Lawrence with Brynner
July 4, 1898– Gertrude Alice Dagmar Klasen, or as we fans like to call her, Gertrude Lawrence, had hordes of adoring audiences in both Britain & the USA. She was the first true international superstar, a Cockney who conquered adoring audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.
Lawrence’s appeal went far beyond the sophisticated international show biz elite. She lived in the USA for most of her career & toured the country so widely that she became a front-page celebrity from coast to coast. The Gershwins wrote Oh, Kay! (1926) for her, where she was the first to sing Someone To Watch Over Me. Noel Coward wrote one of the greatest comedies of the 20th century, Private Lives (1930), for her & together they created the sparkling characters of Elyot & Amanda. Kurt Weill & Moss Hart wrote Lady In The Dark (1944) for her; Rogers & Hammerstein wrote The King & I (1956) for her, & most theater people agree that Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote the film All About Eve (1950) about her.
But by the time of her death at just 54 years old, Lawrence had made only a handful of films, now seldom seen, in which the camera failed to capture her special allure. Those of us who never saw her brand of charisma light up a stage are left with only the press clipping & the recordings of her haunting, but precarious singing voice as proof to her greatness.
She was Noel Coward’s BFF for 40 years. Coward, who met her when they first worked together on stage when she was 14 years old, described her face as:
“Far from pretty, but tremendously alive”.
Lawrence was also a lifelong friend & a frequent collaborator with comic genius (& lesbian) Beatrice Lillie.
Without her theatrical make-up, Lawrence was quite plain, probably the reason why her success was on stage & never repeated on screen. When the curtain went up, she possessed that unexplainable “it factor” that transformed her into a glamourous star. Coward:
“Sometimes, in Private Lives, I would look at her across the stage & she would simply take my breath away.”
At their first meeting, Lawrence told the 13 year old Coward a few “mildly dirty stories” & later took him into a bedroom & showed him the ropes. It is very probable that Lawrence was the gay Coward’s only heterosexual experience. Coward denied this vehemently & once told Gore Vidal that he had never had sex with a woman.
Vidal: “Not even with Gertie Lawrence?”
Coward: “Particularly not with Miss Lawrence.”
Lawrence had one short-lived marriage that produced a daughter, but there was a long succession of lovers, male & female, including the married actor/manager Sir Gerald du Maurier. His daughter, novelist Daphne du Maurier, bitterly resented Lawrence’s role in her father’s life because of the distress it caused her mother & had her revenge by becoming another Lawrence’s lover.
Another love affair was with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Fairbanks:
“She was very temperamental, very jealous, could be exhausting, moody, difficult – but also enchanting & alive & very funny.”
But the most controversial relationship of all was her fling with the Prince Of Wales, the future Edward VIII & later Duke Of Windsor. Their affair infuriated his mother, Queen Mary, who disapproved of Lawrence happily ever after.
At the height of her fame in the 1930s, Lawrence was massively in debt. Her NYC lawyer observed that she spent money “like an entire fleet of drunken sailors”. To the astonishment of her friends, she married the wealthy American impresario & theatre owner, Richard Aldrich.
Coward disliked Aldrich, but sent a telegram with his customary wit:
“Dear Mrs. A,
Hooray Hooray. At last you are deflowered. On this as every other day I love you.
Noel Coward”
Like her other friends, Coward doubted she really loved Aldrich, but the marriage gave her financial security. Lawrence continued to have affairs with members of both sexes while a married lady.
One of her last lovers was Yul Brynner, then 35 years old & married. Brynner was virtually unknown when he was cast in The King & I, with the 52 year old Lawrence’s name above the title & his listed below it.
Throughout rehearsals, there were many complaints from Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein about her singing off-key. She became increasingly temperamental, & the director, the very gay John Van Druten, was not strong enough to handle her.
As you well know, Brynner exuded real masculine authority & tremendous sexual heat. When he spoke, Lawrence listened. The director would give notes to Lawrence via Brynner. Partly because of his influence, The King & I received raves & became a hit. But the complaints about Lawrence’s singing never stopped. Rodgers & Hammerstein wanted her out of the show.
Lawrence, who was head-over-heels in love with Brynner, had no intention of quitting, but 18 months into the run, during the heat of a NYC summer, she collapsed. She was diagnosed with that damn cancer. She told her lawyer from her hospital bed:
“I don’t think I’m going to get out of this place. See that Yul gets star billing. He has earned it.”
& she wasn’t just talking about his acting.
When Lawrence took that final curtain call in early autumn 1952, the lights on Broadway & London’s West End were dimmed in her honor.
When Oscar Hammerstein told Brynner he would at last receive the top billing, he began to cry. Hammerstein:
“He told me, & I believed him, that losing Lawrence was a too tremendous a price to pay for advancement. It was the only time I ever saw him cry.”
There is a rather good, if slightly messy, film based on the life of Gertrude Lawrence that is filled with first rate musical numbers, Star!, with Julie Andrews as Lawrence. The 1968 film, directed by Robert Wise, mostly gets it right.
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