16 - VLADIMIR-IVANOVICH

Vladimir ... or a reasonable facsimile

     I grew up during the red witch hunts, a time when a portion of the U.S. Congress, spearheaded by the eminently unlikeable Joseph McCarthy, spent years and vast sums of public money hunting down communists and their sympathizers, often in the most unlikely places.

      Though still a child, I started to pay attention when McCarthy's committee on un-American activities turned its attention to the movies and television.  It managed to wreak havoc and destroy any number of careers, and as far as I know, no one in the entertainment world was ever uncovered who might have actually been posing a threat to the security of our country.

      It was only years later, as an adult, that I began to understand some of the injustices carried out during the 1950's in the name of democracy.

      Caution ! If I am beginning to sound like a bit of a Bolshevik, myself, please believe I am assuredly not, never have been, and certainly never will be. I grew up a child of the free enterprise system, convinced that the harder you worked, the more successful you'd become. If this didn't necessarily prove infallible as I stumbled through the workplace part of my life, it has nevertheless remained imbedded somewhere within me.

       A few years into UNESCO, I found myself working for a Soviet spy.  I must point out that Vladimir was nothing like the sinister villains in the old movies I grew up on like « I Was A Communist For The F.B.I. » or « Comrade X » ; but although salaried by UNESCO, his real employer was definitely the KGB.   He gave his time and devotion to them, and managed to pretty much leave me in peace to get along with producing my little statistical office documents without any supervisory interference.

     I don't know exactly what he did for the KGB, but it was apparently more about reporting on each other than anything directly connected to UNESCO or the French Republic.   Although Vladimir was fairly inept at his UNESCO job, he appeared to be quite high-ranking with the soviets.

     He was treated with respect by his colleague-compatriots who would regularly troop to his office.   The door would always be shut while they conferred, and after-lunch meetings would usually include rounds of vodka for which Vladimir had a special fondness.  About once a week he would leave with other KGBers for unannounced destinations.  I always assumed they had been called to their embassy for whatever raison d'état.     

      I went into this unlikely relationship with what I considered an absolute open mind, accepting the possibility that everything I had grown up being taught about the Soviet Union having as its sole driving force the desire to destroy America, well that this was perhaps a bit exaggerated.  I had learned in grammar school about the downtrodden, unhappy common man in Communist Russia, how he was shipped to work camps and deprived of Democracy.   As time went on, I realized that perhaps not ALL of the Russians were quite as miserable as I had been led to believe.  By the time I arrived at UNESCO, I tended to think that most countries had their good and their bad, and as a former journalist I learned it best not to over-generalize.

      Then along came Vladimir, and I discovered that he was every bit as brainwashed about America as I had been about Russia.

      The irony was that, due to my exotic nationality,  he was completely fascinated by me.   Every word I spoke, every action, every gesture was of interest, and invariably attributed to what he saw as my unfortunate Western indoctrination.    I  learned to keep a low profile and avoid controversy.    Despite everything, Vladimir seemed to have a real affection for me.   Frankie-Norfleetovich, he would often call me, making a Russian hodgepodge of my name as well as that of my father's.  I would occasionally reciprocate by calling him Vladimir-Ivanovich.

      There were moments --days even-- when he seemed normal enough, then suddenly I would be catapulted back to reality.   I once reported on a tender and  moving Russian play that I had seen at the Comedie des Champs-Elysees.  It featured two of the French stage's greatest stars of the day, and I highly recommended it.

      I felt a tension in the air, and Vlad curtly announced he had no interest in seeing the work of a dissident and a traitor, that this was yet another example of western propaganda putting the Soviet nation in a negative and politically-motivated light.

      I learned to go to whatever lengths to avoid political discussions with him, because I found them profoundly depressing and above all futile.  Sometimes it was hard to stand silent.  One day he came back from home leave, excited with new knowledge.  He had recently seen a shocking television documentary of life in New York City.   He could hardly retain his excitement as he recounted how infants throughout the city were regularly attacked and devoured by rats.

