4 Responses to Quote Du Jour

1. Blowhard, Esq. says:

   October 28, 2013 at 2:04 pm

   Another great anecdote, this one involving the great cinematographer Jack Cardiff. To set the scene, Gardner is in her mid 60s and has suffered a stroke. She’s meeting the head of Simon & Schuster in an attempt to impress him and sell her tell-all autobio. Here’s her ghost writer describing her anxiety before the meeting:

   No more was said about what she would wear for the meeting on Wednesday, and on Tuesday there was another crisis. “I look terrible, honey. I look as if I’ve been in a fucking train wreck. That fucking stroke,” she said. She wanted to cancel the meeting with Snyder.

   …

   “But he can’t see me looking like this — we’d never get a deal if he sees me looking like this. I’ve got more lines on my face than Lana Turner.”
   “Do you want me to call Ed? Shall I tell him to cancel the meeting?”
   That got her attention. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
   “It’s your call. I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” I said. It was ten o’clock in the morning; an unusual hour for her when she wasn’t filming. “Have you put your makeup on yet?” I’m sure you’ll feel much better once you’ve put your face on,” I said.
   “Call Jack Cardiff,” she said after a silence.
   “What can Jack do, Ava?”
   “Call him now and explain the situation. Tell him I desperately need him,” she said, and put the phone down.
   I rang Cardiff and told him exactly what Ava had said. That afternoon, the world’s finest cinematographer rearranged the lamps in her drawing room — and placed a key light above the chair on which she’d sit for her meeting with Snyder.
   He called me that evening. “It’s the best I can do discreetly,” he said. “When she sits in that chair tomorrow, keep telling her how beautiful she looks. Keep on saying that. How beautiful she looks. Lay it on thick. She won’t believe you, she’s too smart to fall for blarney, but it’s what she wants to hear. It’s the tribute you must always pay to great beauties when they grow old. Remember, it’s always the cameraman who grows old, never the star.”

   …

   She sat in the chair Jack Cardiff had lit for her and slowly moved her face around, feeling the warmth of the key light on her cheekbones…tilting her head so the light made her eyes shine. “Tricks of the trade,” she said.

   …

   She wasn’t the first movie star these men had ever met, and she was no longer in her prime, but they were bowled over. She sat down, crossing her long legs. Carefully catching Cardiff’s key light, which put the frozen side of her face into shadow, she exuded elegance and sensuality with all the composure of Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises.

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   • Toddy Cat says:

     October 28, 2013 at 4:05 pm

     Thatnks for reminding me of a great star and beautiful woman. They say Sinatra never really got over her, and I can see why. Any guy would have loved to have shot out a few street lights with her…

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     • Blowhard, Esq. says:

       October 28, 2013 at 4:13 pm

       If you have any interest, the book is a lot of fun. I’ll let you discover the story she tells of Leo B. Mayer talking about her “cunt power.”

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