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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
Kirk Douglas, actor "Electrifying"
"I went up for a part in a play called 'Truckline Cafe.' I didn't get it. Bitter, I went to see the play, watched another actor play my role. I loved the first two acts -- he was terrible. He mumbled, you couldn't hear what he was saying. I congratulated myself on how much better I would have been. Suddenly, in the third act, he erupted, electrifying the audience. I thought, 'My God, he's good!' and looked in the program for his name: Marlon Brando."(New York, mid-1940s)
[from "The Ragman's Son: An Autobiography," by Kirk Douglas (Simon and Schuster, 1988)]
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Tennessee Williams, playwright
"Household repairs, magnificent reading"
"I first met Marlon Brando in 1947 when I was casting 'Streetcar.' I had very little money at the time and was living simply in a broken-down house near Provincetown [Mass.]. I had a houseful of people, the plumbing was flooded, and someone had blown the light fuse. Someone said a kid named Brando was down on the beach and looked good. He arrived at dusk, wearing Levi's, took one look at the confusion around him, and set to work. First he stuck his hand into the overflowing toilet bowl and unclogged the drain, then he tackled the fuses. Within an hour, everything worked. You'd think he had spent his entire antecedent life repairing drains. Then he read the script aloud, just as he played it. It was the most magnificent reading I ever heard, and he had the part [of Stanley Kowalski] immediately. He stayed the night, slept curled up with an old quilt in the center of the floor."
[from "Memoirs," by Tennessee Williams (Doubleday, 1972)]
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Rocky Graziano, middleweight boxer
"Contenda dreams?"
"... hit Stillman's gym every day.
"...
"... I spots this young blond kid always watching me train ... the first thing I think about. Gotta be a fag.
"He looks like the kinda guy you find delivering groceries for a high-class grocery store ...
"...
" ... I go away an come back and the next day an there's this guy, maybe leaning against a post, watching me for a long time. He's got on a T-shirt, worn-out sneakers, and dungarees. He's dressed just like the kids dress today, only in those days when you dressed like that you were down 'n out ... a bum.
"...
"Before ya know it, he's bringing me my towel when I need it, and he's asking me real nice if I teach him how to stand and t'row a few punches, and maybe spar with him a lil bit ...
"I say, 'Eh, what's ya name?' and he says, 'Bud.' I look at the kid kinda funny, an he says, 'Lotta people call me Buddy.' That sound better when I think of the song, 'Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?'
"...
"... 'I'm in a play,' he tells me. He says, 'You know, Rock, you could do me a big favor if you come and see me. I get you two of the best seats in the house, on the arm."
"...
" After the curtain goes up [on 'A Streetcar Named Desire'] an everything's happening, I get the shock of my life. This kid I been sendin on errands is the star. Jesus, that's him, that's the kid I been sparring with in the gym. ..." (New York, 1947)
[ from "Somebody Down Here Likes Me Too," by Rocky Graziano with Ralph Corsel (Stein & Day, 1981)]
