"[singing in background, footsteps] [singing in background, footsteps]" "[♪]" "[♪]" "Come, my friends, there's sap in't yet." "The next time I do fight" "I'll make death love me;" "Come, let's have one other gaudy night:" "[laughs] call to me all my sad captains, fill our bowls; once more let's mock the midnight bell." "[♪]" "Kalamazoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo... [applause] [applause]" "Yolanda in Kalamazoo" "Once strolled after dark by the zoo" "She was seized by the nape And humped by an ape," "As she sighed, What a heavenly screw." "[laughter]" "Just a minute." "I forgot the baby." "[sings]:" "I'm gonna send a wire, hoppin' on a flyer, leavin, today." "Am I dreamin,;" "I can hear her screamin' [sings]:" "A B C D E F G H I got a girl in Kalamazoo..." "My baby." "It goes where I go." "Its only objectionable feature is that people are convinced I carry around my own ashes." "It actually contains vital, life-sustaining potions from my pharmacist at the Jungle Club on Seventh Avenue." "[sings]:" "Years have gone by; my, my, how she grew;" "I liked her looks, when I carried her books in Kalamazoo, zoo, zoo, zoo... [continues to sings]" "I must be a frigging masochist and, God knows, an egoist -- for here I am, three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the whole world at war, and I'm trying to revive my puny career." "As well trying to rejuvenate my sex life and turn this limp noodle into a bushwhacker." "[laughter]" "Ladies and Gentlemen, I cannot believe I forked out good money to rent this delightful dump for one night, just to run a few goddamned lines." "But, I'll be honest with you, I had to." "I had to." "So do not be put off by the disarray that you see." "All this will hopefully be transformed into the throne room of that lump of foul deformity, ruthless King Richard." "The Turd." "[laughter]" "God he was shit, wasn't he?" "But I have an affinity with shits." "You know, Richard was my first real success." "It was a long time ago, but it was the first time they took me seriously." "So I've got to try to get the old bastard up on his feet again." "I need to be taken seriously once more before the man in the bright nightgown comes for me." "That is, if my trusty prompter ever arrives." "For the success of this hazardous enterprise rests not only on your approval, but on the shaky ability of an aging actor to remember his lines." "Oh and if, perchance, there are among you one or two charitable angels, the smallest gesture will not be unwelcome..." "Hiya, Mister Jackson..." "Ev'rything's O K A L A M A Z O Oh, [sings]: what a gal, a real piperoo." "I'll make my bid for that frecklefaced kid I'm hurrying to." "I'm going to Michigan to " "Have you ever seen delirium tremens?" "Well, a colleague of mine, a bibulous fellow thespian, had the best DTs" "I've ever seen." "You might say, Henry's bladder abhorred a vacuum." "[laughter]" "Henry Malcolm Rogers, known in theater circles as the world's best worst actor." "He kicked the bucket last week at sixty-two, but not from liquor." "He died of what in New York is called a natural death--he was hit a cab." "[laughter]" "Hank drank a quart of whiskey a day for forty years." "They tried to cremate him, but he blew up and wrecked the place." "[laughter]" "Dear Henry, the only man I ever knew with varicose veins in his eyeballs." "[laughter]" "There's really nothing funny about booze." "[laughter]" "Oh my God, I must be a living advertisement for all the friggin' liquor companies in the world." "Look at these " "Restless little buggers, aren't they?" "I'm so far gone, I haven't left yet." "But things are beginning to click for me -- my knees, my elbows, my neck." "[laughter]" "When I get out of bed, I sound like" "Carmen Miranda's castanets." "[laughter]" "But I don't feel old... yet." "They say a man isn't old till regrets take the place of dreams." "That's it, isn't it?" "Dreams." "And then our little life is rounded with sleep, blood clots, gout, arthritis, dropsy, ulcers and -- oh yes -- hemorrhoids." "They're a pain in the neck." "Sovereign panacea for whiskey breath." "A tippler from Riverside Drive" "Had breath you could barely survive." "He ate a banana, Read George Santayana," "Then farted Chanel No. 5." "[laughter]" "Allow me to disabuse you of the prevalent notion that" "Jack Barrymore is a tragic figure." "Get this straight:" "for a man who's been dead fifteen years," "I've had one helluva life -- [laughs]" "You know, one summer holiday on Staten Island, my brother Lionel and I staged a furious duel with these." "I was six " " I was the baby." "Lionel was ten." "My sister Ethel,... who was nine going on forty, saw us showing off and got the idea of putting on a play in the barn behind the boarding house." "All thirty-seven guests came." "Each paid a penny." "I earned six cents." "Lionel, ten." "Ethel kept the remaining...twenty-one cents for herself." "Star billing and production costs." "Lionel was irate, threatened to quit." "But I was completely happy, because I hadn't learned to count yet." "[laughter]" "Jesus Christ!" "I must have the DT's." "What the hell is that?" "Oh, it's just a glove." "I thought it was a dead rat -- which reminds me of my father." "Not the glove." "The rat." "[laughter]" "Maurice Barrymore." "Matinee idol, complete with Oxford accent, monocle and top hat." "Ah that bastard." "He used to drag me along on his nightly binges." "I wasn't even ten yet." "He'd stumble home at dawn without me -- forgot all about me." "Just left me in some dingy old whorehouse." "The girls were always telling me how cute I was, how much I looked like my father." "Well I was damned if I was going to be like him." "That madman." "God what a brute -- and he got worse." "He almost killed Ethel once -- had her by the throat, then he ran off screaming into the night, screaming." "I chased him for twenty blocks." "I