      He asked how I could continue to go to New York, knowing of these dangers. « But where in the world did you hear such things ? » I asked. « On television in Moscow. It was produced by PRAVDA, » he replied with the trusting innocence of a child.

     Although his tendency to irritate is the thing that most sticks in my mind today, there were certainly good moments as well.   He was convinced that Russian cuisine was superior to all others, and he frequently invited me into his home for meals.  This in itself was exceptional within the UNESCO-Soviet community, as it was always assumed that staff were discouraged from much fraternizing with Western colleagues.  I interpreted these invitations as both a personal compliment and a sign of his importance in the KGB hierarchy.   Although I refused more dinners than I accepted, I remember with a certain fondness meals with Vlad and his long-suffering wife who would occasionally roll her eyes in exasperation as he recounted one of his lengthy stories.

     Then there was the Bolshoi Ballet.   One afternoon out of the blue, Vlad proposed  that I join him at the Palais des Congrès where the troupe was appearing in a sold-out engagement.   To my surprise I was taken backstage which was much better than any orchestra seat.   It remains an extraordinary memory:  from a vantage point at the edge of the curtain, I could see both the performance and all of the backstage interaction.

       Whenever a traveling troupe was visiting, the KGB would be out in full force.  I couldn't tell if they were there to supervise, to make sure no one was about to defect, or just to confer among themselves.  It was probably a little bit of all three.   Backstage, I observed  the artists who looked like any theatrical company, clearly in their own world, and alongside them a dozen or more black-suited diplomatic figures of authority (including Vladimir), bustling about, whispering.   Only, each of the two different worlds seemed somehow oblivious to the other.

     When the iron curtain definitively fell in 1990, Vladimir's life was momentarily thrown for a loop.  The KGB had heretofore taken care of almost everything.  Until then the embassy pocketed all their nationals' salaries, then gave back what it considered appropriate pocket money (the government took care of lodging, automobiles, travel, food, etc.).    Suddenly he was "free" to make his own decisions, handle his own paycheck and plan his own future.   Along with many of his compatriots, he went through a period of disorientation, but he soon picked himself up, sensed which way the wind was blowing, and changed his political persona accordingly.

     Suddenly, democracy seemed not such a bad idea after all, and it was as though communism had never really existed .    Everything American was now somehow wonderful, and he couldn't get to New York fast enough.  Before I knew it, he had his tickets for a week's vacation there, his first trip to America.   

     I couldn't resist.  "But Vlad, what about all the rats?" I asked.    

     "What rats?" he said.  It sounded genuine.  I never brought the subject up again.

Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

11 - A Career in the Movies

Paris 2010 --On the set and ready to go! (photo Yves de Marseille)

    
     Figuration is what it's called in French.  

    Fee-guuu-rahh-see-ohhn.  Bit parts and faces in the crowd.  In Hollywood they called it extra work, but I think it definitely has a better ring in French. 

    I used to dream of being in the movies.  For a long time I was bored with my office  job at UNESCO and imagined a kind of stimulating parallel life working with a film crew.  

    Actually, it started long before that.  When I was about ten, I wrote to Hollywood proposing my services.  In those days I aimed high; I was thinking more about being a child star, though I did point out that I would be agreeable to smaller parts.  I no longer remember to whom I wrote, but think it was someone at RKO Studios.  Don't ask me why.  My letter remained forever unanswered, but that didn't stop me from recounting various fantasy versions to friends, mainly that I had heard from an important producer who would be letting me know when something turned up.

     When I started the art business, I had a client-friend, Yves, who was a successful set designer.  Over the years I followed his films, and I shared with him how much I would have enjoyed being a part of his world.  It was implicitly understood that whenever I took my retirement he would use his influence to find me extra work.  

     I guess I'd have to say that for much of my life the idea of working on a film set had become a special, if odd, dream.  Everything about it appealed to me.  Not the movie star kind of glamour, rather the stimulation of associating with interesting, creative people, participating in the making of something permanent and unique like a motion picture.

