Ten
In my business I get “genius” dished out to me as regularly as the morning mail. To believe the press agents, every dirty-shirttail boy in blue jeans who comes over the hill from Lee Strasberg’s classes is the biggest thing to hit the industry since Jack Barrymore played Don Juan. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the gangling lad is like a dream brought on by eating Port-Salut cheese too late at night: if you wait long enough, it goes away. There’s that once in a hundred, though, when the press agent is right....
The chief public-relations man at Warners’ was as persuasive as ever: “This one is something special. We think he’s a genius, more or less. I want you to meet him.” So I agreed to go over for luncheon in the commissary, and he introduced me to Jimmy Dean, brought to Hollywood to do East of Eden by Elia Kazan, who had been bowled over by his Broadway performance as the Arab boy in Billy Rose’s production of André Gide’s The Immoralist.
The latest genius sauntered in, dressed like a bum, and slouched down in silence at a table away from mine. He hooked another chair with his toe, dragged it close enough to put his feet up, while he watched me from the corner of his eye. Then he stood up to inspect the framed photographs of Warner stars that covered the wall by his head. He chose one of them, spat in its eye, wiped off his spittle with a handkerchief, then like a ravenous hyena, started to gulp the food that had been served him.
“Would you like to meet him?” said the studio press agent who was my escort.
“No thank you, I’ve seen enough. If that’s your prize package, you can take him. I don’t want him.”
“He doesn’t always behave like this,” said my companion apologetically.
“Why now?”
“I don’t know. To be frank, he never acted this way before.”