didn't give a shit how big he was." "I was going to kill that raving sonuvabitch." "Is that my inheritance?" "Scares the hell out of me." "What's going on?" "That you sir?" "Mr. Barrymore?" "Frank." "Let me know when you want to start running your lines." "I'm all set up and ready to go." "Well!" "Mr. Efficiency has finally turned up." "Hello, Frank." "Hello, sir." "How've you been?" "Fine, sir." "Keeping busy?" "Yes." "That's our Frank." "Traffic's bad, huh?" "I took the train, sir." "Still living in Yonkers?" "Yes." "With your mother?" "Yes." "How is she?" "So-so." "What?" "So-so." "Oh well that's life." "Dear old Frank." "I have but to discreetly cradle my auditory orifice, lean artfully in his direction, murmur, "Line?"" "And the forgotten words waft their way toward my eagerly awaiting ear, unbeknownst to the enchanted audience." "Anytime, Mr. Barrymore." "I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking:" "I could well wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment." "Wait a minute, sir." "Hmm?" "That's not from Richard." "Oh?" "How perceptive of you, Frank." "And what is it from then?" "Othello." "Right as usual Frank..." "Pedantic prick." "Save me from him." "A horse!" "A horse!" "My kingdom for a horse!" "Mr. Barrymore, aren't we taking it from the beginning?" "Presumably" "That's the end of the play." "[laughs] Tedious boy." "All right, Frank." "Let us proceed with the libretto." "Richard the Third" " Act one, scene one." "Forgive for a moment I just eh..." "Well, I'll just still myself. [clears throat]" "Right." "Start me off." "Now..." "Now's a good a time as any." "No. "Now" is the first word." "Oh." "Now is the..." "Now is the... what?" "Now is the what?" "Now is the the winter of..." "Now is the winter of what?" "...Our discontent." "Now is the winter of our discontent..." "That's what I said!" "Don't you listen, schmuck?" "I listen!" "Frank, don't prompt me unless I ask." "If I ever need one, I will just say, "Line"." "Line." "Made glorious summer" "Line." "By this sun of York..." "Line." "And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house" "In the deep bosom of the ocean buried." "God, that was a killer." "Let's take a break." "You've only done four lines." "Oh shut up, Frank." "Please Mr. Barrymore, we must be serious." "All right, Simon Legree." "What's next?" "Now are our brows ..." "Now are our brows..." "You know I can recite two entire plays by Shakespeare." "I know you've heard that when I made pictures," "I use blackboards once in a while, placed in strategic positions." "Bound with victorious wreathes..." "Well, it's true!" "What the hell's wrong with that?" "Bound with victorious wreath es..." "Doesn't mean I'm losing my marbles, does it?" "Bound with victorious wreathes!" "That's right, keep after me!" "Come on!" "Come on!" "Come on!" "See?" "He never gives up." "Tonight all is well." "Franklin is at the helm." "What are you doing?" "You know what the manager says." "I do not give a rat's ass what the manager says." "No drinking on the premises." "No, no, the drink, the drink" " O my dear Hamlet," "" " The drink, the drink!" "I am poisoned." "Maybe I should do Hamlet." "No, no." "Too late." "Alas, middle-aged actors shouldn't play Hamlet." "Although, I don't look middle-aged, do I, Frank?" "Not anymore." "Malevolent bitch." "Oh cruelty, thy name is Franklin." "Condescending Gnat!" "Prompter's!" "Ah!" "So, it's Richard Crookback or nothing." "And if I don't do it." "Some other ham will beat me to it." "Right, Frank?" "Right, sir." "All right, let's get cracking." "You probably hadn't noticed, but I tend to stagger." "My whole family staggers." "My father, God rest his soul, was a great staggerer." ""Staggering is a sign of strength Jackie," he would say." ""Only the weak have to be carried home."" "Where were we?" "Grim-visaged war " "Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled..." "Aaah!" "Ethel sent me these." "Red apples have been the Barrymore good luck wish -- or the family curse -- for generations." "Here Frank, chew on that you walrus." "I don't know why I ever went into theater." "Lionel and I wanted to be painters -- great painters of the American spirit, like Homer, Eakins," "Whistler, Bellows." "Ethel wanted to be a pianist." "But, I loved my drawings." "You may not know this, Frank, but I was for a time political cartoonist for the evening journal." "Really, sir?" "Oh, yes." "Some of my happiest moments were spent at Minnie Hay's boarding house on 34th Street - a hangout for the tough newspaper crowd." "Aah!" "Magnificent wastrels!" "How come ya always draw Teddy Roosevelt standin' in the tall grass?" "Because, my dear fellow, I never learned how to draw feet." "Another fatal flaw, which got me fired." "I was so in love with my goddamn profile back then." "All my drawings looked like me. [laughs]" "So it was back to the stage." "Dear old Ethel came to the rescue -- got me a job." "But acting isn't an art." "It's a scavenger profession... a junk pile of the arts." "It's just that we three were trapped in the family cul-de-sac." "The Barrymores and the Drews!" "The Drews and the Barrymores!" "They wrote a play about us." "We were the theater's Royal Family and I was the Clown Prince." "Somewhere along the way, things got a bit shaky but it's paid well." "That's the narcotic." "Frank?" "Yes, sir." "Do you think my fans will remember me when I'm a has-been?" "Of course they do, Mr. Barrymore." "I don't know what I'd do without him, but I'd rather." "Incidentally, Frank, why haven't you been drafted?" "The army didn't want me." "Why not?" "I'm 4-F." "Flat Feet?" "No." "Weak eyes?" "No." "Homosexual." "Well, W.C. Fields and I were turned down for Home Defense." "You know what that impudent girl behind the registration desk said?" ""Who sent you, the enemy?"" "W.C. Replied, "Please correct me if I'm wrong, my little hermaphrodite, but