     (I once had a psychiatrist acquaintance in New York who occasionally filled in as a spear-carrying extra either at the Metropolitan Opera or the NYC Ballet.  Whichever it was, that always appealed to me as the epitome of a certain eccentric worldliness.)

     So when the time came and I was able to leave UNESCO, I did all the necessary paper work in order to be employable. Yves was in touch with the top casting director for extra workers.  He explained I would need a press book with plenty of photos, and then he would speak to his contact about me.

     My neighbor, Annie Tresgot, the documentary film maker, agreed to take photos of me.  Unfortunately, by the time we got all this done, Yves was considerably less enthusiastic about my chances.   He started talking about hard times in the industry, and I understood that my future in the movie business was not looking so promising.

    I nevertheless did send off my resumé, along with the photos, and I waited.  And waited!  In fact, I waited for over five years.  Then one day Yves came for lunch, and he was reporting on a new film he would soon be starting.  It was to be a four-hour television movie based on the writings and life of Marcel Proust.

     Out of the blue, he remembered my enthusiasm.  Better still, he volunteered that he could probably find me a few days work on the set when the production moved to Paris later that month.

     And he did.   Convoked by the casting agent and the production company, my hopes were surpassed: I was assigned an actual role, that of an old British general, and though without spoken lines I was to be prominently featured in some of the film's most important scenes.

     Two of the most iconic moments in Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" are the Duchess of Guermantes' grand dinner and its lead-in reception.  I was in both, and to cap it all off, I was assigned a place, both at table and during the reception, next to the star.  That way I figured my moment of glory would be less likely to end up on the cutting room floor.

     Once on the set, I quickly realized that the glamour I had imagined was, to say the least, illusory.  We spent an inordinate amount of time waiting between takes; in fact, most of our time --hour upon hour-- was spent doing nothing. The worst part was the weight of my costume, replete with tassels and sword.  After an afternoon standing in the summer heat, fully dressed in formal military garb, I began to really feel my almost seventy years for the first, though not the last, time.

     The actress portraying the Duchess of Guermantes just happened to be the daughter of the director; she exuded a keen sense of her star rank, and she didn't waste any time in idle chit-chat with the rest of us mortals.  Whereas just about everyone else was deprived of all extraneous 21st Century paraphernalia --watches, telephones, magazines-- Ms. Star did as she pleased.  During the long waiting periods she was generally glued to her cell phone.

    An inveterate eavesdropper, I found it relieved the monotony listening to her conversations.  At one point she received a call from London, and to my surprise her English was virtually perfect.   Afterwards, I asked how it was that she spoke my language so well.

     Her reply was one for the annals. "Please don't speak to me, I am trying to concentrate," she snapped.

     I didn't let this somewhat humiliating social rejection get me down, as I immediately sensed an unspoken support from other members of the cast, and it was abundantly clear that the star was held in no esteem. 

     The banquet table was set in the elegant manner befitting the world of turn-of-the-century French aristocracy, and the meal was catered by a specialist film food company.  It looked fine, but after a few hours at "dinner", you can hardly imagine how unappealing can be a plateful of gooey boiled fish and cold soggy Brussels sprout purée!   As the filming continued intermittently throughout the afternoon, I soon caught on that no one was really eating.  We would just keep putting bits of bread on our forks, and nibbling from time to time.  It looked exactly like the fish and tasted less dismal.

     I may have had no lines to memorize, but I was certainly not reduced to silence.  The banquet was intended to be a sophisticated and merry affair, so after many of the clever Proustian bon mots were uttered, the rest of us were told to emit great guffaws of laughter.  Between nibbles of soggy bread, I thus spent most of an afternoon howling with laughter.

