Dropped Names by Frank Langella Read Free Book Online Page A

imagined, and appearing to me deeply disillusioned and fatalistic. When in the future I would watch him onscreen I was always impressed with his natural intelligence and uncommon grace, but could always spot that hint of sad resignation. A look of bored complacency that put me in mind of three other wonderful actors with whom I had equally brief but similar encounters.
    I n the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel sat Peter Finch in the late 1970s, Oscar nominated for his brilliant performance in Network , appearing desperately unhappy as he barely shook my hand and accepted my congratulations. He died only two months before winning it.
    S itting in a greenroom with Jack Palance before taping a Charlie Rose interview, he talked of nothing but his horses and told me he regarded our profession as a meat market in which, if you hang in long enough, you get lucky.
    â€œIt’s not the actor that wins,” he said. “It’s the role.”
    A gentle, polite, and soft-spoken man also nominated for an Oscar late in his career and winning it in 1991.
    A nd sitting a few seats away from me at the Oscar ceremony in 1998 was James Coburn, who won that night for his marvelous performance in Affliction . When he returned to his seat, I said, “How do you feel, Jimmy?”
    â€œI just want to go home,” he said, rueful and exhausted.
    I n all three men I sensed a light gone dim, a fatigue of the spirit. It was what I’d seen in Mason that night at dinner. He never achieved the great stage stardom of Laurence Olivier or the great film stardom of Marlon Brando, and he never won an Oscar. But if Peter Finch, at sixty, Jack Palance, at seventy-seven, and James Coburn, at seventy-four, are any indication, it doesn’t appear it would have lifted his spirits all that much.

RICHARD BURTON
    R ichard Burton, a Welsh actor looked upon in his youth as the successor to Laurence Olivier, received his sixth Oscar nomination, for his performance in the film Equus , on the morning of the day the phone rang in my apartment in New York. It was Robbie Lantz, our mutual agent calling. The year was 1977.
    â€œI’ve organized tickets for Richard and Suzy to come see you in Dracula tonight. Do you have any liquor in your dressing room?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI think it would be a good idea to get some.”
    A fter the performance Richard arrived at my door with wife number three in a floor-length gown over which she wore an even longer white fox coat. Richard was wearing a black mink car coat and very heavy deep orange makeup. His fine hair was dyed and teased in an effort to make it look thicker and him younger, but succeeded only in aging him further. Behind him, crowding the hallway to my dressing room, was an enormous group of photographers.
    â€œIt was quite a problem keeping the audience’s attention on the stage tonight,” I said, as the flash bulbs popped. This was pre-digital time.
    â€œYou managed quite well,” he said, in one of the most distinctive voices of the twentieth century.
    My dressing room at the Martin Beck Theatre on West 45th Street was large and spacious, rare in Broadway houses. So in they swept: Richard, Suzy, and the entire group. More photographs as Richard said:
    â€œYou know, I was nominated for the little fella today.”
    â€œYes, congratulations,” I said, knowing of course that Robbie had seen this as a great photo op for both his clients.
    A fter the press departed, Richard sat down at my dressing table and turned in my barber chair to face the room. My dresser offered drinks from the bottle of Scotch she’d gone out to buy before the show, leaving it next to him on the table. I grabbed a hand mirror, sat on a straight-backed chair and began the nightly ritual of removing my makeup.
    â€œWho was your Renfield tonight?” Richard asked.
    As fate might have it, the actor playing Renfield, who had never missed a performance, was out sick, and his