Patricia Bosworth

Interviewer: Arthur Miller, Elia Kazam, early 50s. Is anybody in America knows who these guys are? Are these two men that matter?

Patricia Bosworth: To me, they matter a lot.

Interviewer: But, you know, the people I mean, this is Kazan and Miller, are these are they known personalities at all or they are sort of quietly exist behind the scenes?

Patricia Bosworth: I think I think they’re both known. I mean, I think Kazan good Kazan is known and I think still for these great movies that Brando was in, like On the Waterfront in Streetcar Named Desire and the movie that he did with James Dean.

Interviewer: Let’s say, like 50, 51. I mean, they’ve done some theater.

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, excuse me. I’m sorry. I misunderstood what you said.

Interviewer: I mean, you know, in that moment. Are these guys it matter culture, what do.

Patricia Bosworth: You mean, in the 50s do they matter?

Interviewer: Early fifties.

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, yes. Well, as far as Kazan is concerned, he had he’d done Streetcar Named Desire. He had before that. He’d done gentlemen’s agreement. He won the Academy Award for that. But before that, he had done panic in the streets and boomerang, which were unbelievably energizing movies for that time because he shot them on location. This had never happened before. So I think, you know, I think certainly theater and movie people knew who he was. Very definitely.

Interviewer: And Miller, too. I mean, was that a friendship? That was a death of a salesman. Did it have any impact?

Patricia Bosworth: Well, they had they had met before, you know, and for all my sons.

Interviewer: I guess what I’m trying to get a Death of a Salesman is a big hit. These guys were important folks. Right?

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, absolutely. They certainly did. Kazan and Miller had both. Well, Miller had won the Pulitzer for Death of a Salesman and Kazan had won. He hadn’t won it. But Tennessee Williams won for Streetcar Named Desire, which was which Kazan directed. He directed the original productions of both Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman.

Interviewer: Is there anybody at that moment like Kazan, somebody who is he unique in any way? Some people go back between Hollywood and theater in the same way that Kazan does in the early 50s.

Patricia Bosworth: I think he was one of one of the very few. And he certainly was the most successful, considered the most successful director in America because of that, because he did go back and forth to Hollywood in New York. He was always moving back and forth from theater to to movies.

Interviewer: And when he went at each, they were six out there.

Patricia Bosworth: He had this on, again, unbroken. Kazan had an unbroken chain of successes in and from like the late fortius, from Skin of our Teeth, which was in theater. Thornton Wilder’s Skin of our teeth, which also won the Pulitzer. And then he moved right along to all my sons. He went out to Hollywood and started doing movies. He was he was the golden boy.

Interviewer: And utterly unique I think.

Patricia Bosworth: Utterly unique. Yeah, absolutely.

Interviewer: So were Miller going design at this point? Now we’re talking after Death of a Salesman. Yeah. About to head off to do or to try to sell the book.

Patricia Bosworth: Right.

Interviewer: Were they close at all or was it just a professional religion?

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, no. I from my from from what I gather, they were enormously close. They said they saw each other from I guess from what I gather. Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan were enormously close. They spent almost every day together, almost every day. They had dinner together in the evenings. They spent time with their families. There were I think Kazan called our art. He was like my brother.

Interviewer: Fair to say an emotional bond and not just a professional?

Patricia Bosworth: It was definitely an emotional bond. I think by virtue of the fact that they both had grown grown up in the Depression, their if their fathers had both been in business and they had hated what their fathers did, that they were businessmen, they both wanted to be artists. So they had that in common and they had been poor. I think there’s a story about they both shoes after a road Death of a Salesman opened, they went. And bought shoes.

Interviewer: It may be. Not only do they share their childhoods, but they’re sharing success, right? I mean, that’s what I want to get at this idea that they were both.

Patricia Bosworth: Well, they were hugely successful. I mean, the most successful playwright, Arthur Miller, was the most successful playwright, along with Tennessee Williams and Garzón was the most successful director. So, yeah, they worshipped sharing this enormously huge success.

Interviewer: Almost as if nobody else can understand their world.

Patricia Bosworth: Well, I guess it was maybe it was hard for other people understand it. I think they they were trying to grapple with it each in their own way.

