THE CURTAIN SLOWLY DESCENDS

Written by Ace Goodman
From "Saturday Review" magazine July 17, 1965

     It has just begun to sink in. Judy Holliday is dead. At a time like this what good is it being a writer? Here I sit before a machine with a handful of alphabet staring up at me and the only words that seem to form are sorry, loss, solace, and all those futile clichés that go with messages of condolence.

     My acquaintance with this finest and most sensitive of the theater’s comediennes began some fifteen years ago when I was writing The Big Show, starring Tallulah Bankhead, radio’s last gasp before the onslaught of television. This hour-and-a-half, big-name presentation was a weekly series on NBC, and each show found its guest list peoples with six or seven of the most glamorous names in entertainment.

     So it was only natural that Judy should have been one of our earliest guests after her triumph as Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday. She did a scene from Garson Kanin’s comedy hit and, of course, she was perfection. But it was in the dialogue that followed, attendant to some chatting our guests always did with Miss Bankhead, that I began to realize that this dumb blonde, Billie Dawn, was the very antithesis of this brilliant woman, Judy Holliday.

     Judy was a worrisome girl. She read each line we wrote for her on that first show, and for the many subsequent shows to which she was invited back, with a keen and searching mind, arguing whether a line fit the character she played, whether the comedic line was properly motivated by the straight line. She gave us hours of rewrite and rewrite, until she was contented with what she had to speak.

     But with Judy it was for me always a labor of love. We knew we would always get a bright and shining performance — an understanding reading filled with shaded nuances and a delivery that was timed to the split second for the audience response we were seeking.

     The character we developed for her on the show was in the mold of Billie Dawn. She was a little suspicious of the glamorous Miss Bankhead — a little timid, yet still ready to grapple with this formidable and unpredictable figure.

     “A superb characterization, Judy,” Miss Bankhead said when the scene from the play had ended. “Come on over and let’s chat.”

     And Judy, looking her over carefully, said “About what?”

     “Why Judy, whenever an actress comes on our show we always have to talk”

     “Why?”

     “People expect it. This is The Big Show.”

     “No wonder you’re here for an hour and a half. If you didn’t talk so much you could be home in a half-hour like everyone else.”

     And so on.

     The Judy Holliday trademark was on every line. Just as it was in the excerpt form Born Yesterday, which she performed for us that night. It was the scene with the newspaperman who has been hired by Judy’s gauche husband to make a soft and well-spoken lady of her. This was their first meeting, and he said, “Billie—that’s a sort of an odd name, isn’t it?”

     “What are you talkin’? Half the kids I know are named it. Anyway, it’s not my real name.”

     “What is?”

     “Holy smoke! Emma”

     “What’s the matter?”

     "Do I look like an Emma?”

     “No, you don’t look like a Billie, either?”

     “So what do I look like?”

     "You look like a very sweet girl."

     (Pause)
     “Lemme ask you, are you one of these talkers or would you be innarested in a little action?”

     A line still quoted fifteen years later.

     And yet — and when I say this I genuflect admiringly in the direction of the brilliant Garson Kanin and the genius of his playwriting from title to final curtain — and yet, even in print these lines hold the magic of Judy; one still hears her voice, her inflections, her own personal idiom.

     Three years ago I was writing a hour special for her on television. From the start she was intrigued with the concept. She laughed aloud at the comedy lines when she first read the script. Then one day she phoned me. Her agile mind had been at work picking out little things here and there, phrasing, reconstructing, timing, wondering if the character’s reactions were true. I said, “Judy, the trouble with you is you ask too many logical questions.” She asked if we could meet later in the day to discuss it. I agreed.

     While I waited for her in the lobby of my hotel, I thought we’d go to a quiet spot in some elegant restaurant and over a cup of coffee come to some sort of compromise. She showed up in the lobby wearing some tight-fitting jeans, sneakers, her hair in disarray, and wearing a catcher’s mitt. She had been playing ball with her son in the park. The restaurant bit was out. We went to my office, where we made some minor changes. The next day the show went on the air.

     The morning after the show the reviews came out. They were divided. But two of the local critics had said, “Too bad Miss Holliday couldn’t rise above the material.” That evening I found in the box at the hotel a note delivered by hand by Miss Holliday. I’ve never shown it to the critics or anyone else. This is the note:

Dear Goody:

     I had to tell you that I thought the reviews with the exception of the Times and Telegram were most unfair.
I know it’s traditional to blame the writing. It’s almost a reflex action. But in this case it was unwarranted and
unjust. I thought the material was excellent. The fault, I’m sorry to say, lay with the performance. I just didn’t
go that extra step to mastery.

Love, Judy.

     Suddenly, midway through life, she’s gone. And from the depth of our loss we, like Judy, ask one logical question. Why?

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