In addition to our loyalty to the Stars and Stripes, we had heard rumors that the studio didn't really want Greta Garbo; that they wanted Director Stiller, and it was a plain case of “love me, love my dog” with Greta wearing the leash. We made up our minds long before we saw her that we weren't going to like her. She wouldn't be pretty, we decided; she wouldn't be talented; she would be high-hat. Venus, herself, with a laurel wreath in each hand and a dove of peace on each shoulder, wouldn't have had a chance against our groundless prejudices against this unknown star.
In case you aren't familiar with the studios' “caste system,” let me explain that there is a distinct line running through the center of every set. The extras, assistant directors, grips, property boys, and electricians are on one side; the director, supervisor, star, head cameraman and any and all visitors of importance are on the other side. No on, I am sure, ever put that line there–but there it is, and no one would think of crossing it. Sometimes, I think the stars would like to cross–there is so much gaiety on the extra side–but they don't dare. The extras, far from being flattered, would consider it rank intrusion and resent it so openly that no star would try it. It would be like a chaperone on a weekend party–neither the partiers nor the chaperone would have a good time.
Extras are always called an hour or so earlier than the principals, so we had plenty of time to air our communal views about Greta before she arrived and we were all ready to make well-thought-up, sour-grape speeches the moment she put in an appearance.
At last we spied her. She was wearing a soft felt hat, a gray wool suit–rather tight fitting–and plain black oxfords. She was carrying a far from new make-up box. We were disappointed. She didn't fit in with our mental picture of the hoighty-toighty “furrin” star. But, of course, we had to be true to our former ideas, and make nasty comments just among ourselves: “She's not beautiful … why, she's positively plain … she's shinny … she's awkward.” Every extra girl, and many of the extra boys, had a pet remark. I had mine, too. I had to make it–I couldn't fall down on my pals–“She's just a big, raw-boned Swede.” But there was a lump in my throat that made my voice a bit husky and a wave of home-sickness all but blurred my silly vision.
Greta walked slowly, apologetically, but not hesitatingly. Her broad smile should have been recognized as a flag of truce against any and all preconceived notions about her lack of friendliness–but it wasn't. She smiled first at the cameraman, and his camera suddenly needed so much serious attention that he could take no time to smile back. She turned to Cortez, but that handsome individual must have thought it was some new kind of gag and decided to play straight. Monta Bell was the only one left. Greta turned to him.
Now usually Bell is the friendliest thing ever shouted orders across a set. Something must have been bothering him that day, or maybe he'd heard the rumors also and resented having the “excess baggage” wished on him. Anyway, he gave her one of those crucifying “so what?” stares, and she, in the best English she could muster to the cause, said, “I am im-por-tant.”
If she had stepped up and slapped Mr. Bell in the face he couldn't have registered greater surprise. Even we extras could see the preposterousness of anyone having the effrontery to walk up to a director and say, “I am important.”
Busybody minds flashed back to the time when another European star had drawled, “I am zee Pola,” and maybe Monta remembered the same classic remark, for his “So what?” stare turned to “Izzatzo” and a “Take-if-from-me” voice said, “You're no more important than anyone else here.” With that he turned to give his important attention to something a bit more important than a self-important woman.
Greta's bewildered countenance sought the cameraman and Cortez in mute appeal but once more moral support was denied. She stepped up to Monta Bell and said, “I am im-por-tant like a sar-deen.” But the director wasn't interested in the exact extent of her importance so he nodded and replied, “Just about.”
The poor girl didn't know what to do next. She had meant to be funny and her humor had failed–even her attempt to explain that humor had failed. Just at that moment, she seemed tiny and helpless and I had a feeling that I wanted to rush up to Bell and shout, “She's trying to tell you she's imported!” I might have, too, had it not been for that line. If I crossed it, I'd be sure to get the “So what?” stare from bell and I might also get it from Greta herself. So I stayed where I was, on my own side of the fence, and listened to a few exultant smirks because, apparently “our” director had snubbed “our” enemy and we had to be pleased about it.
