinner party only my impression of Miss Shearer as a completely dynamic woman with an amazing determination. I must have been correct in the analysis because, after a few weeks, the studio informed me that all arrangements had been made for me to play Antoinette?s lover at Metro.

That first day all of us realized that Miss Shearer was a little nervous about the work. That was natural. She had been away from the screen for a long time, and there?s nothing like a vacation from the cameras to break your sense of timing and crack your confidence in your ability. Those of us who could watch knew that her lines were perfection, her carriage in those ungainly costumes above reproach, her feeling for the part sensitive and genuine.

Van Dyke, unlike his usual self, encourage her with his quiet enthusiasm, his lack of excitement or temperament. Taking their cue from him, the rest of the company worked with what amounted to solemnity.

It was mildly uncomfortable but at least the rumors were unjustified. I had a feeling that miss Shearer was striving desperately for some means of breaking the spell that held the company taut, of easing the atmosphere into the jovial friendliness usual on her pictures.

For myself, I went home exhausted.

The thing happened two or three afternoons later, as it was bound to. They were lining up an over-the-shoulder shot of me, and Miss Shearer and I were standing while the crew adjusted the lights and mike. I saw that she was getting tired, since her gown weighed thirty or forty pounds, so I called to the property man who was crossing the far side of the stage.

there was one of those inexplicable silences at the time, so that my voice resounded in the clearest possible manner. I yelled, "Get miss Gaynor a chair!"

I'll never know to my dying day how it happened. I wasn't thinking of Janet at the time. But in the waiting stillness, while I crawled mentally under the nearest old piece of rotten wood, Miss Shearer's voice rang out in delighted laughter. "Why don't you speak for yourself, Mr. Taylor?" she said.

I think that really cracked the ice. Later in the afternoon, during a particularly formal scene, Norma tripped and went into a comedy sprawl which brought howls from everyone on the set; and from that time forward the ribbing went on apace.

They invariably called me Mr. Taylor or Mr. Gable. When a gag was pulled Miss Shearer was in on it and her laughter was as hearty as any one else's. There was the day she called her favorite physician on the phone and told him, "Dr. Harris, this is Norma Shearer. I'm going to have a baby. It startled all of us a little we remembered a scene scheduled for the following week in which Antoinette was to give birth to the Dauphin.

I bet a cup of coffee to everyone on the set for every basket the Metro team made over the 20th Century-Fox team, and the Fox team took a terrific beating, and it cost me three gallons of coffee a day for three weeks. They loved that. Then there was the morning of the Great Fire. Norma, in a cloth of metal gown, backed into a fuse box in which some wires were loose, causing a short; all the lights went out and sparks flew around, and in the general confusion I made a point of crushing out a few coals clinging to the dress. The next day publicity had it that I had rescued Miss Shearer from a flaming death. The company had fun with that little item, too.

Shooting went smoothly, nerves were quieted. Humor settled over the set and although nothing raucous went on, although a certain dignity held, there was nevertheless a sense of great relief.

Somehow Miss Shearer managed to avoid even the suggestion of a fractious not throughout. I went back to my home studio knowing that here was a woman of enormous vitality and drive and ambition and of inexhaustible energy, which she coated with a simple sweetness that made her vary winning. Frankly, I can understand how she got and held the title of "First Lady of the Screen." She is that. I think she must have decided to have that title in the beginning, and let nothing stand in the way until she had it.

You couldn't call MARIE ANTOINETTE a new start for her. She's had a vacation, that's all, and comes back now in exactly the same position she was before, looking younger and lovelier than ever, but dignified by the experience she has had.