A WHOLE WEEK OF HOLLIDAYS

by Lawrence Langer (co-director of the Theatre Guild)
From "Theatre Arts" magazine March, 1957

Judy is seven girls in one...

     I was seated at the Shubert Theatre watching a recent performance of Judy Holliday in Bells Are Ringing, the new Theatre Guild musical play, when my attention was arrested by Sydney Chaplin's song "I Met a Girl (A Wonderful Girl)."

     Judy Holliday is not just one girl, I thought---she is at least seven; and as I watched the play, I saw all seven appear in turn, each contributing her share to Judy's over-all portrayal of the character of Ella, the warmhearted operator of the telephone-answering service in Bells Are Ringing who sets out to make a better world for her subscribers.

     In the opening scene of the play Judy sings a little song called "It's a Perfect Relationship," which tells us that she has fallen in love with a voice on the other end of the phone. She reminded me vividly of a time years ago when she first appeared in a legitimate theatre, at our summer playhouse in Westport, Connecticut. She was the youngest member of a group known as The Revuers. This revue was put together by her, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who performed in it, and the cast also included an unknown dancer from Pittsburgh. The dancer turned out to be Gene Kelly, who was hired almost at once by the Theatre Guild for The Time of Your Life, and has since been heard from frequently. Judy had then the same air of being in transition from childhood to maturity, and that shy quality, so unlikely in a nightclub performer, is with her still.

     Then, as the play progresses, Judy Holliday the comedienne emerges; not just the Judy of Born Yesterday but the actress of many comic resources, such as those displayed in her recent film The Solid Gold Cadillac. She brings to mind Ina Claire, our deftest comedienne, who virtually began as a star without the usual weary preliminaries. Ina passed from the stage of the Ziegfeld Follies to the lead in The Gold Diggers. Judy's first big part on Broadway was also a star role, and she has remained a star.

     The third Judy Holliday also suggests Ina Claire, who, in her Ziegfeld days, was remarkable for her mimicry of famous actors and singers. Judy is an adroit mimic too, and in Bells Are Ringing she parodies in turn a restaurant owner with a hilarious French accent, the Duchess of Windsor's secretary with Mayfair dripping from her lips, and finally a Marlon Brandoesque female with a full set of marbles in her mouth.

     The fourth Judy Holliday is a singer who can put across a comedy song such as "Is It a Crime?" with all the verve of Ethel Merman, or a dramatic song such as "The Party's Over" with the vocal style of our best musical-comedy actresses. And she delivers these songs with vitality and precision of timing, though this is her first appearance as a singer on the Broadway stage. It isn't all spontaneity: Some of it is training. Before she became a star, she spent several years studying voice with Sonya Blinder, wife of my partner, the late Harry Blinder; and she can still toss off some of the bel canto of Traviata.

     The fifth Judy Holliday is a dramatic actress, one who displays a warmth and emotional range, and a quality comparable to that of Helen Hayes; they have a similar economy of gesture and body movement. Where another actress might move fuzzily from one position to another with a gestures, Helen will make her point with one simple movement of her hands or shoulders. Judy has that same economy, learned, probably, from studying the work of others, though it is largely instinctive. Judy used to study Laurette Taylor in numerous performances of The Glass Menagerie. Like Lynn Fontanne, Judy thinks of Laurette as the actresses' actress.

     In a surprising show of versatility Judy next does a turn as a dancer. Not that she is a ballerina, but, with the coaching of Jerome Robbins, she manages several modern dances, including a cha-cha, with the grace of an old hand---or foot---unabashed by the fact that she is dancing with some of New York's most seasoned professionals.

     Finally there is the seventh Judy Holliday, the vaudeville headliner. In the last number of Bells Are Ringing, she is not only herself but kind of a one-woman anthology of vaudeville talent, turned loose in one hilarious number, "I'm Goin' Back (...to the Bonjour Tristesse Brassiere Company)." She suddenly is a little of everybody---a dash of Eddie Cantor as she dances across the stage, Al Jolson as she sings the "Mama" part of the song, and Eve Tanguay as she shakes her arms with an "I Don't Care" gesture. And she ends the song with the George M. Cohan exit. But with all the reminiscences, she remains triumphantly herself.

     In all seven variations of herself Judy is mindful of the audience and its moods. She can pique people out of listlessness, if she senses that lethal spirit among them; and when she brings them to life, she borrows from them the very life she has stimulated. She goes to her work, at each performance, much as though she were going to a party. She did not miss a performance of Born Yesterday for three years on Broadway.

     But she is no believer in the notion (sometimes cherished by less modest stars) that the star alone can make a show; she insists that her success in Bells Are Ringing is first of all the success of the material provided by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Jule Styne, the first two of whom have known her from childhood.

     "Nobody," Judy told this writer, "can give a good performance unless the authors and composers have written a good part, a fact which is often overlooked." And so saying, all seven Judy Hollidays sat down in Sardi's and ate a sirloin steak which was certainly substantial enough for at least three of them.

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