Miss Perry, said Miss Venuta, may have had a deep affection for actors, but not for all playwrights—especially if not of her political thinking. “Tony despised—no, hated Clare Booth! She was a Democrat with a capital D and Tony a staunch Republican. She’d do anything to avoid her!”
According to Miss Venuta, “Tony was a perfectionist with the philosophy that a director should work closely with everyone from the producer to the crew. She felt a responsibility to audiences. Once, she said, ‘Benay, do you realize that a theatrical performance is one of the few things which the public is willing to pay for in advance, sight unseen?’”
When Miss Perry spoke, observed Miss Venuta, the male power brokers listened. “I never heard her criticized on the basis of being a woman. She was a good communicator and wonderful at teaching timing. I don’t believe in acting technique and I certainly didn’t know anything about it then. But Tony taught me. She was tough and didn’t mind screaming at me or any of the other actors.
“Tony was not one for overplaying a role! She told me, ‘Don't go for every laugh. It’s better to ride over the little laughs and go for the big one.’ Another time, at rehearsal, she yelled ‘Benay, what the hell are you doing?’ I replied, ‘I was taking a breath.’ She said, ‘No! If you hold your breath, the audience’s going to hold its breath. Act out that pause.’”
But, observed Miss Venuta, “Working with Miss Perry could be frustrating. She’d have us learn pages and pages of dialogue, then say, ‘I’m cutting this, this, and this.’ We asked why. ‘Now you know what’s essential,’ she replied. And when we did the streamlined version, there was a bigger payoff.”
Tony’s deft hand with comedy paid off co-producing and directing Mary Chase’s Harvey (I944). It won the Pulitzer Prize over The Glass Menagerie and became a long-running smash with Hollywood begging for the rights.
Daughter Margaret confided that her mother was an inveterate gambler. “The seed money for many a Wing activity or show investment came from her track winnings. Even during Wing board meetings, mother played the horses. She’d have her secretary tip toe in to give her the odds, then place a wager with a bookie.”
Ironically, in spite of her theatrical credentials, today Miss Perry is best remembered for her generosity and leadership in World War II as a co-founder of the Theatre Wing of Allied Relief, subsequently, the American Theatre Wing.
The Wing operated the famed Stage Door Canteen in the basement of the (now razed) 44th Street Theatre, where stars worked as dishwashers, waiters, waitresses, and entertainers for the armed forces.
Miss Perry was also president of the National Experimental Theatre and financed, with Actors Equity and the Dramatists Guild, the work of new playwrights. During and after the war, she underwrote auditions for 7,000 hopefuls. Her dream of a national actor's school was realized in 1946.
“That year, Mother developed heart problems,” Margaret explained, “but, as a devout Christian Scientist, she refused to see a doctor. Her dedication to the work of the Wing took a terrible toll. Often, the only thing that alleviated her intense physical pain was Brock's nightly call.” On June 28, 1946, as Margaret and her sister Elaine (an actress, stage manager, and producer/director who died in 1986) made plans for their mother’s 58th birthday the next day, Miss Perry had a fatal heart attack. Margaret reports that she was $300,000 in debt and living on $800 a week from her Harvey royalties.
A reporter once questioned Miss Perry’s donation of so much of her money and time to “thankless theatrical activities.” She replied, “Thankless? They’re anything but that. I’m just a fool for the theater.”
“Theater was what Mother lived and breathed,” says Margaret. “She cared, especially if you were on that pedestal of pedestals, an actor.”
Pemberton proposed an award for distinguished stage acting and technical achievement be named in her honor. At the initial event in 1947, as he handed out an award, he called it a Tony. The name stuck.
Ellis Nassour, an international media journalist, is the author of Honky Tonk Angel: The Intimate Story of Patsy Cline (St. Martin’s Press), which he’s adapted into the stage musical Honky Tonk Angel with the Cline classic hits and an original score. His book (interviews with Louise Seger) provide the source material for the hit revue Always, Patsy Cline. For more information visit: www.patsyclinehta.com
