Zachary Scott: Hollywood's Sophisticated Cad

Gentleman Actor

166 CHAPTER 7 In March 1956 Zach undertook a project vastly different from anything he had done before. He agreed to play the king in a New York City Center revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s landmark musical The King and I. It was a daring move, since Yul Brynner’s powerful interpretation of the role, both on Broadway and during a national tour, was still riveted in the public ’s mind. “I am busy preparing for The King and I,” Scott wrote his father, “and singing lessons and rehearsals and publicity are taking all my time— with studying as well.” Zach had never done a musical before, nor did he consider that his was a singing voice, and he approached the part of the Siamese king with trepidation. His mother offered encouragement. “Your planning to sing the leading role in The King and I,” Sallie Lee wrote from Austin, “prompts this. My thoughts turn back almost forty years, when you were a little boy and your Daddy was a Lieutenant Commander in the Medical Corps of the United States Navy during World War I and was stationed at the Naval Hospital in Gulfport, Mississippi. The Navy personnel had to be entertained, so every one on the base was called on. I played the piano and you, dressed in a white sailor suit and sailor cap, sang popular songs of that period—’Over There,’ ‘There’s a Long, Long Trail a Winding,’ and ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag’ were among your repertory . Your sweet, clear, true voice always brought the house down. Your eyes were just as big and brown then as they are now.” She went on to Gentleman Actor remind her son that when the family returned to Austin after the war, he and Ann gave a neighborhood recital. “You sang very beautifully ‘O Sole Mio’ in perfect pitch to the amazement of all our neighbors,” Sallie Lee said. The King and I opened at City Center on April 18, 1956. Rodgers and Hammerstein had been present during most of the rehearsals, and Jan Clayton, who had created the role of Julie in the songwriting team’s Carousel, played Mrs. Anna. “I never thought that I would have so much fun working in a musical of that caliber,” Zach said. He wore his earring and a goatee for the part, and unlike Brynner, did not shave his head. Audiences found Scott’s interpretation delightful, and critics said that he played the role with moving subtlety and sympathy. “Mr. Scott has found an ingenious method of enlarging the figure of the King to make up for what Brynner did with sheer and remarkable animal displacement,” a reviewer for the New York World-Telegram wrote. “Scott repeatedly uses big gestures, in the lines of Siamese dance and art, to create his exotic appearance. He is more intellectual than brute, and this mental savagery is terrifying. The tricky musical number he wisely treats as dramatic episodes rather than melodies.” John Chapman of the Daily News agreed that Scott’s portrayal was well done. “It also is well sung,” Chapman said, “and it is acted with assurance and individuality.” John Fearnley directed the production and it was beautifully staged. “In the two leading parts Zachary Scott and Jan Clayton are wonderful ,” Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times wrote. “This is a more hirsute monarch than Yul Brynner’s was. But Mr. Scott is the equal in pride and intellectual inquiry.” Austin friends who came to New York to see the show during its three-week run were amazed at Zach’s performance, since the role of the king seemed so completely incongruous for him. “I knew that there was a place for me in the theatrical world,” Scott said, “and this is where I intend to stay.” Zach felt that his career had reached a turning point. Ruth’s mother had been killed in a bus collision near Cuernavaca, Mexico, in January 1956, and her death coupled with sizable revenue accruing from the Masterson trust prompted Zach to draw up a new will. Encouraged by his success in The King and I, he faithfully worked out for an GENTLEMAN ACTOR 167 hour every day at a gym to keep his weight at 165 pounds and continued his singing lessons. In May the actor appeared in Marching Song at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre in Ann Arbor...