Hume Cronyn concedes that the title of his new book of memoirs, ”A Terrible Liar,” might be misconstrued. The prevaricator, as is explained on the title page, is memory, not Hume Cronyn himself.
”I really tried to tell the truth as I saw it,” the 80-year-old actor, great-grandfather of two, is saying while lighting up a ubiquitous pipe. ”But I don`t have a very high opinion of memory. We have a way of obliterating what we find shameful or too painful. I think the converse side of that is that you take a romantic period in your life and perhaps make more of it than was there at the time, because it takes on a golden glow.”
Cronyn`s autobiography (Morrow, 431 pages, $23) begins with his upbringing in a prosperous Canadian family (his maternal great-grandfather founded Labatt`s brewery, and his father was a member of the House of Commons). ”Junior” dropped out of McGill University to join a stock company in Washington, D.C., playing a paperboy in ”Up Pops the Devil.” He writes about a fleeting, disastrous marriage to a young actress and a screwball divorce scheme involving a call girl.
There is the wooing of his now wife of 49 years, Jessica Tandy, his
”inadequacy” as a father, the rush of Hollywood films (”Shadow of a Doubt,” ”The Seventh Cross,” ”Brute Force”) in the `40s, the building of a home on an idyllic cay in the Bahamas, stories about a jealous Spencer Tracy and an overserved Jason Robards, a funny account of his frustration while working on ”Cleopatra,” happier times at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis and an account of all those plays that range from ”The Fourposter” to the Richard Burton ”Hamlet.” The book ends in 1966, prior to such triumphs as
”The Gin Game” and ”Cocoon.” He stopped because of ”exhaustion,” and doesn`t plan a sequel.
”I really don`t feel the world is waiting for another volume of an actor`s memoirs. The actors who are good writers are not under every bush. Dirk Bogarde is a good writer. Alec Guinness wrote a good book. I thought Larry`s (Olivier) book was awful. I wasn`t mad about John Gielgud`s either, although I`m crazy about him. Ralph Richardson had a good book, but Ralph didn`t write it.” Cronyn adds that Miss Tandy, who has no intention of writing her autobiography, was ”absolutely sympathetic to my book-but, quite frankly, not terribly interested.”
Some observers, including some of his friends, think he was too easy on some of his colleagues. Cronyn doesn`t, in fact, shovel up the dirt, which is why his deliciously cutting account of working with ”termagant” Tallulah Bankhead on Hitchcock`s ”Lifeboat” comes as such a surprise.
”She`s really about the only person in the book I treat that way. There are some things I didn`t put in. For instance, I changed some of the names of the kids I went to school with. I suspect that they`re dead, but they possibly have widows or children who would be hurt by the picture I drew of them. What`s the point? If it happened to be raspberry jam and I label it marmalade, what`s the difference?
”I know I sound a little like Goody Two-Shoes, but I`m not above giving someone the knife if I feel they really deserve it. I`ve been bloody lucky, though. I had my first professional job in `31-so it`s been 60 years-and I can think of only two people in the business whom I loathe. Whom I really despise. They were both very talented. My involvement with them is mentioned in the book, but I`m not going to tell you who they are. What`s the point? There`s a whole spate of books that come out all the time in which the sensationalism leads to reactions like: `Did you see what she said about him?` or `Did you see what he called her?` I don`t give a damn. Life`s difficult enough without that.”
One other performer who comes in for a Cronynian sneer is James Dean, with whom he worked in a live TV production. Dean, cast as a rowdy teenager, is depicted as solipsistic and undisciplined. ”I damned near took that out of the book, but decided to tell about how I was off on a trip with (Elia) Kazan, and he told me he was going to cast Dean in `East of Eden.` I said, `You`ve got your problems, boy.` And he did.”
In the foreword, the actor writes that he wished he had been able to make his wife and their three children more of a ”presence” in the book. ”It just sort of worked out that way,” he explains. ”I`d write two or three chapters, and say, `Wait a minute. Where`s Jessie in all this? What`s she doing? And what about the children?` Well, I finally gave up on it. I thought, `Dammit it, I`m just trying to tell my story. They`ve got their own.` ”
When people are not inevitably asking Cronyn how an almost-half-century marriage has survived-a marriage in show business, yet-they are inevitably comparing the twosome with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. ”It`s a very complimentary comparison. Lunt was one of the actors I most admired, but he was a great romantic figure, which I have never been. Also, the Lunts were royalty in the theater, but it was the theater. This may sound hopelessly immodest, but Jess and I had far greater exposure in films.”
As for the matter of matrimonial survival: ”I don`t know. I really don`t. But I must say, the path hasn`t always been strewn with rose petals. There have been those moments. I remember back in the `50s, we were working so much that we paid the price. We just went from one thing to another to another. Sometimes we were like ships that passed in the night. It was wearing, and it was hard on the marriage. A great friend of mine was going through a terribly tough time-he had lost his wife to cancer-and we were talking and he said to me, `You know, it`s not the moments of shared ecstasy that hold you together. It`s the shared crises which you mutually survive.`
There`s a lot of truth in that.
”People say, `And have you never been jealous of Jessie?` Yep. It was a sexual jealousy. But jealous over her professionally? As Jessie says, `He can`t play my parts, and I can`t play his.` It is difficult to have two actors in a marriage, but it never really seemed to affect us. We have had independent careers. We also have had years and years when we`d always be together. That`s not easy. If you`re a plumber or a doctor, imagine what it would be like if your husband or your wife were always on the job with you. Fortunately, Jess knows when I`m uptight, when to give me space. I hope I`m half as good about it.”
The couple last worked together on stage in ”The Petition” in 1986, at which time they vowed never to do another two-character play. ”It`s just too tiring-the energy and concentration required.”
Asked his thoughts on growing old, and Cronyn responds with a smile and succinct answer: ”Resentful. I was talking to a doctor not long ago about some minor ailment, and he said, `Hume, you are preoccupied with your physical integrity.` Well, I lost an eye in 1969-this other one is the very best china- and I`m going to have a cataract operation, so my eyesight is not so good. I have a degenerated disc, and last Christmas day, I took a miserable fall on a boat in miserable weather and cracked a vertebra. I don`t like taking drugs, so I ache a lot.”
Still, there have been blessings, as he well knows. ”Last year, I thought Jess might leave us. It was after she had done `Driving Miss Daisy,`
and she had three surgical procedures and chemotherapy. This is a personal matter, but I`m telling you about it because it`s a miracle-an absolute bloody miracle. The outcome is so extraordinary. She was declared free of the cancer seven or eight months later-in February of 1990-and here she is now, doing a show for NBC and a film called `Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe,` and now she`s shooting a film called `Used People` with a fascinating cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Shirley MacLaine, Kathy Bates, Sylvia Sidney.”
As for Cronyn himself, his 1991 dance card has also been pretty full. Besides his book, he filmed a television adaptation of Neil Simon`s ”Broadway Bound,” to be shown this winter, and has made another TV movie called
”Christmas on Division Street.”
”I would like to do another play if I can find something for which I have a real appetite, with some interesting actors to work with and a knowledgeable director who isn`t yesterday`s boy wonder. But I have nothing once this book tour is over. I`m suffering a strange ambiguity. I want so much to take a prolonged rest. I`m tired. On the other hand, I can`t relieve myself of that gut feeling that haunts all actors. Which is: What am I going to do next?”
When it is suggested that he might just bring down the curtain and go back to that cay in the Bahamas, he shakes his head. ”I couldn`t do that. I`m not good at that. No matter how appealing, I just couldn`t face it.”