Interviewer: I think if I can talk about Kazan as a director for a second, today’s audience. Especially those people born of MTV. Think of a great director. Some of those special effects and a lot of flash cameras moving all the time and tons of like two second edits. And that’s not really what’s in Kazan’s vocabulary when you go back and you look at the movies. So what is it in your money that makes Kazan a great director, either stage or film?

Interviewer: Well, I think, first of all, he he always chose his actors, paired them with kind of the the emotional core of the character that they were going to play. For example, Marlon Brando in Streetcar Named Desire is Stanley. He felt that he had the emotional kind of equipment to play that part. And that that is sort of unique at that time for the director to really be that specific about. He always would say, if I get the right actor up the part, it’s it’s gonna be golden for me. If it if I don’t forget it.

Interviewer: Is it just casting then that makes him great?

Patricia Bosworth: Well, it’s it’s the way he used actors. It’s the way he got them to tap into their inner inner lives. That was part of his his his genius, really. He was able to do that in some mysterious way. Nobody really could figure it out except he could just draw anything out of you. He’s an incredible kind of magician that way. He could draw your biggest secrets out of you. I don’t know how he did it, but he did.

Interviewer: And then use those secrets to want to embarrass you.

Patricia Bosworth: No, not no. Not necessarily to embarrass you unless he wanted you to be embarrassed. You know, as you were saying or as you were trying to find the character. No, it was all to open you up to get you to really live on camera or either on stage. Behave, really. I mean, his dictum is, as a director is turning psychology into behavior. That’s what I use. He was all about.

Interviewer: So help me see how he would go about doing that. I mean, how does he. Help an actor open up and burrow their way in to a story or into a character.

Patricia Bosworth: Well, he he used improvisation. He would improvise, for example, at the Actors Studio. He had actors improvising on on situations. I think he improvised a lot. For example, in Streetcar Named Desire, in in almost everything he ever did, Baby Doll, all the movies and the plays story would start off with with improvising, with getting the actors to be in in like situations as the character. And then they just they would talk, they would improvise the dialogue. They wouldn’t say the dialogue, but it would be just a way of exploring the character, but always the very strong actions. And what does this technique come from? I mean, is he. It began I think it began in the group, Pete. He was a member of the group theater and the group used the so-called Stanislavski method, which was tapping into your your psyche, into your inner life. And that’s where I think it began.

Interviewer: So by the time Kazan’s directing theatre, directing film, everybody’s doing this, he’s not particularly unique status, you know.

Patricia Bosworth: I think he still was pretty unique in those days. And Kazan was in the 50s when he was when he was directing in this in this manner.

Interviewer: I mean, one of the things he said to me was that Kazan was the guy who really two brought method acting into film. Do you think that’s fair.

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, yeah. I think it’s unfair. I think it is fair to say that he brought method acting certainly into into film acting. He he could see the the elements were so important. For example, in film, he used every every well. It was as if he always used to say that the camera photographs the life of the person, the face in the face, the emotion, the intensity, the physicality. It’s all captured on camera. But he triggered that. He aroused that by giving the actor exercises or improvisations or just ideas to work with.

Interviewer: So you can think about a movie that I’m going to try to look at just for his artistic genius, something like Streetcar Named Desire. What is it in that movie or a part of that movie for you that that’s shouts because that’s not any other director that nobody else could have given you?

Patricia Bosworth: Well, it’s certainly Brando’s performance is the epitome of the method. Kazan worked worked with Brando from day one to get him to find the the inner life of Stanley Kowalski. And he began by working with him on his body. He said that Stanley loved his body and he became a muscle man. So Brando exercised and became the body beautiful. He worked on the physical aspects of Stanley, first with Brando, and then gave him objects to play with, like the cigar. The piece of bloody meat that he carried onstage with him when he made his entrance, the way he dressed, the tight, very tight t shirt and tight jeans. All of that just makes it ended up exciting. Brando so much. He was an incredibly instinctive actor anyway, which is what Kazan was so excited about as far as Brando was concerned.

Interviewer: How about somebody like him hundred who’s not is instinctive, you know, who’s not somebody that’s been studying with Stella Adler the way that Brando had. She’s coming in outside. So how does how does. Because you work with.

