The Magnificent Elmer by Pearl Bernstein Gardner & Gerald Gardner

Author:Pearl Bernstein Gardner & Gerald Gardner [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780795341854
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2014-07-13T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ODETS, WHERE IS THY STING?

“We’re paid as much for obedience as talent.”

—Ben Hecht

We had arrived back in Hollywood to learn that Clifford Odets was dying. He was in Cedars of Lebanon Hospital suffering from colon cancer and he was not expected to survive.

We had first met Clifford at a party at the Beverly Hills home of Danny Kaye. When Clifford met me he grasped my hand and said, “We should go to a mountain cabin in a snowstorm. We’ll bring along a lot of steaks and plenty of Beethoven.” It was Clifford’s way of saying hello.

I had always been easily seduced by Beethoven. When Elmer first said, “I dedicate The Appassionata to Pearl,” I was doomed. And when Clifford mentioned a cabin in a blizzard with the Emperor Concerto playing, I was putty in his hands.

And now Clifford lay in a small hospital room on Fountain Avenue, fighting for what remained of his life. His chest and arms were wafer thin. A tube led from his side, removing the wastes from his frail body. A nurse rubbed ice on his dry lips.

“His father was here earlier,” she said dourly. “He seemed bothered by all the attention Mr. Odets is getting from the staff. He said, ‘You know my boy isn’t exactly Eugene O’Neill.’” I had often reflected, as I watched our sons sit in awe of Elmer at the keyboard, that it was tough having a brilliantly successful father. Now I thought: Yes, and it’s tough for some having a brilliantly successful son.

Clifford kept flexing his fingers, those same long fingers that had invoked the sirloins in our fanciful mountain cabin. His friend Elia Kazan would later recount how the playwright had extended his arm at full length, shaken his fist at the hospital ceiling, and shouted, “Clifford Odets, you have so much still to do!” I suppose he was anxious to redeem the sixteen years he felt he had wasted in Hollywood.

When Clifford went to the hospital, his fifty-seventh birthday was approaching. He had a bellyache. Of course, gastric distress was not an unfamiliar complaint of Hollywood writers. The scribes were at the bottom of the totem pole. They learned to live with gastric distress. (“We’re paid us much for obedience as talent,” said Ben Hecht.) A third of them became alcoholics. But Clifford was not that concerned when he went into Cedars of Lebanon for some tests. He feared it was ulcers. The red badge of courage for copywriters and screenwriters. It was somewhat worse than ulcers.

Clifford held court every day in his hospital bed, seeing the array of theatrical and movie royalty who were his friends. As the days stretched into weeks, Clifford grew weaker. He gathered his strength to try for an understanding with his father. They had been estranged for a long time. And with his son struggling to survive, Louie Odets reminded his boy’s caregivers that he never wanted his son to be a writer. “He didn’t choose to follow his father’s good advice,” he scowled.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.