is that your truss that's chafing you, or is your tutu too tight?"" "Homosexual?" "Did you have to tell them?" "I didn't." "Well, how did they know?" "I think they guessed." "Damnit, you're a good man." "To own up to a thing like that." "I must say, you've got guts." "I'm proud of you." "You're outspoken, honest, incredibly frank " " Frank." "You know, the quaint irony of it is I've sometimes wished I'd been born on your side of the fence." "It's when I blamed women for my troubles and think all dames are poison." "Odd, that, considering I adore women more than do most men." "Even though all four wives were bus accidents." "Katherine, Dolores, Blanche " "Didn't Blanche come before Dolores?" "Katherine, Blanche, Dolores -- and then Eileen." "Elaine." "Elaine." "You're right." "Funny how they all aspired to be actresses." "Can you countenance that?" "Well, I don't know." "I think they loved me." "I loved them." "Yes, I did, God knows." "But something tells me however that there won't be a fifth ex-Mrs." "Barrymore." "I would rather set fire to myself." "I, -- that am not shap'd for sportive tricks..." "Frank?" "Yes?" "I, -- that am not shap'd for sportive tricks..." "Oh, uh " "Nor made to court an amorous..." "To strut..." "To strut..." "Before a wanton..." "Wanton..." "Ambling..." "Ambling..." "Nymph..." "What?" "Nymph!" "Blue mirrors for eyes, a taffy-haired debutante." "Every vowel a dipthong..." "Oh, you spilt lemonade all over my best whitepique hat." "Foolish girl." "For twenty years, Katherine and I were ecstatically happy." "And then we met." "Who came after her?" "Don't tell me." "Tell me." "Blanche." "Blanche." "That's right." "Known as Michael." "Yeah, Michael." "That's right..." "She was Blanche when I met her, But wouldn't you know?" "She changed into Michael, a regular Joe." "She had a face of a Romney portrait, and the soul of a marine." "But she kindled fire in me." "I kindled fire in her." "We wore matching outfits." "She looked like George Sand." "I looked like George Sand." "And then Miss Sappho of 1920 hove into view like an oil tanker." "Mercedes di Acosta was her name." "She doted on Blanche." "Mercedes was more butch than Spartacus." "God, who can forget her handshake?" "Ah, buenos dias, senor." "Que hombre!" "And your wife, Miguel, que mujer!" "Ai-yi-yi!" "Put'er there, senor." "Ai-yi-yi!" "I don't have to tell you that divorces cost more than marriages...but goddamnit!" "They're worth it!" "Lord, the shit I put myself through all those years." "I don't mean just the marriages." "But those absurd plays,...all those flops!" "One goddamned cow pie after another." "And then, out of the Chaos, Ned appears." "My Warwick, my king-maker, my Voltaire." "Ned Sheldon." "Age twenty-five, a playwright, just out of" "Harvard, with a hit on Broadway." "He sees me perform in some vapid little piece of fluff." "Jack Barrymore, when are you going to stop wasting your talent?" "Talent?" "What talent?" "I'm in the family business, that's all." "Like dry goods or hardware." "No, no, no, no, no -- but you don't realize what you're capable of." "You could be doing the classics!" "The classics?" "Please!" "Tights?" "Prancing around the stage in some pantywaist get-up?" "No, thank you." "Jack you're a coward." "What are you afraid of?" "You've got the looks, the heart, the ego, and the talent." "Oh, I admit, it's a little raw." "You'll have to work your ass off." "But if you do, you could be what the theater's searching for." "You could be the next Edwin Booth." "Ah come on, you flap-eared sonuvabitch!" "I'm going to get that Plantagenet nose of yours against some worthwhile grindstone." "Are you game?" "Sure, I'm game." "Ned is as good as his word." "He plots my career like a Roman general." "He even writes plays for me." "He got me started on Shakespeare." "We were at the Bronx Zoo, mesmerized by a red tarantula with a gray bald spot on the back of its head." "Oh, Jesus, what a sinisterlooking Sonovabitch." ""Crawling power, Neddie," I said." ""That reminds me of Richard the Third."" ""Which you are going to play," he said." "God bless you, Ned." "You made me reach for it." "You even bought me a pet tarantula." "I called it Mercedes." "Mr. Barrymore..." "Hold your horses, Frank." "Hold your horses." "One summer holiday, Ned and I rendez-vous'd in Venice." "We wandered late at night across ancient bridges." "We traveled the Grand Canal." "We talked about everything under the sun." "He talked, I listened." "Then on to Florence." "To that golden city..." "Ned and I, we waited for the sunrise." "As the dawn came, there it was in all its glory -- the River Arno, the Uffizi Gallery, the Santa Croce where Michelangelo and Galileo are buried." "And there we were at four in the morning -- singing to all of Florence... [sings]:" "When that midnight choo choo leaves for Alabam'" "I'll be right there, I've got my fare." "When I see that rusty-haired conductor-man," "I'll grab him by the collar" "And I'll holler Alabam'!" "Alabam'!" "Alabam!" "[laughter]" "C'mon, Neddie, dance, you old bastard!" "[laughter]" "I'm going to sit this one out." "I think he knew more about art and history than even old Ruskin himself." "Ah, Ned" " Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will hear him in my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, as I do thee." "That was a helluva summer." "Mr. Barrymore?" "Mr. Barrymore?" "Mr. Barrymore!" "YES!" "Last summer they put me in a sanitarium." "I forget where the hell it was." "Somewhere out in the desert." "Full of rich old boozers, who were there for the express purpose of drying out." "A formidable creature named Frau Himmler was in charge." "Ah, Frau Himmler, how enchanting you look." "And how is Herr Himmler?" "Dead!" "Kaput!" "Gone to Valhalla!" "In that case, my Teutonic tease, are you free to join me in a nightcap?" "Mr. Berryman, Zis ist a clinic!" "Ve haf House