Patricia Bosworth: Well, I believe from book. From what I gather from I was not there at the time, but. But that with what? He never gave Brando improvisations during the rehearsal period of street, Herbie. He gave them all these objects to to work with and play with. But but apparently with the other actors, with Kim Hunter and Jessica Tandy, he he did a lot of improvisations. I remember reading about Jessica Tandy, who had come from the English School of Acting, which is sort of up uptight. He actually tied her to a chair at one point and had the other actors kind of insulting her. And she was twisting in the chair and getting very upset about things because he was trying to release her from her prim, you know, a British kind of acting. Bonds.

Interviewer: It is a portrait of a guy who is constantly driving.

Patricia Bosworth: Absolutely. He is very driven. And the most energizing person I’ve ever met in my life was, was Elia Kazan. I mean, he would come into a room, he would leap into the room like a primal figure. I mean, he was very almost like an animal. In fact, he was an animal in some ways. He he was so aware of of himself physically. He kept himself in terrific shape. He was always playing basketball and tennis. And he walked back and forth across the city almost every day, you know, but the energy was was palpable. It’s almost frightening. So it was huge. Huge energy.

Interviewer: The room was turn towards him.

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, yeah, totally.

Interviewer: Was he a very loquacious, talkative.

Patricia Bosworth: No, he didn’t talk. He talked hardly at all. But he talked very specifically. He didn’t like to make small talk. He said to me once, if you can, you can’t say what it takes and the time to boil a soft boiled egg and like, you know, one or two minutes, just don’t say something like that.

Interviewer: So, you know, he’s not like an Arthur Miller who’s exists entirely in his head and isn’t comfortable with his body. People have said actors mostly have said to us that worked it him, that he was the most seductive man they ever met. Did you find that?

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, absolutely. Yes, I certainly did. How can I describe his his seductive qualities? It’s very interesting. I’m going to say this. You may not even want to use this, but but I have to say it because, you know, I was an actress at the Actor’s Studio and I did not ever. I was not directed by him, but I watched him work with actors. And I watched him do exercises, for example. He would he did once an exercise with I wasn’t there, but I heard about it later on. It was talked about and he talked about you didn’t exercise with Brando and then with Tony Quinn. Different improvisations to get them to do exactly the same thing, which was to I think was an umbrella ization about a guy was taking care of somebodies apartment. And there were a lot of dogs that he had to take care of. And the woman was going to come home. The woman who owned the apartment and he gave Brando the task that he was going to have his girlfriend come over. How is he going to behave in that way? And then he had Tony Quinn doing something else. And it just it was incredible. And this is the kind of thing he would do. It all often give different actors different tasks to do in the same scene. And it always worked out incredibly.

Interviewer: So. Again, you know, what is it then that makes somebody like Hugh Hunter open up and give so much of herself? Why is it, you know, even somebody like Walter Bernstein said he was the most seductive guy. He’s a writer. Did he ever met?

Patricia Bosworth: Well, one of the reasons that Kazan is so seductive is he is very interested in you, genuinely interested. He wants to find out all about you. And he, you know, plies you with questions and you suddenly start opening up. I mean, he’s he acts as if you’re the most fascinating person he’s ever met in his life. And that that can do it. It really works. Always the warmth of the spotlight. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah. OK. Let me just ask you a couple questions about his childhood. Just because I want to get too deep into it. But this is the guy that came from money is here from Patrician Family.

Patricia Bosworth: No. He was from a very poor family. He was born in Istanbul. I think. And then he came to New York or came to this country, to America when he was about five. I think with four mother brothers, three other brothers, father, who is a rug merchant. They lived in New Rochelle, very isolated. They spoke only Greek and Turkish at home. His father. Well, he was not close to us while he was very close to his mother. He was the favorite. I think his mother was probably the most important woman in his life. She really believed that he was going to be somebody and do things in life. And she wanted him to go to college. His father did not. He wanted him just to sell rugs. And I think when he got into college, he did it secretly. I mean, he applied to Williams College, got in and then told his father, who was enraged, and he and his mother had a huge fight and his mother said, you know, he’s gonna go to college. And that was it.

Interviewer: What is it about that dynamic if we can pass out the mother and Kazan and his father for a second? What is it that his father expects of him? And then sort of follow the scars that Kazam carries because of his dad’s opinion of him.

Patricia Bosworth: His father never thought he was going to amount to anything he could. He didn’t understand why. He was always sitting in his room reading and thinking, and he just didn’t know he was going to amount to anything. Couldn’t he didn’t relate to him at all.

