The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man: A Memoir by Paul Newman

Author:Paul Newman [Paul Newman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780593534519
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2022-10-18T04:00:00+00:00

RICHARD BROOKS WAS AN EIGHT-TIME OSCAR NOMINEE WHO ADAPTED AND DIRECTED CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF FOR THE SCREEN.

After the plane crash, Larry Weingarten, our producer, suggested, “Why don’t we close down the show for now? Elizabeth is in practically every scene in the bedroom, and that’s where you’re shooting now.” I argued that if they temporarily stopped, we might as well forget the whole movie, because we’d never get the company back to their current pitch.

“How can you shoot without her?” Weingarten asked.

“I’ll get somebody to walk by very close to the lens wearing Elizabeth’s slip, and if she does come back, we’ll just spot her into the scenes. And if she doesn’t, well, we can still spot her replacement later on.”

So we began filming the bedroom scenes without her, and then, when Elizabeth hadn’t yet returned, I wrote a new scene just between Paul and Burl Ives (Big Daddy) and I told the producers we had to shoot it then and there. Which we did—and that took another week. By then, I knew I was going to be in trouble.

But on maybe the next afternoon, a young Asian woman pops up on my closed set, walks up to me, and says: “Miss Taylor would like to speak with you. She’s in a car outside the soundstage.” I go to the car. I couldn’t see her, because the windows were dark and there was also a curtain around them. I got inside.

“I’m going crazy,” Elizabeth said. “I stay home. It’s bad in the daytime and it’s worse at night. Mike liked what he saw so far. If it’s all right with you, maybe I ought to come back to work.”

“It’s up to you,” I said. “When would you want to start?”

“Today.”

We walked together onto the stage and into her dressing room.

“One other thing,” she said. “I don’t want to see that producer of ours here. If I see him, I’m going to leave. No newspapers, no Hedda Hopper. I can’t take that now.”

I assured her that only the other actors, the camera, and I would be there for the rest of the shoot.

Elizabeth worked for an hour that first day. The cast was terrific with her. Nobody came over and said “I’m sorry”; they just went about their business and played the scene. They were very careful about her, Paul particularly. I never had to say a word to him. He understood the situation completely, never even looking at her in a way that was too sympathetic. He was caringly professional.

The next day, Elizabeth worked for two or three hours. On the third day back, she stayed the full shift. And from then on, she never missed even an hour.

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