Rules." "Zere vill be no Schmoking, no Profanity und no" "Schumuggling in ze Schnapps by your Hollywood riffraff Crowd!" "Then, perhaps, my Germanic Geranium, a little romp between the sheets?" "Schweinehund!" "Hanky-panky ist verboten!" "Zere vill be no discussion of S.E.X." "What vas, vas." "Down boy!" "Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'hag!" "Up your Wienerschnitzel, you old Sauerkraut!" "Ned gave me this." "Sixteenth century." "It's the real thing." "I love old things... old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old trees, the old sun, the old moon, old wine in dim flagons, old actors, old wagons." "[sighs]" "Where was I?" "In the sanitarium." "Oh yeah. [laughs]" "One night, when the Wagnerian Vixen was looking the other way, I escaped and joined a lady of the evening, a blushing flower who shall be nameless." "Trixie Schumacher." "Trixie's pushing forty from the wrong side, but she sparkles like a dental filling." "After a lively little game of jumble-giblets performed in the back seat of a taxi, we were quietly wassailing in the cozy intimacy of the Beberly" "Wilshire Hotel dining room, when who should storm in but my old journalist friend, Gene Fowler." "Gene immediately proceeded to berate, insult and badmouth my poor, soiled little dove." "I had no choice but to rise in defense of Trixie's honor." ""Now stop right there, Gene", I said." ""I will not permit you to use such language in the presence of a whore!"" ""Yer damn right!"" "said Trixie and hauled off and slapped him." "She immediately regretted it." "He was chewing tobacco." "I gotta tell you this." "Mr. Barrymore!" "Mr. Barrymore!" "Shut up Frank!" "I gotta tell you this. [laughing]" "Gene has a " " Gene has a " " Gene has a mother-in-law - from Hell!" "I can't understand grown men gettin' drunk and actin' like fools in front of decent people." "Don't you bring that broken-down" "John Barrymore here anymore!" "The fact is, he did bring me home early one morning before sunrise." "Shh!" "Don't wake Mumsie." "As if I wanted to." "While he was tiptoeing into the kitchen to get drinks, I got acquainted with Chester, Mumsie's beloved parrot." "[muttering]" "Say something, Chester." "Don't just there, you stupid Technicolor chicken." "Turned out, the bird spoke nothing but French." "Bonjour, madame, bwak!" "Bonjour madame, Bwak!" "Bonjour madame, Bwak!" "In no time, I had coached Chester in the King's" "English, downed my drink and departed." "I was told that later on when Mumsie passed his perched and sang out, "Bonejour, Chester", the bird replied, "Bonjour, madame, fuck you, bwak!" "Bonjour, madame, fuck you, bwak!"" "[laughs]" "Little drops of water, Little blades of grass," "Once a noble actor, Now a horse's ass." "Hello from Hollywood." "This is Louella Parsons with a scoop on that bad boy," "John Barrymore." "His latest indiscretion took place last night at fashionable Chasen's restaurant, where he relieved... himself in a potted palm next to a table of delegates from the Daughters of the" "American Revolution." "I don't remember the incident." "I don't remember a lot of things." "Merciful amnesia." "Fat-assed old gossip!" "Jack Barrymore, will you kindly remember that I am a lady?" "Your secret is safe with me, madam." "I never liked Louella, and I always will." "I, -- that am not shap'd for sportive tricks," "Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;" "I, that am rudely stamp'd..." "You've already done that, sir." "I know I have, but I like it!" "I, that am rudely stamp'd..." "line!" "And want love's majesty..." "And want love's majesty to strut before a wanton ambling nymph;" "I' am that..." "line?" "Curtail'd Curtail'd of this fair proportion," "Cheated one feature..." "line?" "By dissembling nature..." "By dissembling nature..." "Deform'd." "Unfinish'd..." "Don't tell me!" "Tell me!" "Sent before my time Into this breathing world scarce half made up..." "Maybe I shouldn't wear these tights anymore." "Oh Jesus." "They originally belonged to Ethel." "Lionel stole them and wore them for his Macbeth tights." "When I got them, I wore them for my Richard tights, then my Hamlet tights." "My dresser discreetly suggested that they be laundered... just once." "Laundered, you irreverent lout?" "Have you no sense of tradition?" "I opened in these tights and, by God' I'll close in them!" "When I die, I shall bequeath them to the" "Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista, to rest beside the Shroud of Turin." "[laughing]" "A king am I of shreds and patches." "It's funny, the things I remember of my London opening of Hamlet." "There I was, a callow youth of forty-three." "I remember waiting in the wings, holding the theater cat in my arms." "I called her my little Ophelia." "Suddenly I hear my cue." "It's too late." "I have to carry her with me." "Get thee to a nunnery:" "What, wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?" "I am indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother not borne me." "What should such fellow as I do, crawling between earth and heaven?" "We are errant knaves all Believe none of us." "To a nunnery, go;" "and quickly too." "Farewell."" "Then afterwards, when everyone had gone " "Frank, dim the lights." "What for?" "Just dim the lights." "I waited till the theater was dark and empty." "Then I walked out onto the Haymarket stage and stood there all alone -- except for the ghosts." "You that look pale and tremble at the chance," "Had I but time - as this fell sergeant, death, Is strict in his arrest" " O, I could tell you" " But let it be." "If ever thou didst hold me in thy heart," "Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw the breath in pain to tell my story." "You know, there's one moment in a lifetime when all the stars seem to gather together and become one " "Well, that moment became mine..." "Once, long ago, and it was