The Pittsburgh Press (December 6, 1944)
I DARE SAY —
All the things she is!
By Florence Fisher Parry
As I watched Ruth Gordon purr her way through Over 21 Monday night, her silky voice pouring nectar one moment and splitting epithets the next, it was fun to remember what she had told me that very morning as she ate her man-sized breakfast.
“All I’ll do until performance is just be here in this room resting and readying for it. I’m not” – she told me firmly – “going to be able to act AND play-write, I’m going to write. I can’t do both, so this is my last role.”
Which of course appalled me – or would have if I had believed it, which I don’t for a moment. Ruth Gordon not acting is as preposterous as the flowers not blooming in the spring, tra la.
But it’s not to be wondered at that she’s a little lightheaded with dreams about playwriting, “seeing as” she has not only written one of the biggest comedy hits of the day but (for goodness sake!) another called “Journey to a Star” all ready, mind you, to deliver to the public, while all the time she is appearing in a role which keeps her on the stage steadily all through the action of Over 21.
Just a war wife
Maybe the best thing is to let her proceed with this column the very way she told it:
She said:
How did the play happen? Well, for one thing, I’m a New Englander, so of course I don’t know how NOT to keep working all the time. Garson (Garson Kanin is her husband you know, a brilliant actor-producer-everything) – Garson was caught up in the war as was everyone I knew, and I was down in Washington with him trying to find butter, lodging, second-hand refrigerators, and make connections with a neighborhood meat market.
Well, one day when tragedy seemed to be dogging me – I hadn’t been able to buy a steak for ages – I happened to go into a butcher shop and didn’t the mealman RECOGNIZE me! WELL! You can imagine what that did to my morale! I had established myself with a butcher! Now ANYTHING was possible! I never experienced such a sense of power!
Just about that time, Thornton Wilder wrote me a letter from an Officers’ Training Camp telling me how worried he was for fear he wouldn’t make the course. It was ABC to the youngsters down there, but he was just sick because he couldn’t seem to RETAIN. No high school kid before exams ever was so nervous. And it struck me as being so… funny… and pitiful… and nice… that all over our country in camp after camp were these gifted, successful men scorning the safe important jobs they were fitted for, and trying to be soldiers.
And besides, I’d JUST been married to Garson and you know how bridegrooms rate their brides. So I sat down one day and began to set down some of this… you know… war, and people in love and this new wartime obsession over points and rations and places to stay, and wonderful fellas way over 21 trying to pass kid-stuff exams at training camp and flunking out.
Blame Garson
When I’d finished writing it, I found it had taken the shape of a story – a novel, you know. And who do you suppose was the heroine? ME! Not really me, of course, but this scintillating gorgeous creature Garson still thought I was! I’d been creating HIS IDEA OF ME! Well! Imagine my embarrassment!
But Garson read it and never even suspected the fraud. Of course, the minute we went over the story we saw that it REALLY had the shape of a play – dialog situations just naturally fell into play form. So, I changed it into a play and that was all there was about it.
That opening night! You say you were there? Well, you know then WHAT a night that was! How I reveled in that part!
So, what happened? When the reviews came out, it was assumed that the character I played was Dorothy Parker! Now I dote on Dot, she’s really wonderful. But can you imagine how crestfallen I was? There I’d been cherishing the delusion that I was acting ME – Garson’s me, I mean – and nobody recognized me at all, not even my closest friends!
Well anyway, after years and years of acting, I’m suddenly a successful playwright ready to retire from the stage! And all because Thornton Wilder was worried sick over his OCS exams and I found a butcher who RECOGNIZED me and gave me a sense of power!