Greta's lost smile soon found its way back to her face, only now it was merely a whistle in the dark, intended to keep up courage. She left the exclusive group and started toward us. She was going to cross the line and she had no right to do so. No one wanted her on our side, so her smile was met with blank, hostile stares.
Half-way across that space between us was an old orange crate turned up on end. With a sigh, Greta sat down upon the box and dropped her make-up kit. She placed her hands upon her shoulders and hugged herself. She looked about her at the beautiful set, breathed deeply of the sun-.warmed, perfume laden air of California and her smile became a grin that plainly said, “I don't care if you don't like me, I like myself”–which is the Swedish-American expression for “I am happy”–and once more I was a little homesick.
That sounds as if were Swedish. I'm not. I'm Shanty Irish–though my mother won't admit the shanty part–but I did live in Minnesota long enough to be perfectly at home among the Swedes. Most of my friends when I was a kid were immigrants from the Scandinavian Peninsula. And I liked them, even if I did line up with the German kids and start fights yelling:
Swede, Swede, stuck in the straw,
Can't say nothin' but Yaw! Yaw! Yaw!
The Swedes would retaliate with:
The Irish and the Dutch,
They don't amount to much,
But hurrah fir the bold Scandinavian!
And they were bold, or, perhaps I should say, brave–didn't Ingvald Haarstad take a whipping for me at school when we were in the third grade? It was whipping, or rather my appreciation of it, that made me leave the Irish and the Dutch to join the bold Scandinavians and take all the ribbing the home folks handed out about my “Week-keng” beau. It wasn't long before I was almost a little “Svenska” myself.
AT first they seemed pretty dull compared to the “Irish Terrors” and “Dutch Devils” I had been allied with, but when I became accustomed to their quiet, excellent behavior, I found them to have a keen, although refined, sense of humor, and clean minds and clean hearts as well as clean faces. Well, all those happy days came wafting back to my world-spoiled mind when I saw Greta sitting alone on that old box. She wasn't forcing herself on anyone, big or little, but she was open to any offers of friendship that came along. Furthermore, she wasn't on the extra side of the imaginary line, nor was she on the star side–she was out there in “No Man's Land” and I could save her if I wanted to face the shell fire from two hostile lines.
I decided to let my heart rule my head and take a chance. I brisked right up to her and chirped, “ Har du Svensk? ”
Greta beamed, grabbed my hand and rattled of a line of Swedish that was too fast for my poor memory. I help up a warning hand.
“Just a minute–I don't speak the language. I merely act it,” I said.
Naturally, she didn't understand all that but she did understand the language of friendship–which, like the language of love, is universal–and she knew that we'd get along somehow.
We did. I could understand enough Swedish to get the gist of what she was saying and she could understand enough English to do likewise by me. We both agreed that the weather was fine, that the day was great, that the air was fresh, that the sunshine was warm, and all the other things that people usually do agree upon before they know each other well enough to disagree. We jabbered and laughed and made signs until Monta Bell wanted her for a scene. He didn't call her directly. He gave me a dirty grin and said–a bit sarcastically, I'm afraid–“Okay, Keed, if you can spare the star for a few moments we might use her.”
I laughed–extras are supposed to laugh when directors male remarks like that. Greta laughed, too. Evidently she felt that since I laughed, the remark must have been funny.
There was an interpreter on the set for Greta, so there was apparently no difficulty in getting the sense of the scene across to her. While she worked, I went back to the extras, only to receive what I expected–the cold shoulder. I was given to understand that I could play with Greta and let them alone or play with them and let Greta alone. I chose Greta.
When she finished the scene, instead of taking the chair beside the director where a star supposed to sit, she returned to the orange Box out there in “No Man's Land” where I had remained.
“Okay, Keed, I'm bek ag'in,” she grinned. After that, she always called me “Okay, Keed”–I guess she thought it was my name.
IN spite of my efforts to establish friendly, if not entirely diplomatic, relations between Greta and Hollywood, no one seemed to follow my example. The extras kept their distance, the staff wasn't much better.
