“I have good news, Sidney. I got a call from MGM. They want to negotiate a long-term contract with you.”
“That’s wonderful,” I exclaimed. That was the dream of every Hollywood writer.
“We haven’t worked out all the details yet. There are still a lot of things we’re discussing.” He smiled. “But don’t worry. It will happen.”
I was elated. I turned in my screenplay to Arthur Freed and waited to hear his reaction. Silence. He hates it, I decided.
Another day went by. I reread the script. The New York critic is right about my lack of talent. The dialogue is so wooden it could splinter.
No wonder Arthur Freed doesn’t want to talk to me.
One week after I had given the script to Arthur Freed, his secretary finally called.
“Mr. Freed would like you to be in his office tomorrow morning at ten o’clock to meet Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.”
I felt a sudden sense of panic. I simply could not meet them. They would find out what a fraud I was, just as Arthur Freed had. They would all hate my screenplay. I knew I could not go to that meeting. It was déjà vu. Max Rich saying, Meet me at my office, ten o’clock tomorrow morning, and we’ll go to work, and Irving Reis saying, “Camera . . . Action,” and my running away from the screen test with Cary Grant. I knew I had to run away again.
I got little sleep that night. I had vivid dreams of Arthur Freed screaming at me about the terrible script I had written.
In the morning, I made a decision. I would go to the meeting, but I would not say anything. I would listen to their derogatory criticisms and when they were through, I would quit. I spent the hour prior to the meeting packing up my office, getting ready to leave the studio.
At ten o’clock, I walked into Arthur Freed’s office. Freed was seated behind his desk.
He nodded. “Interesting screenplay.”
Whatever that meant. Was that a euphemism for “You’re fired”? Why did he not come out and say what he really thought?
At that moment, Judy Garland walked in and my spirits lifted. It was like seeing an old friend. She was Betsy Booth, the girlfriend of Mickey Rooney’s character in the Andy Hardy series. She was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. She was Esther Smith in Meet Me in St. Louis. When I was an usher, I had seen her movies over and over.
Judy Garland, née Frances Gumm, had been with MGM since she was in her teens. The Wizard of Oz had made her a star when she was just fifteen. She had become so popular that the studio put her in movie after movie, giving her no chance to rest. She made nineteen movies in nine years.
To keep up her energy, she began taking barbiturates and became addicted, taking uppers in the daytime and sleeping pills at night. She had tried to commit suicide and, unbeknownst to me, had just come from the Menninger Clinic when I met her.
Her first words were, “Hello, Sidney. I loved your screenplay.”
For a moment, I was stunned. Then I began to grin like an idiot. “Thank you.”
“It was good, wasn’t it?” Arthur Freed said. It was the first comment I had heard him make about my screenplay.
The door opened and Gene Kelly came in. By now I began to relax. Gene Kelly was another familiar face. I had seen him in Thousands Cheer, Cover Girl, and Anchors Aweigh. He felt like an old friend.
He greeted Judy and Arthur, and then turned to me. “Author author,” he said, “you did a damn fine job.”
“He did, didn’t he?” Arthur Freed said.
I was filled with a sudden sense of euphoria. All that worrying for nothing.
“Any suggestions you have—” I began.
“It’s just right for me,” Judy said.
Gene Kelly added, “Me, too. It’s perfect.”
Arthur Freed smiled. “It looks like it’s going to be a short meeting. We’re all set to go. We start shooting Monday.”
After the meeting, I went back to my office and started unpacking.
My secretary was watching, puzzled. “May I ask what’s going on?”
“I changed my mind.”
On Friday, Arthur Freed called me into his office.
“We have a problem,” he said.
I stopped breathing. “Something wrong with the script?”
“No, it’s Gene Kelly. He broke his ankle playing volleyball over the weekend.”
I swallowed. “So, we’re going to postpone the picture?”
“I sent your script to Fred Astaire. He retired last year but if he likes your script, he’ll do it.”
I shook my head. “Fred Astaire is forty-eight years old. Judy is twenty-five. The audience is going to be rooting for them not to get together. That will never work.”
He said, tolerantly, “Let’s see what Fred has to say.”
Fred Astaire said yes. I met him in Arthur Freed’s office the next day and he said, “Thank you for a wonderful script. It’s going to be exciting to make.”
Looking at him, my misgivings about the casting disappeared. He looked young and alert and energetic. He had the reputation of being a perfectionist. On a picture he did with Ginger Rogers, he kept rehearsing a new routine with her until her feet were bleeding.
I was on the soundstage on Monday, the first day of shooting Easter Parade. Fred Astaire was at the far end of the stage where they were setting up the first shot. I was at the other end of the stage, telling a story to Judy. In the middle of it, the assistant director hurried over. “We’re ready for you, Miss Garland.”
I started to get up.
“No,” Judy said, “finish the story.”