Tweet

It was during his RKO tenure that he, Gregory Peck and other Selznick-contractees (Dorothy McGuire, Joseph Cotten and Selznick’s wife, Jennifer Jones) founded a producing-acting unit which presented, for the most part at the LaJolla Playhouse, a series of remarkably dull plays with casts of high-priced talents. By ’52 this project was more or less abandoned and Ferrer signed with MGM, where he was used in a plush re-make of SCARAMOUCHE, and co-starred in one of the most successful “sleepers” in film history – LILI.

It was at this propitious point that Ferrer, again estranged from Miss Pilchard, who then had no immediate plans for a second divorce, met Miss Hepburn. Their sudden rapport prompted him to suggest that he and she co-star on stage if a suitable vehicle could be found. Miss Hepburn’s reaction was a quick and complete assent. Miss Pilchard’s reaction was suing for divorce.

But Miss Hepburn was committed to making SABRINA in Hollywood, and Ferrer, after completing in England a role in MGM’s KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE, hurried to Hollywood to prepare for a stage production of Jean Giraudoux’s ONDINE, starring Miss Hepburn and himself, which Alfred Lunt had agreed to direct.

When a prior commitment obliged Cary Grant, who had a verbal agreement with Billy Wilder to play a lead in SABRINA, to cancel out, Humphrey Bogart replaced him as a stuffy scion who falls for his chauffeur’s daughter. His open hostility toward Wilder made many think the cinemation of Samuel Taylor’s play, SABRINA FAIR, was doomed. But it turned out very well, and Miss Hepburn’s performance was nominated for an Academy Award. Said Bosley Crowther in his “NY Times” review: “The magical young lady who played the princess in ROMAN HOLIDAY, is less surprising than some of the others, for her fragile, bewitching charm and grace flow beautifully into the character of the chauffeur’s lovely daughter. Humphrey Bogart’s delightful performance of an industrial hermit who turns unintentional beau is one of the most surprising and affecting he has ever done.”

ONDINE opened on Broadway in February ’54 and Miss Hepburn was justly acclaimed for her magical performance as a water nymph, sensationally costumed in a fish-net creation designed by Valentina. And in the midst of this triumph she was nominated for an Academy Award for ROMAN HOLIDAY.

Much of her euphoria, however, evaporated when critics aspersed Ferrer’s wooden performance and audiences resented his taking tandem curtain calls with Miss Hepburn. Alfred Lunt admitted he had been responsible for the co-star curtain calls, but he couldn’t resist adding that Ferrer had been “difficult” to direct. A month after ONDINE premiered Miss Hepburn was taking solo curtain calls. And with good reason: she won an Academy Award and a Tony Award in the same week, thereby duplicating Shirley Booth’s feat. Miss Booth won her Oscar for COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA and her Tony for THE TIME OF THE CUCKOO.

The day after she won the Oscar Miss Hepburn told the press: “I never lost consciousness all night. I just lay there in a sort of wakeful dream with pretty pictures in my head. It’s difficult to say what the nicest things that ever happened to me are. But this, surely, is one of them.”

Miss Hepburn’s mother arrived in Hollywood around the time SABRINA commenced filming. At first careful to keep out of public attention, she went out of her way to deny to the press that her daughter was romantically involved with Ferrer. After ONDINE closed and Miss Hepburn and Ferrer retreated to Switzerland, the Baroness was accused of having tried to make Miss Hepburn, Hollywood’s newest and brightest star, a show business obscurity.

Miss Hepburn and Ferrer were married in a mountaintop chalet on September 26, ’54 and she suffered a miscarriage in early ’55. Then, while holidaying in St. Moritz, they were joined by King Vidor, who had been begging Miss Hepburn to play Natasha in his proposed cinemation of WAR AND PEACE. His outline of how he would film the romance, military campaigns and philosophy of Tolstoy’s classic was so vivid Miss Hepburn capitulated. Vidor had signed Ferrer for a major role a year earlier. As soon as Miss Hepburn signed Vidor announced that he was starting production immediately. And with good reason.

Four months before David 0. Selznick had announced that he would begin filming a production of WAR AND PEACE, based on a Ben Hecht screenplay, in June ’55. Simultaneously, Michael Todd had proclaimed that his version, based on a Robert Anderson script, would begin filming in May, and MGM had announced that work on its version would start in August. All the announcements stated that filming would be in Italy and all had hinted that Audrey Hepburn had agreed to play Natasha.

Vidor’s WAR AND PEACE has defects, but consider these facts: he was more or less coerced into premature filming in two countries (Italy and Yugoslavia) before he had a completely satisfactory script; the film he shot was processed in two other countries (England and the US); his multi-national financing was not smoothly coordinated; principal photography was completed in four months. Vidor’s WAR AND PEACE is a truly staggering achievement.

Because of Miss Hepburn’s frail condition during the filming of WAR AND PEACE Ferrer doubled off-screen as her liaison when they felt changes, advantageous to her best interests, seemed necessary. In conveying his wife’s wishes Ferrer did not endear himself to Vidor. The latter, however, still maintains Miss Hepburn is his favorite among all the actresses he has directed.

I think her performance in WAR AND PEACE can not be faulted and that she made a substantial contribution to that film. Not a few critics found much to admire, but WAR AND PEACE did very little commercially during its roadshow engagement in that season of screen spectacles (AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS; THE TEN COMMANDMENTS), and even less when a truncated version was put into general release. Sergei Bondarchuk’s eight-hour WAR AND PEACE, released here over a decade later, owed much to Vidor’s film. Everyone commented that Ludmila Savelyeva, the Soviet actress who played Natasha in Bondarchuk’s version, bore a striking resemblance to Miss Hepburn.

WAR AND PEACE completed Hepburn’s obligations to Paramount and she let it be known that the offers she would deem the most attractive were those which would utilize her husband (on a concurrent production if there was nothing for him in the script she selected). She turned down THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK because George Stevens was unable, or unwilling, to agree to these terms.

Probably for similar reasons, Ferrer’s studio, MGM, which owned the screen rights to GIGI, declined to have Miss Hepburn repeat her stage role in the filmusical of it that Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe had concocted.

Paramount thought a filmusical starring Audrey Hepburn would make a packet and it acquired from MGM a property called WEDDING DAY; retitled it FUNNY FACE; retained Roger Edens to produce; hired Stanley Donen to direct; and agreed to let Ferrer direct Miss Hepburn in a film at MGM.

“Coming from WAR AND PEACE to this,” Edens said at the time, “Miss Hepburn was all shrewd businesswoman till the deal was signed a long, drawn-out process, believe me. But once it was set, she was all for it.”

Continue to page: 1 2 3 4 5 6