Interviewer: And so his mother is his refuge.

Patricia Bosworth: His mother was the one who who protected him and who made him go on to college and encouraged him. Oh, yeah.

Interviewer: You know, it’s interesting. Miller tells in his book and has said many times and also talks about in his memoir when they when he read Death of a Salesman, because I had to read Death of a Salesman for the first time, he could barely speak. The sense of connection to Willie. What why do you think he’s. He says of all the plays that he’s ever directed. Death of a Salesman is his favorite because it’s his the that’s the best you get because it just.

Patricia Bosworth: Because he responded. He related to it. It is as if it wasn’t Kazan related to Death of a Salesman. And Willy the Salesman as if Willy was his father. Leave the salesman who ultimately, you know, commit suicide. Although his father didn’t commit suicide, Kazantzakis father didn’t commit suicide would just hold the whole dynamic of the salesman up. The guy selling these things and not being successful and having a very despairing kind of life and pushing yourself and pushing his sons. That’s right.

Interviewer: It does seem that that’s a measure then of the bond between these two guys.

Patricia Bosworth: Absolutely.

Interviewer: What.

Patricia Bosworth: That that the the father, the despairing, unsuccessful father. They both they both shared this. They both understood that. They both were trying to get away from it. I think that’s what they. Of course, that’s what one of the things they shared.

Interviewer: OK. This is great. I’m going to ask you the other question about sort of his adolescence and maybe even a little bit after this, because this is after Yale and William. You know, it’s all that it’s all part of the same mix. He’s one of the other things that they say they both share is the depression and the whole experience of the thirties. How important do you think to the thirties the depression is to understanding Elia?

Patricia Bosworth: Well, I guess the depression is very important in terms of trying to understand Kazan because, well, it was during the Depression that he joined the Communist Party.

Interviewer: What drove him? What what drives a guy like Kazam? To the Communist Party. What is it that he’s either experiencing or witnessing?

Patricia Bosworth: Well, I think he thought it was a Communist Party, was fighting against fascism, against the rise of fascism. I think he was attracted to the Communist Party because originally or at least what he believed, that the Communist Party was supporting issues that he well, he believed in. You know, the Spanish Civil War, the Scottsboro Boys, all always the issues and the things that were going on at that time. I think he felt that the Communist Party were supporting these, but they were the element that they were the only ones doing it. Yeah,.

Interviewer: But, you know, Miller talks about his dad’s going completely bankrupt from the depression and the economic hardship experiences. Just because didn’t have that same sense of loss, because the Depression.

Patricia Bosworth: I’m really not sure about that. I know you know, he. He went away to school and was on scholarship, of course. He did have a hard time. That’s true. He had no money and he would had to work as a waiter.

Interviewer: Williams, he works as a waiter and he’s often anonymous.

Patricia Bosworth: And he was here. He was anonymous.

Interviewer: I was talking over.

Patricia Bosworth: Yeah. Well, I was just thinking that maybe the Depression probably did have a big effect on him when he wasn’t Williams because he was the poor student, a scholarship student. He had to wait tables. He saw a lot of his his classmates were were guys, wealthy guys, waspy guys who had plenty of money. He didn’t I think he resented that and was angry about that and also was angry because the women that he he was attracted to wouldn’t even look at him because he was so poor and he felt he was unattractive. And I think he was very angry. All right. It’s always been very angry, still angry, never lost his anger.

Interviewer: OK. This is great. You feel comfortable?

Patricia Bosworth: Is this is the kind of thing you want even on babbling?

Interviewer: Yeah, probably. I mean, I just just because I think we’re now getting a nice rhythm. I’m gonna go back eventually to. The principal wanted just get a clearer sense of how important Miller and Casano, because what I want to be able to say to them, to the audience is these guys are special and there are very few like them. Death itself is an enormous shock to the system because it is the quiet, thoughtful person who exists just behind the scene.

Patricia Bosworth: Molly Kazan was very opinionated, very feisty. You know, she was a great supporter of playwrights. She began the playwright unit at the Actors Studio, among other things. But before that, she worked at the Theater Guild. She was a great theater person. And she read all of the plays that Kazan did think she read Streetcar, but didn’t want him to do it. As a matter of fact, was sort of concerned about it.

