Zachary Scott: Hollywood's Sophisticated Cad

Broadway and First Films

CHAPTER 4 69 Shortly before Mary Lewis’s wedding, Elaine played a small role in Suzanna and the Elders on Broadway. The critics gave the show bad reviews, and by the end of the first week audiences had dwindled so sharply that the smaller parts in the play were written out to cut expenses and one whole scene was omitted to reduce the crew needed. Elaine was among those eliminated. Meanwhile Zach waited to hear if he had gotten a part in Gilbert Miller’s production of Molnár’s Delicate Story that was to star British actress Edna Best. Miller had heard Zach read twice and indicated that he thought the young Texan would be fine for the role, but the part ultimately went to someone else. Zach returned from the visit to Austin in December 1940 hoping for a part in Liberty Jones, which was about to undergo cast changes, yet nothing developed there either. Lawrence Langner and his wife invited Zach, Elaine, and some young friends to their home for drinks and supper on Christmas Eve, and a few days later Elaine left town with a Theatre Guild production of Tennessee Williams’s Battle of Angels. The play closed in Boston on January 11, after a censorship fight, but went on to Washington, D.C., Broadway and First Films for a week. Miriam Hopkins starred in the Williams drama, which was directed by Margaret Webster. Langner expressed regret that the show fared so poorly, since he felt the young playwright had genuine poetic gifts and interesting insights into a particular aspect of American life. Margaret Webster seemed pleased with Elaine’s work on the road, and the Guild promised her that more assignments would follow. While his wife was gone, Zach stayed in the apartment on Eleventh Street to take care of Waverly and see that his daughter got off to Banks Street School on weekday mornings. “She adores the school,” Zach wrote his mother, “it is so much like the one in Austin.” He went to see several Broadway shows during Elaine’s absence, usually as the guest of Josephine Healy, the telephone operator at the Theatre Guild, who had access to house seats. Zach and Elaine each had a small role in the Theatre Guild’s production of Somewhere in France, which opened at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., and boasted an impressive cast that included Dudley Digges, Walter Slezak, Alexander Knox, Karen Morley, Arlene Francis, and Wesley Addy. Elaine also served as assistant stage manager on the production . “It was an unsatisfactory play done with a refugee director,” Addy remembered, “and just never pulled together.” Dudley Digges, the show’s star, stumbled and struck his head on stage during a performance one night, causing the curtain to be brought down before the first act was over. Someone had to come out and explain to the audience what would have happened had the actor not fallen before the show could continue. “I never was able to get into Somewhere in France and feel any sense of dramatic lift or theater satisfaction,” Addy said. “Walter Slezak was a funny man, but a naughty man who misbehaved as an actor during performances being cute.” The play closed without being brought into New York. Toward the end of February, Zach had a better experience when he was cast as Prince Po, later emperor of China, in The Circle of Chalk at the New School for Social Research on West Twelfth Street. Based on Chinese fairy tales from the thirteenth century, the play in a reworked version by 70 BROADWAY AND FIRST FILMS Bertolt Brecht had been a big hit in Germany during the 1920s. Jessica Tandy, recently evacuated from London, was scheduled to play the lead in New York, but the actress withdrew from the production when she got a better offer from radio. Dolly Hass, a German refugee whom Zach remembered from his months in London, took over the role and received excellent notices. “She is an exquisitely beautiful actress,” Brooks Atkinson reported in the New York Times, “with the limpid grace of a Chinese poem.” Zach’s part was a long one that he found difficult to memorize, since he was never a fast study. The dramatic workshop of the New School for Social Research was a prestigious venue at the time, and Zach’s performance there brought him more attention...