The Pilgrimage Play Film, 1949

(Dana on right as Disciple James)

Oh! For a Muse of Fire!

5

  In June, 1948, after the exciting spring theatre season at U.C.L.A., still living at home on Joy Street in Highland Park, I get a call from Katheryn Offill, five-foot power house high school drama teacher. A long-time friend of Sid Christie who has played the “Christus” for more than a decade, Katheryn has got me an audition. If I get a part, I will not be able to participate in the required summer theatre program at school. Katheryn doesn’t think much of U.C.L.A. theatre, and would never see me perform there.

  “Sid calls himself Nelson Leigh now,” she says, “since he first took over the role of Jesus. I mean, how could a man named Christie play the Christus?” followed by the  familiar, deep-throat laugh. Nelson had played Jesus more than any other actor during the play’s twenty-one year run in the Pilgrimage Theatre nestled in the hills above Cahuenga Pass across from the Hollywood Bowl.

  In the summer 1935 season, after touring with Ian MacLaren in Shakespearean repertoire, Sid returned to play John the Beloved; in following years, understudying Reginald Pole in the role of Jesus. At the close of the 1936 season, Pole became ill and Sid Christie, changing his name to Nelson Leigh, begins his long run as Jesus.

  On a warm June morning (the same day my kid-sister Jane is graduating from Franklin High School), walking down the sloping aisle of the huge outdoor theatre, noting the hard pew-like benches, I look up to the elevated stage to see a big, strapping man appraising me with his large gray eyes, standing like a Jerusalem Patriarch. I recognize him at once—movie actor, Moroni Olsen, from film, “Notorious,” as FBI agent, and also the detective who interrogates Joan Crawford in “Mildred Pierce.”

  Assistant stage manager, lanky Paul J. McGuire, ex Marine colonel, hands me sides for James, “Son of Zebedee,” John the Beloved’s brother. I go at it, voice full blast—remembering Offill in high school shouting from the back of the auditorium as I read for the part of Scrooge in the “Christmas Carol,” “My God, what a voice!”

  JAMES – “Master!  Master!”  PAUL McGUIRE AS PETER – “What troubeleth thee James?”  JAMES – “John the Baptist is dead! Herod hath slain him!” PAUL AS PETER – “John the Baptist dead?—how, James, how?” JAMES – “To satisfy the whim of Salome, his severed head was placed before her on a charger!”

  Deep, booming voices which would project to the far reaches of this outdoor theatre open to the sky were essential, I would learn, for getting cast in the Pilgrimage Play—no microphones to help overcome roaring traffic in Cahuenga pass, abetted somewhat by the theatre’s towering arches at the entrance, rising like the walls of Jerusalem. During performances, searchlights overhead warned off airplanes—to protect the Hollywood Bowl’s acoustics. We didn’t need their protection—nature’s own sounding board rose up behind our stage—a real, Southern California hillside with scrub brushes and knotty California oaks, and an occasional tarantula spider crawling nearby on some nights as we slept in the Garden of Gethsemane.

  Fortunately a deep, rumbling voice wasn’t required for James. I got the part. Moroni Olsen is smiling. He is, as it happens, only assistant director, but has final say in casting, apparently. I will be paid forty dollars a week, nothing for rehearsal time. The following season. I hoped next summer, or the next, I would snag the more identifiable role of John the Beloved who also needn’t have a booming voice. I had all the requirements for John the Beloved—blue eyes to match the robe he wears. (In 1961, I would at last play him.)

  For those of us in minor roles, performing in the Pil Play with no audience reaction whatsoever, no applause at the end when Jesus ascends to heaven, didn’t do much for our careers, or our sensitive egos. Music by way of turgid organ. But there was no stopping the donkey who carried Jesus into Jerusalem, honking off stage unexpectedly—particularly annoying when he chose the quiet Last Supper scene for his intrusive hee-haw.  Someone—the assistant stage manager, no doubt—had forgotten to feed him.

  One afternoon during rehearsals in this my first season, large, happy-with-an-edge, Grady Sutton approached me at the side of the stage. I recognized him at once—one of the cluster of movie actors who played effeminate men in straight roles, appearing in films during the late 1930s and early ‘40s—society playboy who’s tricked into an engagement by Carole Lombard in “My Man Godfrey,” Katheryn Grayson’s date, Bertram Kraler, in the opening reels of “Anchor’s Aweigh.”

  “Are they casting?” he asks me with a quiet, put-on masculine voice, unlike his on-screen persona. Directing him to the stage manager, watching him walk away, head down, I feel for the man with so many film credits, scrounging around for work. He wasn’t cast, and I needn’t have worried. Grady continued to appear in films in later years, even into the 1960s, one of the many easily recognized Hollywood unknowns.

  Cast of the Pilgrimage Play includes some exotic and fascinating people—“picture people” who’d been in films since the silent days—some literally coming out of the woodwork from Hollywood’s golden era, including in 1948 Tempe Pigott, now at the end of a long radio-film career (“Dizzy Dates” a radio show in 1933)—her very name evoked wonder—a somewhat wizened woman we looked upon with deep respect and awe. Stanley Price as Judas Iscariot, “the original Abie in Abie’s Irish Rose on Broadway.”

  (In 1961, I would meet Walter Long playing Peter who “entered motion pictures in the old Essany Company in Chicago in 1909.” He then was house-sitting for Buster Keaton and drinks were brought to the pool on a miniature train freight car.)

  Back to 1948—C. Montague Shaw, the First Pharisee, the oldest member of the cast, “in point of service,” marking his fifteenth year. “Monty” played villains on screen in Warner Brothers costume dramas and had a long career as radio actor.