     As I was in a state of rather foolish excitement when the movie was finally premiered on television, the ensuing disappointment was all the greater.  As it turned out, I didn't much like the film at all, and the fact that my presence was virtually non-existent did nothing to endear me to it.   You could sometimes glimpse my shoulder or the back of my head, occasionally a long shot where I was fairly unrecognizable.  The director had opted for extreme close-ups of the principal characters, particularly at the dinner.  The result was that the old general had pretty well disappeared.

     Still, the experience was fascinating in its way, if not quite up to expectations.  No calls from Hollywood, that's for sure, not even another local movie proposal.  Never mind, it's something I always wanted to do, and I did it.  Another project ticked off the old bucket list.


Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

 Annie Tresgot is also featured in "Best and Worst [hotel movies]," Hotel Musings No. 19  (to access, click on highlighted title).

 [NOTE:  All Europe will soon be on vacation, so there will be no new posting for August.  See you in September!]

 

6 - Leslie Caron ... Looking for Gigi

On the set of Gigi 1958 with son Christopher and Maurice Chevalier

    I saw Leslie Caron again last summer.   Brenda and I had gone to Cadogan Hall in London for a concert of Rachmaninoff and Mahler.   I spotted her sitting about three rows in front of us shortly before the lights dimmed.

     It wasn't the first time I have run into Leslie Caron since we spent  part of Christmas Eve together at the Closerie des Lilas bar in Paris forty years ago.   That evening at the Closerie was for an interview.   I saw her by chance a few years later at a ballet performance at the Opera Comique.  Then another time in the 1980's at a revival of Gigi at the McMahon art house cinema where she was the guest of honor.

     I had already been at UNESCO a couple of years when I interviewed her back in 1975.   My newspaper days were well behind me, but every once in a while I still managed to set up a celebrity interview which I sold either to a local English language weekly or to After Dark, a short-lived New York show business glossy.

     She made a now-forgotten movie here when she moved back to France, and I requested an interview via the film company's press rep.   I think I said I was with The Village Voice, which of course I wasn't, but no one ever seemed the wiser.

     She was warm and personable during that interview, and I have a vivid memory of her contagious laugh and dazzling  smile.    Over the years I have followed her career, as with all those I interviewed, and just by virtue of the fact that we once spent x-number of hours together,  I have continued to feel some vaguely personal connection.    In fact, I have a repetitive dream where I am engaging in a long distance telephone conversation with her.   It usually ends badly and stressfully with the line disconnected.

     That December evening in 1975 she talked a lot about her time in Hollywood at the end of its Golden Age, about Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and Cary Grant.   Also about her years with Warren Beatty.  I didn't know then that she had left her two children and husband in England for the then much sought-after Beatty.

     I read an interview not long ago in which she described herself and Beatty as the Angelina-Brad of the day.   I have since seen photos of her little son and daughter, dressing up as Bonnie and Clyde, playing with Warren Beatty during their summer vacation in California.

     In recent years she wrote a well received autobiography (she has also published an interesting volume of short stories) which I found first rate, very honest and entertaining.

     Back to Cadogan Hall.   I was in an aisle seat, and watched  at the intermission for her to pass by.  She was with her son, the same one who once played with Warren Beatty.    She looked great, as 84-year old ladies go, and I decided to speak to her as she approached.  I told her how good she looked, and said how much I had enjoyed her book.

     I had lived with the memory of a vivacious woman these last 40 years, and I was expecting a smile or a word of pleasure at my compliment.  Alas, there was neither.  She looked at me fleetingly,  and an unmistakably chilly "thank you" barely made it out of her mouth.  Then she was gone.

     Her son, now in late middle age, was holding her hand.  He stood slightly behind her, and he looked back at me and said, "Thank you very much."  It sounded sincere, and I interpreted it as akin to an apology.

     I was crushed, rather foolishly disappointed, I suppose, that Leslie Caron had been so totally indifferent to me or to my compliments.  Then I realized that had been the reason I gave up doing those celebrity interviews in the first place.   I always wanted the subjects of my profiles to really like me.  And somehow they never did.

Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr