hand leapt up from the table in a gesture of carefree flamboyance as if Iâd invited him to bungee-jump with me, and the voice sounded out clear as a bell:
âWhy not!â
I came round the table as he pushed back his chair and placed my hand under his elbow. He gratefully accepted my aid, wrapping his fingers round my forearm. But once up and steady, he gingerly preceded me out the door.
The bar of the hotel where we were in residence was dark, mirrored, and opened into a small dining room. Still in costume, he ordered champagne. âLetâs start it off right, shall we, dear boy?â
Once several glasses had been downed he seemed to drop ten years and there was a swaggering manner in how he leaned on the bar, gestured, and took a stance away from it from time to time.
âNow you will help me out with this, wonât you, dear boy? Help me sex up the character a bit?â
âYouâre not going to play helpless with me, are you?â I said.
Placid face, steely eyes, champagne chugged. âCheers,â he clipped out. âLetâs eat.â And he sailed quite confidently into the dining room.
Whatever it was we did eat that night, he ate it with immense gusto, ripping hunks of bread, slathering them with butter, shoveling in the meat, flinging down glass after glass of red wine. The early talk was of acting styles. âYour Ethel Merman,â he said. âYour Chita Rivera. Theyâre ab-so-lutely marvelous. Thatâs what you Americans do best. Big, vulgar musicals. I adore them.â The âa-â and the â-doreâ were separated by a tiny pause, and the â-doreâ was punched out with even more voice.
âWe just canât do any of that. I donât mean sentimental shit like A Chorus Line . Oh, and your Gwen Verdon in Once Upon a Mattress . Fan-tas-tic.â I had a hard time convincing him it hadnât been Gwen but Carol Burnett.
âNow youâve had a great success with this in America, havenât you dear boy! All camp and winky-winky, was it?â
Dracula had indeed been a phenomenal hit on Broadway, supported by the black and white Edward Gorey designs. I launched into a description of how I intended for the film to be played in a Gothic, romantic style, not Hammer Studio camp. I would wear no fangs, I told him. There would be no wolfâs eyes, no blood dripping from my mouth.
âHave you read the book, dear boy? You know itâs Van Helsingâs story.â
It was now 2 a.m. and both Sir Laurence and Larry were stinko. A young assistant appeared in the doorway. âMr. Langella, I have your per diem with me. Would you mind signing here?â I did and he handed me a packet of my expense money. The young man turned to leave, looked over my shoulder, and realized that the tiny little person in full period costume slumped over next to me was Sir himself. âOh, Sir Laurence,â he said. âForgive me. I didnât know youâd arrived. I have yours in the car; do you need it?â
â Need it? Need it? Of course I donât need it, dear boy. I just like to collect it. Go get it.â
Over the course of the first several weeks we had dinner together most evenings and he could be vastly entertaining. The stories poured out of him in well-rehearsed rhetoric. The one constant in his endless repertoire was the actress Vivien Leigh, whom he referred to as âmy late wife.â
âI got the call that she was gone, and I rushed over to remove some papers and such before the fuss began. There she was laid out on the bed, dead. I tiptoed through the apartment, almost going ass-over-teakettle to the floor. I looked down and there was a small puddle at my feet, between the bedroom and the bath. She must have gotten up in the night and couldnât make it to the bathroom so she just stood and peed herself. You know, she was a nymphomaniac! And Iâm a premature ejaculator! Not a good