glorious... while it lasted." "But I let it slip away." "[loud bangs]" "You scared the shit out of me." "What the hell did you do that for?" "We're wasting time." "Says who?" "We've only got the place for one night." "Stop bullying me!" "I was about to tell them my story." "What story?" "The one about the..." "old British bag." "The dowager story?" "The dowager story." "Oh God, that one." "Well, make it fast." "Oh thank you so much, Frank." "I'll try to accommodate you as best I can." "During the run, a dowager accosted me." "I do beg your pardon Mr. Barrymore, but could you tell me, in your opinion, did Hamlet have sexual relations with Ophelia?" "In my opinion, no madam." "Though I hear..." "in a certain Chicago company..." "Hamlet had fellatio with Horatio." "Another prominent visitor to the play was" "George Bernard Shaw." "He came to see if this American upstart would fall flat on his face." "He very kindly delivered his opinion of me by letter, instead of to the press." "I call it "The Shavian Uppercut" I carry it, next to my heart..." ""My dear Mr. Barrymore, I thank you for inviting me to your first London performance of Hamlet." "You saved an hour and a half by the cutting, and filled it up with an interpolated drama of your own dumb show." "I wish you would concentrate on acting, rather than authorship, at which, believe me, the Bard can write your head off." "Yours, perhaps too candidly, G.B.S ."" "No, damn it!" "I was a hit!" ""Haymaker at the Haymarket."" "That's what the London critics wrote." "Listen, you fat-headed Fabian, in those halcyon days I had ideals!" "I reveled in being compared to men like" "Keane, Forrest, Mansfield, Booth." "One of my greatest regrets will always be that" "I couldn't sit in an audience and watch me perform." "That doesn't sound conceited, does it?" "Does it, Frank?" "Oh no sir." "Of course not." "I held onto those ideals." "You have to, when you're up there." "If I wasn't going to be a painter, at least I could try to master the family business --Papa's business." ""Oh yeah?" "Not with that raspy voice of yours you little prick!" "barkers on Coney Island."" "Yes." "He was right." "Some of the time." "But most of the time he was just Daddy!" "Da - da - da - da -da - da!" "Mad as a hatter." "He was treated in every known way," "But his malady grew day by day." "He developed paresis, Had long talk with Jesus," "And thought he was Queen of the May." "I hardly remember my mother." "She died when I was so young." "A fine comedienne, Papa would say." "But her mother." "That's another story." "Grandma Drew." "She called me her little Greengoose" ""like the pretty lad in the storybook."" "We called her Mum Mum." "She sent me to kindergarten at the convent school." "One day I threw an egg at another little boy." "Mum Mum rebuked me." "Now, look here, Greengoose, one day you may become an actor like your daddy, and the egg will be thrown back at you." "I think Mum Mum was a great actress." "She was also the first woman to head a major American theater, the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia." "Yes, that was hers." "Eventually, she lost it." "She lost everything." "She didn't seem to mind." "Before she died, she said, "You children are my pride and joy." "Ethel will be the luminous one." "She has starlight on her head." "Lionel will be the stable, solid, practical one." "But you, Greengoose, you will dream too long and too deep, and one day be gravely hurt by your awakening."" "We lived in her Twelfth Street house which we called "The Tomb of the Capulets"... a Victorian monstrosity with cavernous halls, monastic rooms and two attics, where Lionel and I slept." "Up the long, dimly-lit staircase to bed I'd go, scared to death of the gloom ahead." "I don't want to go up there, Mum Mum." "It's too dark." ""You needn't worry, Greengoose." "There's nothing to be afraid of." "Nothing can hurt you." "You have a wonderful power." "Say that after me." "You can't hurt me." "I have a wonderful power." "Say it again and again." "Keep on saying it." "You can't hurt me." "I have a wonderful power."" "G'night, Mum Mum." "I'm coming up, Lionel, be careful." "Don't pretend to be the man in the bright nightgown." "It frightens me." "[♪]" "[♪]" "Oh God, it's black up there." "Where the hell am I?" "Who's that over there, standing in the wings?" "Would someone tell me who the hell that is?" "What're you staring at?" "It's just me." "Frank." "Oh, yeah." "Frank." "I'm sorry, I must have taken a little detour there." "I'm sorry." "Goddamn, he looked so familiar." "For a minute, I couldn't think who he was." "Were you on a break?" "No." "Sir." "Who said you could take a break?" "But I didn't..." "Where were you?" "Where are they when you need them?" "Line!" "What line?" "Any line!" "If you do fight against your country's..." "line!" "your country's foes..." "Your wives..." "Your wives shall... what?" "What's the line, Frank?" "Your wives shall... what?" "Your wives shall welcome... but that's not Richard's line, sir!" "Well, whose is it?" "Richmond's." "I'll take it!" "Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors ." "My wives wouldn't welcome me home if I came bearing the Holy friggin' Grail!" "Each marriage lasted seven years, like a skin rash." "My troubles didn't come from chasing women." "They come from catching them." "Everyone wants to put halos over my unworthy head and then hold them up with broomsticks." "Everyone except Ned." "For Ned Sheldon I don't need a goddamned halo." "Oh, Ned." "What made you my friend?" "What made you stoop to serve this wretch, this counterfeit of a man?" "He was always trying to save me, but I never listened." "And now, I'm lost..." "Seeking a way, and straying from the way;" "Not knowing how to find the open air, But toiling desperately to find it out,..." "And from that torment I will free myself," "Or hew my way out with a bloody