Interviewer: Yeah, but, you know, she seems to be a very active, thoughtful, engaged.

Patricia Bosworth: Absolutely. She was, Molly Kazan was it was all the things that you say. She was active and concerned and loving. She adored Kazan. She was a wonderful mother. She kept a beautiful house. She also was a playwright. You know, she wrote to the egghead, which was in a way, it was a defense of Kazan and in and naming names. And she also wrote another play called Rosemary in the Alligators, which I was in. But but she basically was very, very supportive of everything that Kazan did. She believed in him totally. And do you think he needed that? Oh, yeah. What? Well, I think because Molly Kazan came from a very distinguished family. And I think he needed that. He needed to have a woman and a wife who it came from a different background than he did. It gave him much more of an identity and gave him confidence and assurance. I think he needed that.

Interviewer: In that Molly de Thatcher. She comes from this established American family. Do you think that the fact that he’s an immigrant. OK.

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, yes. I think I think the fact that he was an immigrant, I think. I think the fact that The Kazan was an immigrant was very, very important in terms of his development.

Interviewer: Why he did it as a private immigrant. Is he wearing, like a badge of honor? I mean, why is why is the marriage to Molly, that’s so important to his psyche?

Patricia Bosworth: Because he felt like an outsider. He as an immigrant, Kazan felt like an outsider. And so Molly de Thatcher, marrying him, loving him so totally, was enormously important to him because she was from a different class, a different background, and he wanted that and needed that. It’s very important to him.

Interviewer: Sounds like he very much needs that, you know. Almost hungry for acceptance and. Is that. To be An American?

Patricia Bosworth: Well, I was. I meant to say that. Yes, of course. Kazan wanted to be a marry. He wasn’t. He had become an American. But his his favorite movie, of course, that he made is America America. And the story of his family coming to America.

Interviewer: But what is it? I mean, you know, he becomes an American citizen, but he still feels.

Patricia Bosworth: He still feels connected to Turkey and Degrease and to being an Anatolian and all those things.

Interviewer: But there’s I guess what I’m trying to get at is, you know, it seems to me that in the course of his life, there’s shame for it. But there is a sense that he’s not being accepted. If he is, he doesn’t want to be accepted. I mean, there’s that there’s a real tension there. I mean, there’s. As you, I think, quite rightly point out, Mollie’s acceptance is vastly important, and yet there is not towards Molly, towards. It’s a very strange mix up.

Patricia Bosworth: Yeah, I know. Well, I think that growing up Kazan, growing up in New Rochelle as the outsider, the little Turkish Greek kid who had been told by his father, don’t ever speak to anybody. Don’t let them. You know, don’t. Just just be quiet. Just always shut up. He grew up, I think, paranoid and suspicious of people because of his father. I think his father imbued that in him. That was part of growing up as an immigrant. And that was, you know, difficult for him.

Interviewer: Last question about Molly. Was it a good marriage?

Patricia Bosworth: I think it was a very complicated marriage. I mean, I think that I think Buzan depended on her totally and wanted her approval. He needed her approval. But he also chafed under under her her domination because I think she was a very strong, dominant figure in his life. And ultimately, you wanted to get away from that. But he always he I think he really loved her very much. So how does he try to get away? Well, I think he you know, he went and went with other women, which I really don’t like to talk about on camera. Should I? I mean, seriously, he doesn’t he’s not a very fine. No, I know. No. But he did ultimately go to many other women. And I think that was the wake our away from her.

Interviewer: But he was not a faithful husband?

Patricia Bosworth: From what I gather, he was not.

Interviewer: No. Yeah. OK, so let’s jump ahead a bit to 51. And we’re in Hollywood with KZN Miller. Help me understand the political climate that the hook the screenplay that Miller has written because it’s taken out. Help me understand that with the war in the world in which the book is birthed into. Is Hollywood receptive to the screenplay?

Patricia Bosworth: Hollywood was not receptive to the hook. I mean, Miller had written the hook about the Brooklyn waterfront during the Second World War, and he was very excited about it. And he gave it to his Kazan and they both thought it was gonna make a terrific screenplay and they had gone out to Hollywood. Both of them at the height of their careers, thinking that they would be able to sell it very easily. And on the contrary, Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia, was extremely concerned about it having a commie taint. He suspected that Miller was a communist, although he wasn’t. And he said the only way that he would allow them would be to be done is that if if Miller could make the racketeers.

