Reflections of Abraham Lincoln High School, Coney Island,Arthur Miller’s metamorphosis….his “Death of a Salesman”, “A view from the Bridge” ( in London’s West End) his wedding bond with Marilyn Monroe.
Screenwriting his wife and Clark Gable near the finale of his silver screen ending, rethinking his Carole Lombard loss and an alliance with the bourgeoisie life style in the San Fernando Valley’s Encino, South of Ventura Boulevard. .
II
As a substitute teacher at Abraham Lincoln High in Coney Island ( on Ocean Parkway) viewing Arthur Miller’s name on the first floor remembrance wall, we could never imagine that his destiny was sealed so early in adolescence.
As a kid, growing up in view of the board walk, Archie Leach on stilts (Cary Grant) the Steeplechase, Luna Park, the tunnelof mirrors, the parachute jump, the Trump elevator apartment buildings.
III
“The Misfits” the reality of the over the hill romantic idol ( “I don’t give a damn, Scarlet (“Gone with the Wind”, Clark Gable to Vivian Leigh)
Archie Leach aka Cary Grant, arriving in Hollywood, anointing the Gable initials, while the actor (“Boom Town” with Spencer Tracy at MGM) was living in North Hollywood, taking acting lessons from his coach, whom he subsequently married.
IV
Who can forget bare chest(ed) Fletcher Christian, giving the crew of (Charles Laughton’s Captain Bligh) “MUTINY!””Mutiny on the Bounty”, the aristocratic Franchot Tone (before his alliance with Joan Crawford . Her own notoriety with “Mildred Pierce” at Warners in Burbank.…..
“Mommy dearest”, her daughter’s revelations of her life with thePepsi Cola dancing temptress from Texas, full of spit and vinegar in making a name for herself. .
V
But enough of the cinema’s Golden Age, these ambitious actorsout to make a score.
“I don’t give a damn, Scarlet,” said Rhett Butler ka Clark Gable in “Gone with the Wind”.
Years and years later, post Vietnam, calling Vivian Leigh at New Haven’s Schubert theatre….answering the phone….inebriated or not, her Old Vic accent sounded soberly Scarlet O’Hara’s “Gone with the Wind”.
VI
The myth however of the Arthur Miller alliance with Marilyn Monroe, managing the marriage thru the “Misfits”….heryesterdays, during WW2 on the Lockheed night shift as a riveter, married to a rookie policeman.
The photograph at Highland and Sunset photography store.. A screen test for a walk in role with Stanley Kubrick’s Sterling Haydn “The Asphalt Jungle” Louis Calhernn costarring.”(Morris Carnofsky, Larry Parks, his wife, Art S mith, the Public theater’s founder…
Her attempt to break through as an actress versus the starlet image at Daryl Zanuck’s 20th Century, her coach the Russian Maria Ouspenskaya, a Stanislavsky disciple,….the attempt to fulfill herself back in the Big Apple with the likes of the poetsand intellectuals..Arthur Miller….Elia Kazan, the Group theater gang of Harold Clurman, Sylvia Sidney, Brnado’s coach Stella Adler., ( later reprising the
“Mutiny on the Bounty” role, that Clark Gable identified with,in n the first “Mutiny”.
VIII
These then were the “tumult” yesterdays of our movie magic and the celebrity craze of the cyber space electronic algorithm connectivity, the landscape of multi sensors, streaming ego trips,what not.
For Marilyn Monroe to become a pawn in those hard print “romance” with “Jolting Joe” DiMaggio before Arthur Miller,was but fossil for the movie magazine readers. Her “Stanislavsky” was unfulfilled in the end..
IX
Like Steve McQueen, the King of Cool said near the end of Bullitt. “It’s all a racket,” paraphrasing his first ever role, a Molly Picon one liner “Alts iz farloyrn (“all is lost”)
Rhett Butler “I don’t give a damn, Scarlet”.
(Tomorrow how does one reconcile Alan Ladd’s “This gun for hire” with opening a hardware store in Palm Springs?)
October 7, 2015 The City that never sleeps.