axe." "Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile;" "And cry content to that which grieves my heart;" "And frame my face to all occasions." "I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;" "I'll play the orator as well as Nestor;" "Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could;" "And, like a Sinon, take another Troy;" "I can add colours to the chameleon;" "Change shapes with Proteus for advantages;" "And set the murderous Machiavel to school." "Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?" "Tut, were it further off, I... [laughs]" "I'll pluck it down!" "Where's the nearest toilet, Frank?" "Just off stage right, sir?" "Thank you." "Down one flight..." "Yes." "Yes." "And past the stage door." "Nowhere closer?" "An open window, perchance?" "A sink?" "A cuspidor?" "A jardinière?" "A potted palm?" "[laughs] You will forgive me for a brief interval?" "This is after all, an emergency." "Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass," "That I may see my shadow as I piss!" "Pass!" "Pass!" "[toilet flushing]" "[coughs] [coughs]" "To be, or not to be - that is the question:" "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer" "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" "Or to take arms against a sea of troubles" "And by opposing end them." "To die, to sleep " "No more -- and by a sleep to say we end" "The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks" "That flesh is heir to." "'Tis a consummation" "Devoutly to be wished." "To die, to sleep " "To sleep-perchance to dream;" "[knock on door] ay, there's the rub." "[knock on door]" "[loud knock on door] Mr. Barrymore?" "Are you ready?" "Persistent gnat." "When you first came to London, you were the most beautiful thing that London had ever seen, weren't you?" "And everyone wanted you didn't they?" "But you wouldn't let them have you, would you?" "[♪]" "[♪]" "Wynken, Blynken and Nod one night..." "Frank, I'm paying you to prompt me!" "You're paying me?" "Don't get cute, Frank." "I don't care about the money." "What?" "I just want you to do Richard." "How can I do it, unless you prompt me?" "I have been prompting you." "Then, I can't hear you." "What?" "You're on the wrong side." "Yes." "I don't like you there." "I like you over there." "You should be on stage right." "No wonder I'm forgetting lines." "It's all your fault." "Oh, stupid boy!" "Hie thee to stage right forthwith, or by my troth," "I'll knock your leek about your pate." "Gotcha!" "Gotcha." "Impudent jackanapes." "The Great Profile is not this side... but this." "Say, who started the notion... big nose, big dick?" "Queen Johanna of Naples!" "Jumbo Johanna." "A lady of unbridled lust... sized up a man's nose, and if she liked what she saw, brazenly groped him, while murmuring in his ear, "Nasatorum peculio."" "Latin for "big nose, big hose."" "Well Frank, have you landed yet?" "Ready when you are, sir." "Ready." "Richard's in his tent." "Right." "It's the night before the battle." "Right." "What battle?" "Bosworth field." "Right." "Is this all the light we're gonna get?" "It's all we can get for now sir." "Sound ready to go?" "Yes, sir." "Then, give me some wind, Frank." "[wind sound effect]" "Not a typhoon, bring it down..." "come on, bring it down." "[wind sound]" "That's better." "You're supposed to be asleep." "Sir." "Oh." "[snores]" "Get me started." "But you didn't say "line."" "I'm asleep." "What's next?" "The ghosts appear..." "Yes." "The ghosts vanish..." "Yeah." "Richard wakes." "Give me another horse!" "Bind up my wounds!" "Let's get outta here!" "No, that's not right." "Cut!" "[bell rings]" "Let's start again." "Quiet on the set!" "Is this my close-up?" "What lens is that... a 75?" "Don't forget the filter." "Quiet!" "Roll 'em." "Give me another horse!" "Give me another horse!" "How many horses does this guy need?" "Will someone throw me a line?" "A line!" "A line!" "My kingdom for a line!" "I can't see the goddammed blackboards from here." "My career's gonna be right down here with the shit, if I don't get this right." "Come on, Jack." "Pull yourself together." "Quiet!" "Roll'em." "I turn my body from the sun." "Towards thee I roll, thou all destroying but unconquering whale." "Whale?" "Who the hell that?" "Ahab?" "Jekyll?" "Hyde?" "I remember nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing," "I dream of nothing but Svengali, Svengali," "Svengali, Svengali!" "My ghosts." "Are you lost, Mr. Barrymore?" "Do they sell flowers on Mother's Day." "Yes, I'm lost." "Wherefore..." ""Wherefore" is the cue, sir." "Oh. "Wherefore" is the cue." "Well, give it a little louder sweetheart." "We can't hear you." "So far I've only needed a hundred and six prompts." "Where the hell did you get this goddamned thing?" "RKO." "RKO?" "Well, it's too small." "Or my head's too big." "My temples are throbbing like hell." "Perchance it is tomorrow morning's hangover making a premature appearance." "Oh God, Frank." "I had the most frightening thought while sitting on the can." "What was that?" "If I don't pay alimony next month, can my wives repossess me?" "Well, can they?" "I doubt it, sir." "I sincerely hope you're right, Frank, because" "I consider it the most exorbitant of stud fees." "And the worst feature of it is... you pay retroactively." "I spend my entire life trying to scare off the hyenas snapping at my heels with writs and summonses, waiting to tear every last bit of flesh from my battered bones." "Quite frankly, Frank, I've been pauperized." "Fortunately, I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, provided I drop dead right now." "[♪] [sings]:" "You must have been a beautiful baby," "You must have been a wonderful child." "When you were only starting, to go to kindergarten, I bet you drove the little boys wild..." "And when it came to winning blue ribbons," "You must have shown the other kids how, I can see the