Claudette Colbert: She Walked in Beauty

Chapter 17. Envoi

284 CHAPTER 17 By 1984, Claudette had become more than a star; she had become venerable , which meant tributes and accolades. In April 1984, shortly before she left for London to start rehearsals for Aren’t We All? she attended the dedication of the Claudette Colbert Building at Kaufman Astoria Studios, where her film career began fifty-five years earlier. The facilities were a vast improvement over the ones that she and Edward G. Robinson encountered when they made The Hole in the Wall, but at least someone knew that Claudette Colbert had made twelve films there between 1929 and 1932. Two weeks after the dedication, Claudette was feted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center on 23 April. What should have been a celebratory occasion turned into a montage of clips from some of her best-known films (It Happened One Night, The Palm Beach Story, The Sign of the Cross), along with some lesser ones such as I Cover the Waterfront, Torch Song, and The Gilded Lily. The evening was a major disappointment. Although Claudette looked her usual soigné self in a red organdy gown, she had little to say. She expressed her gratitude and admitted that she had some great-looking male costars, few of whom, except for Ray Milland, were in attendance, although they were still living. Envoi The Los Angeles Times was especially critical of the event, wondering why Claudette had placed such restrictions on the clips that could be shown, particularly since they “provided no strong feeling for [her] film career.” Variety agreed, having found the delivery of the tributes “languidly paced and the content poorly conceived.” Another reason for Claudette’s perfunctory expression of gratitude may have had something to do with her leaving two days later for London to begin rehearsals for Aren’t We All? Claudette knew that her film career was over, but she still had a life on the stage. The Film Society of Lincoln Center, however, was not interested in her stage work. The society had envisioned a fund-raiser, which obviously did not live up to its expectations. In 1984, Claudette had not made a movie for two decades. She was being honored for her work during her Hollywood years, which deserved recognition for its own sake. If Claudette played censor, allowing only clips that favored her left side (even if it meant scenes from unmemorable films such as Bride for Sale and Parrish), then she underestimated the audience. The fans that packed Avery Fisher Hall that evening wanted a movie star who reminisced about her films, her co-stars, and directors , interspersing memories with humorous anecdotes and gossip temptingly rendered. What they received were a few platitudes, after which Claudette took off for London. When the Aren’t We All? tour ended in 1986, Claudette sensed that her stage career had also ended. She may not have looked eighty-three, but there were times when she felt it. Still, there was one final role in the offing, and it was on television. In 1985, Dominick Dunne’s The Two Mrs. Grenvilles was published and became an instant best-seller; two years later, it was an NBC two-part miniseries , aired on Sunday and Monday evenings, 8 and 9 February 1987. When Claudette learned about the miniseries, she knew there was one role in it for her: not the lead, the second Mrs. Grenville, but the first. Claudette campaigned for the part of Alice Grenville; Dunne, a close friend, did some behind-the-scenes maneuvering himself when producer Preston Fischer was unable to persuade his first choice, Loretta Young, to take on what was ENVOI 285 essentially a supporting role. The part went to Claudette, perhaps because she could play a steel-willed matriarch by expressing condescension and contempt as civilly as she would show concern and compassion. The Two Mrs. Grenvilles is a roman à clef inspired by the notorious 1955 Woodward case, in which William Woodward II, wealthy banker and playboy , was shot by his wife, Ann, as he stepped out of the shower. Because a prowler had been spotted on the grounds of their Long Island estate, Ann insisted that she thought the man who approached the bed was the prowler. Ann was acquitted because the Woodwards had contacts powerful enough to ward off any scandal. Before Ann became Mrs. William Woodward II, she was or, rather, went by the name of...