| Jean Arthur and Peter Pan - some history | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 07:54 am EST 02/07/24 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 07:52 am EST 02/07/24 | |
| In reply to: re: Jean Arthur -- In Film and On Stage - PlayWiz 12:26 pm EST 02/05/24 | |
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| The run of Peter Pan was not cut short because of any problems with Jean Arthur, except that she had a contract to make a film for Paramount, which turned out to be Shane. I'm reposting below what I posted here a few weeks ago, but with a few small adjustments and some additions. Arthur missed two weeks of performances in August 1950. After missing a few performances due to laryngitis (that was the reason she gave), she said she had recovered from that, but she requested three or four weeks off because of exhaustion. Barbara Baxley was her standby, having only recently taken over as standby from Anne Jackson. Baxley said later that it wasn't just exhaustion or neurosis or fear, Arthur really was physically ill. Of course, neuroses and fears can contribute to making you ill. Under Equity rules at the time, if an actor missed more than 10 performances in a row, the producers could cancel that actor's contract. The producers moved to do just that with Arthur, perhaps believing she would never come back, and in any case probably feeling that the losses incurred by a four-week absence would be too much. (Surprisingly, the grosses didn't suffer too much during the two weeks Arthur was out, but they surely soon would have gone down greatly with Baxley in the role once the existing advance ran out, however good she may have been. John Chapman of the Daily News said Baxley was very good, even if Arthur was a bit better.) Equity ruled that Arthur had broken her contract and could be replaced. The producers were about to hire Betty Field to replace her, and perhaps the contract had even been signed, under the same financial deal Arthur had, which was quite generous given that Field was never the name or draw that Arthur was. But Arthur pleaded with the producers to let her return, and she missed just two weeks of performances. Arthur called Betty Field, reportedly begging her "not to take my part away from me." The cast, including Boris Karloff, was extremely upset with Arthur, with Karloff at a cast meeting reportedly inveighing against her for putting the jobs of so many people at risk. The producers also spoke with Shirley Temple about replacing Arthur. Temple flew east to watch a performance, but negotiations with Field had already reached a point where they were about to sign her (or, as already mentioned, possibly already had signed her). Even though Temple was a much bigger name than Field, I wonder if the producers might have worried that she wasn't a good enough actress as an adult to take over, and I'm not sure she had much if any experience acting in plays onstage. Arthur was supposed to appear at an Equity meeting to ask them to reverse their ruling. After Clarence Derwent, Equity president, and others waited 40 minutes for her, they were informed that instead she was at a meeting with the producers. At the meeting, it was agreed that her run-of-the-play contract would be canceled, and that she now could give four weeks' notice if she wanted to leave. One of the producers, Peter Lawrence, reportedly did not want Arthur to come back, but Roger L. Stevens, the other producer, and Stevens's lawyer wanted Arthur back, and they prevailed. Variety declared the whole thing the worst "rhubarb" between an actor and management in years. Arthur had invested $25,000 in the production. Those two weeks seem to be the only performances she missed both during the Broadway run and the two-and-a-half months she toured in the production after the Broadway closing. That's pretty amazing given her other tortured attempts to return to the stage. The show did generally very good business by normal standards for a play. The fact that it closed at a pretty substantial loss was probably due to high production and running costs. Of course, having an orchestra in the pit contributed greatly to that, along with star salaries (including a percentage of the gross for Arthur) and a large cast. I'm pretty sure that they would have had to pay the same number of musicians that they would have had to pay for a full musical given how much music was in the production. Having said that, and having looked at the grosses for the entire run, I am surprised that it didn’t return more of the production cost during the run. But when Variety reported that the weekly running cost was $24,000 (other nonmusicals at the time were generally around $10,000-$14,000), it may be that the theatre rental was not included because it may well have been a percentage of the gross. And who knows what Arthur’s percentage was? Might have been quite high. Arthur and Karloff then toured for three months, at which point Arthur left for Shane. As it turned out, Shane did not start filming for three months. There were delays, including recasting William Holden with Van Heflin. Joan McCracken replaced Arthur on the tour, but it closed in two weeks. And then it wasn't released for quite some time for various reasons. Months later, another tour was sent out, this one with Veronica Lake and Lawrence Tibbett. It did poorly at the box office. Producer Lawrence tried to arrange for a television showing, but the production closed before that could happen (and it might not have happened anyway). So let’s retire the idea that the Peter Pan run was cut short because of Arthur’s stage fright or other problems. She had plenty of those in her other attempts to return to the stage, but somehow managed to get through Peter Pan quite well except for those two weeks. |
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