  Mary Adams played Mary, Mother of Jesus. She began her theatrical career in San Francisco, later in Oakland, Salt Lake City, touring the Western states and Canada. In the 1946-47 Broadway season she played in Hamlet as Gertrude with Maurice Evans. During the war she’d performed with the Entertainment Section of the Army Special Service, serving three years in the Pacific Area. Our close friendship developed in another decade, however—thirteen years later in 1961, standing by my side as Mother Mary once again, with John the Beloved watching a crudely staged crucifixion scene. (1961 was the first year the crucifixion scene was staged.) Friendship with Mary flourished, enduring and endearing, until the end of her life.

  Summer, 1949 – again avoiding the requisite Summer Stock course at U.C.L.A. to appear in the Pilgrimage Play. How could I possibly miss this season? The play was to be filmed, qualifying us for membership in the Screen Actors Guild. My personal take onmaking the film is chronicled in a letter written to friend Bill Curtis. (Bill sent this letter to me in the late 1990s.)

Tuesday, September 6, 1949
523½ Carondelet St.
Los Angeles 5, Calif.

(to) William D. Curtis
 202 E. 12^th St., Marysville,
California

  Dear Bill, Now that my first—and last week under klieg lights has ended I can write to you with some clarity. It was hysterical most of the time, and instead of the actors talking about how good they were, the prime subject of conversation was always where is the camera, and do we get paid for overtime? (We didn’t because we were on a $145 weekly S.A.G. contract.)

  During the last week of the Pil play, our ex-colonel stage manager, Paul McGuire, announced that a movie would be made. The following night the film’s casting director interviewed us and asked each (individually) if we would be willing to work for the minimum weekly of $145. I said I didn’t mind, and I was in without a screen test. The following night shooting scripts were issued, then a one-week shooting schedule. Nobody thought it could be filmed in one week, but it was.

  Well, a week ago last Monday I reported to Hal Roach studios early in the morning for make-up. (The commissary has the delightful name, “B & M Roach Café.”) For some silly reason we weren’t allowed to put on our own make-up. A guy called Dave Newall (Claudette Colbert’s first leading man, he said) slapped pancake on my face and sent me off to wardrobe.

  I was in dressing room #2, wainscoting and a chaise lounge, with other disciples. Arriving at Sound Stage Six we found two sets both used in the Ingrid Bergman “Joan of Arc.” On one side the bastions of Orleans and on the other a medium sized exterior with olive trees “so like those found in the Holy Land” and a monstrous cyclorama. As we entered someone shouted “light-em-all-boys,” and several huge floods exploded; Jesus’s curlers were taken out of his hair and he walked into the exterior setting; the assistant director shouted “Quiet! this is a take!” the sound man waited until the air was purified of extraneous noises; sticks, and “action” and all that.

  We became bored and went off to the Roach Café for coffee.

  On some days the picture was shot “on the hill” at the Pilgrimage Bowl. The best part of this was that we got a free lunch. It didn’t take me long to realize that unless you are a lead, you’re not going to get any special attention. On some days we worked (this consisted of standing around most of the time), but on a day like last Friday we sat around from ten till six before we were even wanted on the set at all.

  I have a couple of fairly close shots of myself. Here’s hoping I look halfway decent. I did see some “rushes” the other day, but they were all mob scenes.

  My final conclusion is that the only value in Hollywood is money, unless – as one disciple put it – you can write your script, play the lead, direct the show and be your own cameraman. It seemed like everything was for the camera and the sound tract. However, there were some bits of fine acting by Judas, and Jesus.

  I can join Screen Actors Guild now anytime I wish on the strength of the movie. It was filmed on 16 mm in kodachrome color. At least I’m on film now – and that’s important, I guess.  But – if you’ll pardon my vulgarity – apart from the money angle, they can take Hollywood and shove it. The glamour of having someone rush up and powder your face wears out after an hour or so. It was an exciting week, however, and I won’t forget it very soon. Summarily – the lack of imagination is appalling.

  I haven’t seen anyone from school this summer except Bob Rogers who was at the bar in Laguna Beach a couple of weeks ago. I got a “B” from Eddie in Lighting somehow – Freud gave me an “A” for Theatre History. I haven’t read as much as I would like to have. Last week wasn’t conducive to it. However, I’ve managed “Elmer Gantry,” “Gideon Planish” and a very delightful thing by Otis Skinner, “Mad Folk of the Theatre.” Now I’m starting in on Robert Nathan.

  Write me just one before you come back, will you Bill?  Here’s hoping for a more than mediocre fall season.  Don’t break your back picking those peaches! Truly yours,

  The above is (close to) verbatim, although I’ve added “picking those peaches.” I should’ve made a reference to Bill’s summertime occupation, and do so now.

  I wasn’t to see final results of “The Pilgrimage Play” film until 2011! found in the TCM vaults on DVD, and it appears I got a lot more coverage, good camera position, and had many more lines than I remember. Watching it after sixty-years was a trip!

  In my letter to Bill, I also failed to mention my new living situation, moving at last from Highland Park to a three bedroom second floor apartment in the MacArthur Park district, close to Wilshire Boulevard—roommates, Mark Buchoz, his friend, Mickey Feay, and Don Olson, a former hustler Mark had fallen for. I’m now some twenty miles closer to school, and no transfers on the bus (with occasional intriguing pick-ups hitchhiking). Continuing with occasional swipes into the Hollywood scene, usually with Mark, Mickey, and Don—much to the chagrin of a puzzled Bill Curtis—hot, sweaty excursions to Laguna Beach in summertime to splash in the surf and cruise the bars—dancing not allowed. Don’s a good looking kid with troubled brown eyes, his smiles often twisted with frowns as if anticipating something gone wrong, etched there perhaps in his hustling days—now reformed apparently and devoted to Mark.

NEXT – Farewell to Hollywood.