judges' eyes as they handed you the prize I bet you made the cutest bow." "Oh!" "You must have been a beautiful baby," "'Cause baby look at you now... [hums along]" "Have you noticed that Wagner had the decency to write his Wedding March in the tempo of a dirge?" "But the truth is, I could fall in love again, just like that." "The one thing in the world that still excites me is a woman." "How divine a thing." "How I miss them." "Most of all, wife number three." "Beautiful Dolores." "She made such a success of our marriage, I had to get out." "But, between you, me and the lamppost," "I wasn't good enough for any of my wives." "But I didn't tell them." "I let it come as a surprise." "Frank, you wouldn't by any chance have something to drink, would you?" "'Scuse me, sir?" "A little tonsillar lubrication?" "What?" "Something to wet my whistle." "Not on your nelly." "I beg your pardon?" "Not a chance!" "Oh..." "I see." "So, we'll go no more a-roving" "So late into the night," "Though the heart be still as loving," "And the moon be still at bright." "For the sword outwears its sheath," "And the soul wears out the breast," "And the heart must pause to breathe," "And Love itself have rest." "Maybe we should get on with it, sir." "Yes, maybe we should, Frank, maybe we should." "Oh god, where were we?" "Where were we?" "Oh, God, I shall despair." "That's right." "What?" "That's the line? "I shall despair?"" "Yes." "So say it." "What?" "Stop stalling and say the line!" "I know you can do this." "You're just wasting time." "Now wait a minute!" "Wait a minute?" "That's all we've been doing " " Waiting!" "All you've been doing is whining!" "Just say the line!" "Cut the bullshit!" "Who the hell do you think you're talking to?" "You -- you miserable old ham!" "Well, screw you, you nasty little faggot!" "I was a good Richard!" "No!" "You weren't!" "What?" "You were a great Richard." "Yeah?" "You were a great Hamlet." "Yeah." "Well, what happened to me?" "I have of late,... but wherefore I know not,... lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises;" "and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof" "fretted with golden fire,... why it appears no other thing than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours." "What a piece of work is man!" "How noble in reason!" "How infinite in faculties!" "In form and moving, how express and admirable!" "In action, how like an angel!" "In apprehension, how like a god!" "The beauty of the world!" "The paragon of animals!" "And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?" "Man delights not me;" "no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so." "I wasn't smiling, sir." "I know that, Frank." "Shall we get back to Richard?" "Yes please." "I'd like to get back to something." "For the love of Christ." "I want to be something, whatever, the goddamned role." "How else am I going to peer into the wings filled with stagehands in dirty undershirts, crates, dust, clutter and junk -- and say fervently," ""Come to the window, Cynthia." "Obeserve the crescent moon rising over the sea."" "And then there's the audience." "Ay, there's the rub." "Whether it's Barnum BaileyorBroadway, they're still the same great hulking monster with two thousand eyes and twenty thousand teeth, breathing out there in the darkness, withholding, teasing, waiting " "...waiting to make or break men like me." "Oh, that darkness!" "That darkness." "Christ!" "This is obviously going to be a vintage Richard." "Perhaps I should've snuck up to the mirror." "For a moment, I thought it was my father." "You know, when I do a picture, I try to get Bill Daniels." "He's the best cameraman I know." "He makes these oxen dewlaps disappear." "Garbo won't make a picture without him." "When we shot Grand Hotel at MGM, Bill got rid of these sweetbreads under my eyelids and this moose's lavaliere." "[mimics playing a stand-up bass] [laughs]" "Ah, vanity!" "Of course, Lionel isn't vain." "Lucky fellow." "I wish I was like him." "He doesn't give a damn how he looks onscreen." "I've made five pictures with my brother." "He's always moaning at the director..." "Now look here!" "I know Jack is doing treacherous things behind my back to steal scenes, rolling his eyeballs or showing his goddamned profile." "That's a laugh." "Lionel is the master upstager." "Our last picture together was Night Flight." "The big scene was all mine." "There wasn't a chance in hell that Lionel could steal it." "The director bet me ten smackers that he couldn't manage it this time." "The cameras started grinding away." "I had all the dialogue." "Lionel turned his back to the camera, walked slowly to the door for his exit, and just as he got there... he reached around and scratched his ass." "There's a brother to be proud of." "Poor Bastard." "He's broken his hip twice, got hooked up on morphine and is now confined to a wheelchair." "Poor Lionel." "Poor Lionel?" "What am I saying?" "It's the best gimmick an actor ever had, and he'll agree with me." "Jack, nothing greater could have been contrived for me than the character of the grouchy but likeable old grandfather in a wheelchair." "Mmm mmm mmm..." "As a result, I'm now a first class hypochondriac, and I'm enjoying it immensely." "He's always been a hypochondriac." "He feels bad when he feels good, because he knows he'll feel worse when he feels better." "God bless my brother." "Back in '23 he told me he was getting engaged to be married a second time." ""Not Irene," I said." ""Jesus, how awkward!"" "What's awkward about that, you miserable jackass?" "I happen to have been to bed with her myself." "He didn't speak to me for ten years." "Oh, well, we made up at last." "He's always nagging at me..." "Jack, you're such a snob about pictures." "They're so much easier than the theater." "When a movie's finished, your performance is in the can." "Or in the toilet." "Of course, Ethel