Interviewer: Yeah, I’m going to stop you, because before he does that, he’s worried and he’s suspicious. Why? What is it about this? There’s no communists in the screenplay.

Patricia Bosworth: You mean Cohen? Oh, it’s because of the climate of the time. I believe in Hollywood. Was was it was the height of the Red Scare. HUAC Akeda already had one investigation investigating the so-called subversion and anti-Americanism in movies. And, you know, 10 writers and directors have gone to prison as a result. No, it was a terrible time. Joe McCarthy was at at his most powerful, as was J. Edgar Hoover. And Cohen was very, very concerned about this. And also, I think he had had Roy Brewer, who was the head of all the labor unions out there, had looked at the script and said, this script is not going to work. Minutes. Because it seemed to be anti anti-American and pro communist walk because they suspected that the movie was about Harry Bridges, the Labor leader of, you know, the Teamsters, the long term head of Longshoreman’s Union. And Harry Bridges was known to be a communist. They were sure that it was kind of a really about Harry Bridges, which it wasn’t, but it was about the labor unions on the docks in Brooklyn.

Interviewer: So Cohen gets the scripting. And he says, I’m not going to make it turn it down before anything else and pitch?

Patricia Bosworth: I from what I gather, I was not there, but I believe that that Cohen said suggested to Miller, could you make the union racketeer Okami give it? You know, that would give it it, you know, make the commies or the communists the villains in the piece. And it was said, no, I can’t do that. There were no communists on the Brooklyn waterfront during the Second World War. I can’t do that. And he walked out of the meeting and only went back to New York. He was you just said, I’m not going I’m just not going to do this.

Interviewer: OK. One of the things that happens, I think, at that meeting is that Cohen wants to make this film not because he thinks the book is a great movie or it’s going to make it money. Right. I mean, why is Cohen.

Patricia Bosworth: He wants to make the movie because Arthur Miller is the hottest playwright in American. Kazan is the hottest director. That’s why he wanted to make the movie.

Interviewer: Right. And he takes it and gives them to to two people to ride over into the FBI.

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, the FBI forgot about that. He gave it to the FBI, gave the script to the FBI. Forgot about that.

Interviewer: Is it typical for a mogul to be vetting your scripts?

Patricia Bosworth: Well, it was starting to be in those days. I think Darryl Zanuck did the same thing. But because it was the height of the Red Scare was a terrible time in Hollywood.

Interviewer: It’s amazing because, you know, you get this image of the moguls, at least the popular image. They were like kings. Yes, they were. But here they are sort of asking for approval to make movies. It’s a very. You think of Zadik or Colin or Warner, I mean, they’re going outside to the government and asking them, right? I mean, they were they were fearful of what?

Patricia Bosworth: They were fearful that they might be investigated as a result of if they did not, you know, adhere to what was going on, which was that this kind of surveillance by the FBI and and UEC.

Interviewer: Right. And the fearful of the taint of being associated with communists?

Patricia Bosworth: They were fear. They were fearful of the taint of being associated with Gonyea’s. Yes, absolutely. And Miller and Kazan Miller and Kazan. Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure whether at that point, let’s say he had not yet testified because I haven’t testified yet. But they were both there was, I think, sort of looked at as being vaguely left wing at that point.

Interviewer: So Miller’s first this is his first foray into Hollywood. And this is by no means because that’s for sure, he’s already won an Academy Award at this point and directed several pictures. And he’s in the middle of doing street. But it’s this story is important not just for the picture, but for a woman that enters both of their lives. How do Arthur Miller and Miller in particular come to meet Marilyn?

Patricia Bosworth: Well, I know that that Kazan first met Marilyn Monroe at a dinner party at Danny Kaye’s. Danny Kaye had given a party for Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh when she was about start making Streetcar and Marilyn Rowe was sitting next to her. And I think that’s how they first met. And then and they began to see each other. And then right after I think that they were pitching the hook, they went to 20th and Marilyn Monroe was there on the set at 20th making make some movie. I can’t remember which one I was up to making as young as you feel. And Kazan introduced Arthur Miller to Marilyn Monroe. And as I say, Kazan and Monroe were seeing each other and Kazan was staying at Charlie Feldman’s with the producer, Charlie Feldman with Miller and Marilyn Road come over and visit. And so one thing led to another. And Kazan could tell that that Miller really was very interested in Monroe and she was absolutely fascinated by him and thrilled that he seemed so interested in her.

