Julie Harris: The World Just Moves
"These things that are troubling you are signs of what you should be correcting."
When David Rothenberg arranged for me to interview Julie Harris in 1991, during her run as Isak Dinesen in William Luce’s Lucifer’s Child, neither he nor I realized that I was about to enter into a fascinating relationship with the actress that was a course in correct thinking and living.
David Rothenberg, fascinating and always in movement, was the press agent for the short-lived play, but he made it clear that he adored Harris. Rothenberg met me in the lobby of the Hotel Wyndham, where Ms. Harris was living during the run of the play. Rothenberg wanted to benefit the play, of course, but he honored my need to talk with Harris at length about her friendship with Tennessee Williams. “Play first,” Rothenberg pleaded, “then run with what you will.”
And so I did.
Question: “Why do you think Tennessee would call on you when he was most down? When he doubted himself?”
Julie Harris: “I don’t know, really. My first response is that it might be because I was so supportive of him. I was never in doubt about his worth as a writer, and my judgments about how he lived were….gentle, I guess.”
Question: “What do you mean?”
Julie Harris: “Well, I mean he squandered his time. But we all do. I try not to, but I think Tennessee took a dark pleasure in thinking the worst things of the world…
Question: “…like?”
Julie Harris: “…like believing that people were out to get him. The critics, the press, other writers, actresses. No one was out to get him. He was his worst enemy. We are all our own worst enemies, and I would tell him that. Tennessee wasted time and forced his way into conversations. He called me once to ask if I was related to Rosemary Harris. Who doesn’t know that we aren’t related? In the theatre, I mean? You see what I’m saying? That question about my relationship to Rosemary Harris was a means to start talking to me, then to start criticizing Rosemary because she wouldn’t become his friend in a way he needed.”
Question: “Jessica Tandy told me about this.”
Julie Harris: “Not everyone—let me stop. Few people can be the friend Tennessee wanted and needed. I was sympathetic to him, but I had to stop him a lot. Because Rosemary Harris doesn’t feel comfortable walking around the city with you or talking deep into the night about your fears does not mean she is cruel and uncaring. I think Rosemary was taking care of herself so she could take care of Tennessee’s play. [Tennessee tried to get close very quickly to Rosemary Harris during a 1973 production of The Glass Menagerie at Lincoln Center.] Tennessee didn’t want to hear that, so he decided that Rosemary and Lincoln Center and all of New York theatre were conspiring to destroy him. It was madness. But I have to stop again and tell you how much I loved Tennessee, how sad and unwise I thought his thinking was.
“Tennessee was so wanting to think correctly, and he felt that I did. He felt that Lois [Smith] did. And Marian [Seldes]. Certainly, Jessie [Tandy]. But what we tried—or let me say that I tried—to tell him was that we worked at trying to think correctly. Tennessee once said to me that I never get angry. I frequently get angry, but I know that I go a bit mad when I’m angry. Anger might be madness, unless it’s about an injustice or a condition in which you find someone. But the anger then has to be transformed into action. Positive action. Fix the injustice. Help the friend. I don’t think that Tennessee realized that the anger he felt about things was then placed into his plays, and that is a positive—a wonderful—place to put one’s anger. But you leave it on the page. You leave it in the heart of a character. You don’t leave it in your own heart.”
Question: “How did he take hearing what you said?”
Julie Harris: “I don’t know. He argued with me. Everyone had it easier than he did. In his mind. Sometimes I think you just have to love someone. You just have to let them know that you are here for them. I don’t know that that was enough for Tennessee. I couldn’t fix what troubled him, particularly when I didn’t believe that what troubled him was real. Well, wait, it was real, very real to him. But it was entirely fictional, in his mind, but what we put in our mind is our reality. I learned this long ago.
“Look. What I tried to tell Tennessee was this: These things that are troubling you are signs of what you should be correcting. I told him his hatred of people and things were signs of what he needed to be working on. I couldn’t convince him that the theatre and the world needed him and his work, but I think he was so determined to be a victim, to be sad and angry, to place the blame for his limitations on others, rather than on his drinking and talking deep into the night about his enemies. It’s so sad. I mean, it still is sad, because I read this work, and I see the artist. Why couldn’t he? Do you know? Can any of us know? This play [Lucifer’s Child] is struggling. I don’t think it will make it. I don’t like that, but I can’t blame anyone, and I refuse to think less of this play because it isn’t making money. We blanket the seats each night with friends and supporters, and I give it all the love it deserves, and that is a gift. I think more people should see it. But no one is out there plotting to destroy me or this play. I’ll move on. I’ll be sad to lose Isak Dinesen, but I will love someone else in something else. The world just moves. So quickly. It isn’t out to get us, but it does ask us—expect us—to move along with it.”