Monta Bell warmed up and became again his usual genial self as soon as he became aware of the fact that the studio hadn't wished a dud on him, but Ricardo Cortez (and I hate to say it because I really like him) wasn't bit nice to her. In fact, it seemed to me from the side lines that Ricardo frequently went out of his way to be horrid.
I had only one bit of competition in my campaign of friendliness. It was a baby–about eighteen months old–a baby that insisted upon crawling around in the mud, getting sloppy-dirty.
Greta picked the little fellow up, planked him right down upon her picture dress, hugged him, jiggled him on her knee, kissed his dirty face and gave him a bracelet to play with.
When the cameraman saw the dress, the atmosphere wasn't so clear as it had been and somehow I got blamed for it right along with Greta, although I had nothing to do with it, except applaud Greta for her human warmth in picking up the child. Somehow I have always subscribed to the old fashioned belief that anyone who liked babies or dogs couldn't be so bad.
We had several nice days on that set. The next was a call-back for scenes at the Hollywood dam. Greta was half a block away when she saw me and yelled, “Hul-lo, Okay Keed!”
It was a hot, windy day and Bell was anxious to get the takes over so there wasn't much chance for gossiping, but Greta did manage to flash me a big, friendly smile whenever she could catch my eye, and once in a while when Cortez was being extra difficult to work with, she would give me a sly wink which seemed to say, “Don't worry–I can take care of myself.”
And she could. That picture established her as a star in her own right. To this day, whenever I think of watching her work, I simply can't understand it. To my way of thinking, she wasn't beautiful. Her features were perfect but they lacked healthy color and they were too large–her teeth, particularly, were too large and too strong to match up with my ideas of feminine beauty–she wasn't delicate and dainty as most of our stars were. She was too tall, her shoulders were too broad, her hips too flat, her feet were large–they came down tramp, tramp, tramp, instead of trip, trip, trip. She was capable looking where she should have been helpless looking. She did all her scenes with easy, almost languid grace, as if nothing really mattered. I couldn't figure out how any emotion could register on the screen. I even went so far as to wonder if I shouldn't tell her to snap into it, not be so easy going.
When I saw the picture, I was glad I'd let an artist be an artist instead of just another actress. That easy languidness of hers that I thought would surely send her back to Sweden on the next boat is the very thing that makes the studio shiver every time she looks longingly to the East. On the set, watching her work, one would gain the impression that nothing mattered so very, very much after all as far as she was concerned. On the screen, those same actions become deep-seated emotion, tragic in its appeal.
I suppose this story should end with the usual “chums forever after” idea. You have a right to expect it after such a friendly beginning and I hate to disappoint you, but I must.
Sometime later I worked for a day or two on another of Greta's pictures. It was a huge ball scene in which hundreds of couples danced. I didn't dance. I was a fine lady sitting high in a box. Greta worked on the floor among the dancing couples. However, she did look up and, seeing me, called a cheery, “Hu-lo, Okay Keed!”
I suppose I could have talked with her at lunch time, or before the set was called, and maybe that is what I should have done, but by that time she was well established as an important star and I was still an extra. The line was there between us. She didn't put it there and certainly I didn't–but there it was, and neither of us had the courage to cross it.
A YEAR or so later, I bumped into her chocolate Easter rabbits. So was I. We talked and laughed and left. I didn't want to presume upon a former friendship that was so short. A year or more after that I met her with friends, lunching at Musso-Franks.
“How you doin', Okay Keed?” she asked.
“Oh, I'm going fine,” I said. “I'm a writer now.” I just had to make believe that I was a success, too. Her face fell.
“Oh,” she said, then added, “I'm glad for you.”
I think she was glad for me, but she didn't trust writers. I don't blame her. There are times when I hardly trust myself. It's pretty hard to keep a secret when it's part of your job not to keep it.
I Haven't seen her, close enough to speak to, for the past several years. Maybe she has changed–but why shouldn't she? We all change. Maybe she isn't “Greta” any more–but then, am I still the “Okay Keed?” Not a bit of it. I've changed right along with the rest of the world. About the only thing I retain that was a part of the “Okay Keed” is the warmth in my heart and I'll wager anything that the Greta warmth is in the Garbo heart, too!
from: MOVIE MIRROR
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