Interviewer: But it’s interesting because Kazan is having an affair with with Marilyn and. And yet, I mean, it’s a very strange dynamic, isn’t it? If you can sort of paint it for me as this happens and as they both talk about it, I mean, it’s not heavy stuff.

Patricia Bosworth: Well, Kazan and Marilyn Monroe or were were having an affair. And Miller was there, too, in the house trying to write, rewrite the hook and Kazan no notice that that Miller liked Marilyn Monroe. And so he and he noticed that Marilyn Monroe liked Miller. So he decided that they should get together and he really sort of encouraged them to get together. In fact, I think at one point he told Miller to take her out and they I think he picked her up and brought it to a party and I don’t know.

Interviewer: So Marilyn Monroe at this point was like in 1951, the icon that we all.

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, no, no. She was just starting out. She I don’t think she done else asphalt jungle yet.

Interviewer: She did Asphalt Jungle and Dead and all about Eve.

Patricia Bosworth: All about Eve asphalt. But no, she was not the great guy. Oh, Marilyn Monroe was not the great icon that she is today. When she when she first met Kazan and Arthur Miller, she was a young, very ambitious starlet who wanted very much to be a great star, I think, and certainly knew how important Kazan was, could be to her career. I thought she thought he could be fact. I think she wanted to do Baby Doll after she got into the Actor’s Studio and tried to get that part. And he didn’t wanted to be baby doll.

Interviewer: So she’s sleeping with Kazann for her career. You think?

Patricia Bosworth: I was presuming she was yes, I presume she was sleeping with us and her career and the attraction to Arthur Miller, then the attraction to Arthur Miller was it was a very powerful attraction, from what I gather. She really she looked up to him. He was the great intellectual, the great playwright who’d won the Pulitzer, and he was interested in her. And yet it gave her a sense that she maybe she was more important. And then she thought she was gave her a sense of herself, a sense of respect, self-respect, which she hadn’t had before, I think was extremely important to her.

Interviewer: So, in Hollywood, that she just moved from his aunt’s bed to Millersburg, that she starts living with Arthur Miller.

Patricia Bosworth: I don’t know. I don’t know whether she started sleeping with Arthur Miller right away. I I’m not privy to that.

Interviewer: Well, I think one of the things that happens is that he doesn’t he. He’s still married. I yeah. Yeah. He doesn’t want to touch that. So. If I can shift a bit just before you, I do want to go to the U.S. stuff. I want to talk about the street car still. All right. One of the things that Kazaan says in his memoir is the street car and salesman, actually, that the director didn’t matter. I think actually one point he says, you know, Brabo, Tennessee. Do you think that’s right? You think anybody could direct these pieces and we would have ended up with the same story for now? No, I don’t. What did you say? What is Kazam adding that he’s not that he’s been too modest to admit to?

Patricia Bosworth: The ambivalence, the duality, the I’m sorry. No, I think what Kazan gave to Death of a Salesman as director into Streetcar Named Desire were not talking. I’m not saying that’s right. Let me just start started again. I think that what Kazan gave to both Street Car and to Death of a Salesman, these were the original productions, was an incredible sense of of life, both inner and outer life. Of the both the play and the characters. That was never touched on after that. I don’t think to my mind. Well, I.

Interviewer: What do you mean by that?

Patricia Bosworth: The reality of the characters is totally explored in both in both Death of a Salesman and Streetcar Named Desire. As far as Kazan was concerned as director.

Interviewer: You see, because I think it’s like this wonderful moment in his book where he sort of may he rest recognizes the genius of the writer. And it’s very generous that he seems a very generous director. Not the kind of guy that’s drawing credit, taking credit for everything around it.

