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TRICKSTERS AND HUCKSTERS: SHOW BIZ ARCHETYPES
by Addison De Witt
“Fascination”
The Setting:
A swank apartment in a Manhattan highrise.
The Characters:
Gwendolyn Ross, a brilliant actress and grande dame of the theatre, and her dashing leading man, the elegant actor-director, Harris Jones.
At Rise:
Harris and Gwendolyn are dancing in the center of the living room, gazing into each other's eyes, in a world of their own. They seem to have forgotten there are others in the room, including a young man playing their favorite song on the piano.
It was fascination I know
And it might have ended right then at the start
Just a passing glance
Just a brief romance
Then I might have gone on my way empty hearted…
A scene from a play? It certainly felt like one. And the two leading actors certainly carried on like stars. But, in fact, Harris and Gwendolyn were real people starring in their own folie à deux in Harris’s New York apartment that night, with Yours Truly as a starstruck and incredulous witness. If, as Shakespeare noted, “All the world’s a stage,” no two people took that assessment as seriously as Harris and Gwendolyn (not their real names). They seemed to be perpetually in a Noel Coward play, and it was frequently impossible to tell the difference between how they behaved onstage, and off.
It was fascination I know,
Seeing you alone with the moonlight above,
Then I touch your hand and next moment,
I kissed you,
Fascination turns to love.
* Music by F.D. Marchetti, Lyrics by Dick Manning
There was no question that Harris and Gwendolyn had the intimate rapport of a long married couple, and that they were still very much in love. In truth, they’d been divorced for about 15 years. Back then, they were theatre royalty, the reincarnation of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. But while Gwendolyn was starring in one of her biggest success on Broadway with another leading man, Harris came out of the closet and announced he was gay.
Now, Gwendolyn was remarried (to an alcoholic Southern novelist) and the mother of a 12 year-old girl (who Harris adored as if she were his own). And Harris was currently romancing a young composer named Daniel, who was 30 years his junior (and in collaboration on a new musical with your very own Addison). Are you following so far?
On the night in question, Daniel had invited me to join him at Harris’s apartment for a late supper, where we would be joined by Gwendolyn after her performance on Broadway in a George Bernard Shaw revival.
Daniel’s “day” job was playing in an elegant restaurant at night. Harris discovered him there, and quickly became a regular patron, eventually sweeping Daniel off his feet. The age difference bothered Daniel, but Harris not at all. In fact, he spoke frequently about his recent break-up with a body-building boy toy named Brad. The first night Harris took Daniel home to his apartment, Harris grabbed Daniel’s wrist when he tried to pay for the cab. “Please,” Harris said, sounding a lot like John Gielgud, “I don’t want to have to strike you.” (Thereafter, “I don’t want to have to strike you” became a frequently-quoted retort in our social circle.)
But what truly bonded Daniel and Harris was the day that Daniel received the sad news that his beloved grandmother had passed away. Harris couldn’t have been more sympathetic to his young boyfriend’s grief. Terribly moved, Harris plunged right into a stirring soliloquy that began: “I remember when my own Grandmother died. Of course, floods of tears.” (”Floods of tears” soon followed “I don’t want to have to strike you” as the quote of choice.)
That night, in Harris’s apartment, I was struck by the number of photographs of the lovely Gwendolyn on display, at various ages, in a variety of moods, taking their place of honor among other mementos from a lifetime lived in the theatre. At precisely half-past eleven, Gwendolyn herself swept into the room with a swoop of her dramatic cape and a smile of noblesse oblige as she was introduced to Daniel and Yours Truly.
To my surprise, Gwendolyn was followed in by her far less glamorous sister Dorothy, who had travelled from England to serve as her sister’s backstage dresser. And so the stage was set for an evening of seething bitterness and stunning irony.
Clearly, that night Harris wanted to show off his new young paramour to Gwendolyn, and nervous Daniel had invited me along for moral support. But Daniel was quickly relegated to a supporting role as soon as Gwendolyn arrived. As is common with someone of Daniel’s musical talent, he was asked to play the piano. They requested "Fascination," it was their song, and as they danced, they reminisced about days gone by and their eyes twinkled. While I sat and listened, I was cornered by Dorothy and for the rest of the evening, while the threesome did their farcical ballet with each other, I was privileged to hear the sad story of Dorothy’s life.
You see, as she carefully explained to me in dramatic stage whispers, Dorothy – just two years Gwendolyn’s senior, was the one who was supposed to be a famous actress. It wasDorothy who was first accepted to RADA (the famed Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London), it was Dorothy who was destined for stardom. But, you see, the War came. And Dorothy found herself a widow with six children. So while Dorothy was suffering through a loveless and tedious domestic life, her younger (and, by implication, less talented) sister Gwendolyn, dazzled everyone at RADA, became a stunning success in the West End, and eventually on Broadway, and even in films. (Just a few years later, after several Tony nominations, and well into her 60’s, Gwendolyn would earn an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.)
Dorothy also informed me that Gwendolyn brought her over from England to be her understudy, NOT her dresser. And there’d been nothing but tension between them during the run of the Shaw play. But truly the most revealing aspect of our tête-à-tête was how obvious, and heartbreaking it was, to see how completely and totally in love Dorothy was with her former brother-in-law, Harris. It was clear that not only had Gwendolyn had Dorothy’s career, she had also married the kind of man that Dorothy was destined for. In her heart, Dorothy was convinced that she could have held onto Harris, if only she’d had the chance.
It was fascination I know
And it might have ended right then at the start
Just a passing glance
Just a brief romance
Then I might have gone on my way empty hearted…
The two British sisters squabbled constantly, when they weren’t ignoring each other or vying for Harris’s or Daniel’s attention. Harris was, of course, British, as well, with that regal bearing and crisp diction. Imagine my surprise when I found out Harris was born in...Atlanta, Georgia. Here was a man who had left his hometown at a young age and completely reinvented himself as a cross between Laurence Olivier and Noel Coward. And then wooed and married the darling of the London stage. (To this day, a few years after Harris’s passing, I am certain there are those in the theatre community who still believe he was British.)
Harris’s elderly mother was still living in Atlanta, and still had a tremendous amount of psychic power over her son’s emotions. In fact, he had never told her he was gay. But he’d been working with his therapist to come to terms with it all, when something arrived in the mail from Atlanta that positively shattered him. His mother had cut out an article from a local newspaper about another Atlanta native, who was starring on Broadway playing a gay man in drag in “La Cage Aux Folles.” Above the article, Harris’s mother had written: “If you ever did this, I would kill myself.”
The romance between Harris and Daniel withered and died within a few short weeks after that night. Dorothy went back to London in a huff before the play closed. Today, Gwendolyn is as big a star as ever. In fact, her daughter has followed in her footsteps (no doubt aggravating her Aunt Dorothy) and become a star herself. Gwendolyn’s novelist husband has since passed away. And a few short years after that night in Manhattan, Harris quietly retired and moved back to Atlanta to take care of his ailing mother. She survives him still.
It was fascination I know,
Seeing you alone with the moonlight above,
Then I touch your hand and next moment,
I kissed you,
Fascination turns to love.
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