Eva Le Gallienne: Be Gentle
I knew he [Tennessee] would want me to be honest with Le G’s words, but gentle in the telling of how they came to be shared.
When I interviewed actress Kim Hunter in 1989 for Follies of God, I told her that I hoped to speak to Eva Le Gallienne, but I did not know if she was well enough to talk about her interactions with Tennessee Williams.
Hunter, who had forged a friendship with Le Gallienne during their time working on the Joanna Glass play “To Grandmother’s House We Go,” in 1981, told me that she remained in touch with Le G, and that she had “her days,” by which Hunter meant she was fully herself some days and not on others.
Hunter promised to reach out to Le G on my behalf.
Within a few days, I heard from two women important in the life of Eva Le Gallienne: Eloise Armen, referred to by many as a “saint” for the care she provided to the older actress, and Anne Kaufman Schneider, the daughter of George S. Kaufman, who had grown close—and ultimately intimate—with Le G during work on Ellis Rabb’s 1975 revival of “The Royal Family” (written by Mr. Kaufman and Edna Ferber). The women were in something of a benign contest: Armen was concerned with the care and treatment of Le G as an aging woman, and Schneider was concerned with the legacy of the great actress being preserved.
Anne Kaufman Schneider was the more forthcoming of the two: She told me that Le G (or Evale, as she called her) went “in and out of time,” and I would have to wait and see if there were times when she could answer the specific questions Tennessee had prepared for her, or to respond to statements he had made. I was instructed to send these questions and comments to an address in Connecticut, as well as to an address in New York City, which I later learned was the apartment of Ms. Schneider. Days would pass, and I would hear the distinctive voice of Ms. Schneider on the telephone, telling me that today was a good day, but “keep it quick and keep it brief,” and then to Le G (or me?) “You’re on!”
My conversations with Eva Le Gallienne were full, and she had a stronger command of things in the distant past than of those more recently. Even though Kim Hunter had arranged our coming together, Le G drew a blank when her name was mentioned, but Schneider would remind her of the play, the role Hunter had played, and Le G would be fulsome in her praise, in her memories of particular things Hunter had done.
Everything I gathered from Eva Le Gallienne was shared with Schneider, whom I would first meet in person in 1992, through Ellis Rabb, who was attempting another resurrection of his APA theatre, and with Eloise Armen, who was polite, but did not understand the often prickly connection that existed between Tennessee and Le G.
I became closer to Schneider in 2006, when we began to spend time together, and I gave her the chapter on Le G, the notes taken during the telephone conversations, and I asked her to confirm the telephone calls. Schneider was fine with all of what I had gathered, but she made an urgent plea: Do not, please, let it be known what a struggle it was to get Le Gallienne up and able to talk with any clarity.
I wanted to honor Le G, Schneider, and Tennessee Williams, who remembered the actress (who died in 1991) as a great woman, a teacher, a force who tried to inject some discipline into him. I did not comment on the efforts to speak to Le Gallienne: I simply provided the words.
There are those who might think this dishonest, but I was honoring a request from Tennessee Williams. There was a journey he wished me to take, and I knew he would want me to be honest with Le G’s words, but gentle in the telling of how they came to be shared.