doesn't approve, but then, that's Ethel." "Oh, Jack, Jack, you've sold out to Hollywood." "Come back, come back to your home in the theater." "Come back!" "Come back!" "Oh, Ethel, go fuck a duck." "You too, Lionel." "It's all so ridiculous." "Broadway versus Hollywood, Hollywood versus Broadway." "What's there to compare?" "Gomorrah with palm trees or Sodom with subways" "" " It's all the same." "Movies!" "What were you last in, Mr. Barrymore?" "I believe it was Joan Crawford." "Oh!" "What movie!" "Something for RKO." "I can't recall, thank god." "Of course, my trusty blackboards were strewn all over the set." ""Goddamn it, Jackie, why don't you learn your lines like everyone else?"" "Because, Anatol, precious, my memory is full of beauty..." "Paradise Lost, the Queen Mab speech, the great Sonnets." "Do you expect me to clutter up my mind with donkey-doo?" "Those kidney-faced baboons for whom I labour are some of the most uncultured asses in the world." ""Are you sure you want to make that picture?"" "I said to Sam Goldwyn." ""You know, it's about two lesbians."" "So?" "We'll make 'em Americans." "Come on, Mr. Barrymore." "What do you want, Frank?" "What do you want?" "We're wasting time." "What the hell do you care?" "You're getting paid for it." "Okay, that's it!" "That's what?" "I've had it!" "[walks away]" "Where the hell do you think you're going?" "I'm getting my coat." "I quit!" "Frank..." "You're a spoiled child!" "You've always gotten everything you wanted." "and now that you don't, you can't take it." "You're not going to do Richard." "You haven't got the guts." "You're worse than a drunk... you're a coward!" "[walks away]" "Jesus." "There's the whistle." "Now they all know I'm crazy." "Don't go, Frank!" "Don't go." "Please." "Please help me." "If I don't finish this, or they'll put me away." "Frank?" "Frank?" "Frank?" "Come back here, come back, please." "I'm sorry Frank." "You just watch me." "I have a wonderful power!" "All you host of heaven!" "O earth!" "What else?" "And shall I couple hell?" "Hold, my heart;" "And you, my sinews." "Grow not instant old," "But bear me stiffly up." "Remember thee!" "Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds ..." "While memory holds..." "No, no, no, no, no." "It's no good, no good." "I can't do it, Mum Mum." "I can't do it anymore." "What's the line?" "What's the line?" "What's the line?" "What's the line, what's the play?" "Don't go Frank." "You haven't left have you?" "Huh?" "Frank?" "You still there?" "Still here." "Did you know my father wrote his own epitaph?" "No." "He walked beneath the stars And slept beneath the sun;" "He lived a life of going to-do And died with nothing done." "We had to commit him to Bellevue." "He was only fifty-one." "A lethal combination of absinthe and syphilis." "At his burial, the straps around his coffin got twisted, so they had to hoist the whole goddamned thing up again." "How like Papa... a curtain call." "Frank, I really think I'm going to need something to drink." "I'm getting the shakes again." "Would you like some black coffee?" "No." "Thank you." "May I ask you something?" "Go right ahead, Frank." "Well, why don't you try AA?" "Hell, why not?" "I'll drink anything." "[crying]" "Sir?" "Are you all right?" "No, I am not all right, thank you." "I'm way-laid by regrets." "I can't go back to that room in the sky, to childhood, to anything." "I've pissed it all away." "There's nowhere to go." "I can't stop running." "I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;" "I fled Him, down the arches of the years;" "I fled Him, down the labyrinthine Ways" "Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter," "From those strong Feet that followed, followed after." "[♪]" "[♪]" "Well, Richard, Hamlet... all my old pals, I'm free of you now." "She called to me from the foot of the staircase." "I saw you come into this world, Greengoose, and now you're seeing me out." "That's a fair exchange." "Oh Mum Mum, don't say that." "Oh, but it's true." "Actors are like waves of the sea," "They rise to separate heights, then break on the shore and are gone, unremembered." "Nothing as dead as a dead actor." "Nothing." "Not even a doornail." "Frank, you can douse the lights now." "What'd you say?" "You heard me." "You can't quit now." "Do as I say!" "No!" "I won't let you!" "Unarm!" "No!" "Unarm!" "The long day's task is done, And we must sleep." "No more a soldier." "Bruised pieces, go; you have nobly worn." "I pray you, leave me a little;" "Nay, do so; for indeed, I have lost command." "And if you want to avoid domestic strife, don't marry in January." "And that goes for the other months, too." "But, sir..." "You haven't come to the end." "Oh, yes, I have." "I won't fool myself any longer." "Vat vas, vas." "And you don't fool me, either." "What?" "I know who you are." "He sent you, didn't he?" "The man in the bright nightgown." "Well, I'm damned if I'll go quietly." "I have a wonderful power!" "[bang]" "I was ever a fighter, so... one fight more, The best and the last!" "I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past." "Mr. Barrymore, don't you want your apples?" "No, no, you keep them." "No more red apples for me." "Jesus, if only Eve had offered Adam a daiquiri, we'd still be in Paradise." "[sings]:" "I got a girl in Kalamazoo..." "Don't wanna boast, but I know she's the toast of..." "Would they were wasted, marrow, bones and all," "That from their loins no hopeful branch may spring," "To cross me from the golden time I look for!" "Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb:" "She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe," "To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub;" "To make an envious mountain on my back," "To disproportion me in every part," "Like to a chaos," "Then, since this earth affords no joy to me," "I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown."