Barbara Baxley on Sandy Dennis
"Not everyone needs to love Sandy or get her, but for a lot of people, she was great. She was just right."
Barbara Baxley and I spent many days together. Baxley was among the first women I contacted when I moved to New York in 1989, and she was generous with her time and her contacts. One of the people Baxley introduced me to was Sandy Dennis, whom she considered a very good friend. I audited some of Sandy’s classes at HB Studio, but was never able to talk to her for more than a few minutes each time. Sandy was very upfront with me about her health, and the cancer treatments had taken a toll on her. She arrived to class wearing a turban, and an assistant would periodically bring her Popsicles to deal with what Sandy called her “Sahara mouth.” However, Sandy continued to teach. She loved her students. She adored William Hickey, who often came to watch her classes, and who asked her to look in on his class because he was particularly proud of a student. Sandy also admired another fellow teacher—Helen Gallagher—but she admitted that she was frightened of her, because “she is so damned smart.”
Sandy received large envelopes at HB Studio from people all over the world who had read of her cancer in the tabloids. Sandy read every note and letter, and was amazed by the kindness of others. Sandy said to me “I’m talking to you because Barbara likes you and trusts you. I don’t trust people who say they’re writing things, because they are almost always so cruel—so, so cruel—to me. I don’t know why. I don’t know what I might have done to these people. I want your book to happen, but I don’t know what I can do for you. But let’s see.”
I went to Barbara and asked her why Sandy felt people—writers—were so cruel to her.
Well, Jesus, are you dumb? They were cruel to her. You’ve quoted some of them yourself. It was a studied, analytical cruelty. Look, we all have our ways, and our talents don’t please everyone. We are not for every taste or every market, but critics really had in it for Sandy. Her voice, her looks, her buck teeth. She was an Alice in Wonderland drawing whose words couldn’t cross the road. She made an acting style out of post-nasal drip. At least once a critic wondered if she might be mentally retarded. It was vicious. I think a lot of it was envy. You had Walter Kerr slobbering all over her, and because critics are in competition with each other, some would attack Sandy to get at him. Oh, you liked her? You liked that play? What an idiot you are, so we’re going to write something really mean to show we’re clever and we’re on to both of you.
How did you meet Sandy?
I joke that we’re related through Bill Inge. Sandy was hired by [Elia] Kazan for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. She was an understudy. I was on the books to tour in the play, and Bill wanted me around a lot, because we had grown close. So I met her through Bill. I may have seen her or passed her, but I met her through Bill. She was so young and shy, and I didn’t see the actress in her at first. I saw a very smart, shy young woman. In time we grew close, and I came to really love her. I do love her. And her mother. They are a force, those two.
Why do you think Kazan was so hard on her in his memoir?
Oh, who the hell knows? I think he likes controversy. I think he likes to get attention. He has always been very opinionated and very mercurial. I think he wrote beautifully about Jo [Van Fleet], but my God, he’s got his wife [Barbara Loden] vomiting and dying painfully, and the men he loved are dying like they’re in a gorgeous oil painting. Dignity for the men; soap opera for the wife. I don’t know. I owe a lot to Kazan, but I’m aware of his flaws, I can tell you. I think he turned against Sandy because Sandy was in that play—Jesus, what was it called? The one that Sandy did with Altman.
Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean…
Yeah, that one. Sandy was in it a long time ago, and Barbara Loden was directing. I don’t think Sandy respected Loden as a director, and they clashed. Barbara Loden fired Sandy, then took over the role. I don’t know the details, and I am here to tell you that Sandy won’t talk about it. That’s her way. I tell everything, bear every grudge, but Sandy moves on. Anyway, Sandy did it for Altman on stage and in the film. A Pyrrhic victory, if you ask me. I thought that play was bastardized Inge. But I’m very defensive of Bill Inge, as you’ve noticed.
What did Bill Inge think of Sandy?
He loved her. He loved what he called her Midwestern strangeness. Same with Yvonne, Sandy’s mother. These are utterly unique, eccentric women, who do not give a shit what anyone thinks of them and they way they live their lives. This is the exact opposite of Bill Inge, who cared far too much what people were thinking and saying about him. He lived in a crouch, you know? So he was drawn to tough, confident women. He loved me. He loved Sandy. He loved Shirley Knight. He loved Shirley Booth. I think it’s safe to say that Eileen Heckart and I were his guardians. You do not fuck with Eileen Heckart, and you do not fuck with me. He knew we would come to his defense, both publicly and when he was holed up in his room writing and drinking and doubting. Eileen—she’s called Heckie—and I would go in there and slap some sense into him. Sandy is a gentler guardian. She believes in him and she’s smart—very smart—so she can talk to him about his work in the scheme of all writing, all theatre. Sandy is very well-read. I hope you get a chance to talk to her, but she’s got her battles now. So….we’ll see.
Do you know how Tennessee met Sandy? He talked to me about her, but he didn’t tell me where or when they met?
I don’t know the details, but everyone—everyone—met Sandy during that time she was so active and praised and all over the place. Sandy was overwhelmed during that time. She often couldn’t handle it. So maybe during all of that she met Tenn. I remember Sandy being so happy that Tenn invited her to dinner and said he wanted to work with her, but you’ve got to know that Tenn did that with so many women. I’m not shitting on Tenn, but he had a…what? Knack? Tendency? Tic? He liked to hang out with actresses and praise them and see if they could get him inspired or get him on track to do a play. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, but I think with Sandy, when she was so hot, Tenn might have thought that they would have been a good pairing. Ironically, Sandy ultimately did Tenn’s work far from New York, and she was great, I hear. Why wouldn’t she be?
Is it true that you often comforted Sandy when she got slammed by critics?
Who told you that?
Jo Van Fleet.
Well, she’s right. I didn’t think that was known. My first thought was that it might have been Kim Stanley who told you that, but you haven’t reached her yet, have you?
I sent her a letter.
I hope she gets back. Kim is crucial to understanding Tenn and Bill Inge. Anyway, Sandy was praised and beaten up by critics, and it was constant. She really had a hard time, because she was followed and written about and gossiped about. It was too much. I don’t know who could have handled all of that attention and envy, but it was not Sandy. Sandy is very sensitive. I told you that Sandy is not like me—she’s not a grudge collector. She moves on. However, everything seeps into her and stays there. She took every mean thing written by her as if it were a stab wound, and it pissed me off. It alarmed me. It alarmed everyone who loved Sandy. And what was the big deal? What the fuck did Sandy do? She was hired as she was; she was directed to be what she was. People acted like she forced a style on every play or director, and this is bullshit.
You can hate anybody. There are actors I can’t stand. That’s personal, subjective stuff. Not everyone needs to love Sandy or get her, but for a lot of people, she was great. She was just right. How much control do people think we have over the work we get? I love it when writers criticize actors for the choices they’ve made. How much fucking power do they think we have? We’re not sitting around pushing away hundreds of offers. I’m not talking about myself: I was never a star with lots of offers, but Sandy was in demand. I got to know Lily [Tomlin] during Nashville, and I really love her. I love her and her work. I get so furious when people write of their disappointment on choices she’s made, as if the faith they placed in her was dashed, like she was a political candidate who had made a promise to them through a performance or an Oscar nomination. Actresses take parts and hope for the best. We’re not psychics. I’ve done things I thought would be successful. I still think they should have been. We don’t know, but there are assholes who look at actresses and judge them on what they’ve done. We all have to make a living, and we all have to keep working to improve our acting. Am I boring the shit out of you?
No.
I kept surprising people. I would do something by Bill Inge or Tennessee Williams, and then I’d show up in Shaw or Congreve. I’d do a musical. This fucks people up, who either say, Who the hell does she think she is doing a musical? Or, Who the fuck knew she could do that? You win and you lose. Sandy didn’t have the opportunity in New York or in her movies to show the range I always knew she had. But she went to some small college in Texas to do Christopher Fry. She wanted to do Fry, and no one could see her in it, so she went and worked with kids in a college. She went to Pittsburgh to do plays no one else could see her in. I went to the Bill Inge Festival a couple of years ago, and Garson Kanin said she got the rights to Born Yesterday, and did it way in the boondocks. Sandy was willful. She was going to do it, regardless of what others thought, and she had enough money to take the time to work for little or nothing. I hate that people think of her as neurasthenic or weak. Sandy is tough.
Sandy said I should mention The Three Sisters to you.
Why?
She said you fought for her.
Well, we all did. Kim [Stanley] was the primary fighter. Sandy wasn’t good in the play, and she knew it, but she had no direction. Lee [Strasberg] was ghastly to her. That’s when I left the Studio, and I never spoke to Lee again. He behaved abominably. Poor planning, and he blamed the actors. Sandy could have been good in that part, but she didn’t have the time, and she didn’t have the direction. I think she wants to praise me for yelling at Lee on her behalf, but, really, Kim was the heroine of that production. And, you know, Gerry [Page], who didn’t come with us to London, heard about the treatment and the reviews and the people yelling at us, and she reached out and wondered what was happing to our theatre. Gerry was very loyal to Lee and the Actors Studio Theatre. She told us it was our theatre, and I think she would have been an usher to one the plays they did if she wasn’t on the stage. But she came to Sandy’s defense, and she no longer thought of it as our theatre or her theatre after that. God, Gerry and Sandy were brilliant in that comedy. You know the one. Come on!
“Absurd Person Singular.”
Thank you. Both of them brilliant. Fucking people up, because they had been typed as serious, neurotic actresses. Listen, do some work and write about where actresses are placed, pushed. There’s a good subject. I taught at Carnegie-Mellon, and this actress—Laura San Giacomo—was the best one there. I really got her. Now she’s doing well. She’s got a hit film. There’s Frances McDormand. I did Mrs. Warren’s Profession with her. These are both wonderful actresses, and they’re uniquely beautiful. Odd. Tough. Smart. I can’t wait to see how they manage things. I see Sandy in them, and I hope they manage the shit better.
TO BE CONTINUED.