Patricia Bosworth: OK, well, then another way of putting it would be Cezannes genius as a director is you don’t think about the directing when you’re seeing a Kazan production, you think about the play. He never put himself first. He put the play first production first about Death of a Salesman. Everything ever did. That’s what his genius is. You don’t think about his direction. You have just that whole life for the actors. That’s right. What you when you see the play as it’s been as it was written, he that’s what he was always directing for the play, for the story. He was never directing for himself to say, I am a great director. That’s the difference. And the movie is the same. And then movies are exactly the same, like the movies. What, for example, in. I mean, in in in in On the Waterfront. It’s just it’s it’s an incredible piece of film where every single actor is feeding into the story, whether it’s even Marie Saint as the young virginal schoolteacher or it’s the oily brother played by here Staiger, or it’s that the priest played so awkwardly by Karl Malden. And then finally, Brando was really the core of it, the range that that Kazan was able to to to get out of all these actors, all feeding into this this wonderful, powerful story.

Interviewer: Yeah, that for me is the thing that I get regardless of the film that I’m watching, basically panic in the streets is that I’m not it’s not like today what the director is calling attention to him or herself all the time. I’m driven into emotion.

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, absolutely. You’re the emotional. The the intensity that Kazan brings to to a movie. It’s his own emotion. But he he is encourages it in all the actors to to give him as much as they can emotionally.

Interviewer: You said that you remember from the reading that you’ve done was when he made Streetcar, he tried to be as faithful to Tennessee’s original production as you could.

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, yes, absolutely. To Kazan, really wanted to be faithful to the play A Streetcar Named Desire. When he when he transformed it into the movie. And it was interesting because he had originally gotten somebody to write a screenplay about, you know, based on Streetcar. And then because he wanted he thought it should be opened up and brought and taken out into the stillness in the streets of New Orleans. But then when he read it, he said, no, no, the play belongs in those two confined rooms. Onvia CCRA they it has to stay in those sweltering hot rooms. And he threw the screenplay out and went, it’s he believes that it’s a total depiction of the play the movie is. And he’s pleased with that.

Interviewer: So is the film that’s released in 51. Does it skate by without any controversy before it gets there?

Patricia Bosworth: There was tremendous controversy about it because because the Legion of decency suddenly zeroed in on on on the movie. And without going to Kazan’s knowledge, scenes were cut.

Interviewer: Let me back up for just.

Patricia Bosworth: Oh, I’m sorry.

Interviewer: What is Jack Warner says, great. We’ll shoot it. That’s it. Passes the production code. What are the Legion of decency objections.

Patricia Bosworth: Well, there’s too much nymphomania. There’s homosexuality. There’s that the rape scene with blanches too strong. The music is too sexy. I mean, they have all sorts of things they were bringing up, unbeknownst to Garzón. By the way, this is the Legion of Decency. So Charlie Feldman came in and actually move things around and cut little scenes and without Cezannes knowledge and to take down the sex to to make it more palatable to to give it so, to give it the least legion of decency is a seal of approval.

Interviewer: Talk to me because my question is not going to be I’m sorry not to get the Legion of Decency to give me a sentence if you can.

Patricia Bosworth: To get the approval of the Catholic Church, which is the legion of decency, to get their approval, they Charlie Feldman had had to get the scenes cut that mentioned the nymphomania and or suggested nymphomania, homosexuality, as I say that the scene with with Blanche, the rape scene that started with Stanley and Blanche, this was all all toned down. The music was toned down, I think changed the mood. The score was actually changed because it was too sexy. One of the things I think one of the things I think also that they’ve wanted to do is they didn’t want the legion of decency to disregard the objections that the Catholic Legion of Decency had with Streetcar were well, they thought there was too much reference to nymphomania, homosexuality, which they got cut out of the movie. And also the rape scene was with Blanche and Stanley was tone down. And also they didn’t want at the end of the movie, they didn’t feel that Stella Stanley’s wife should want to go back to him because he had been such a terrible person. So that scene was cut. That was not a happy ending. They didn’t go off into the sunset together.

Interviewer: Because, you know, an immoral act has to be punished. So Jack Warner tell the Legion of Decency to go flat and stick his arm.

Patricia Bosworth: No, Jack Warner did not stand up for Kazan. Kazan was actually horrified. This was all done without his knowledge. And when he found out about it, he was so enraged. And he wrote a letter to The New York Times who is very vocal about it. But it didn’t do any good. But he really stood up to the Legion of Decency. He was very, very angry.

Interviewer: A common thing for people to stand up in The New York Times against the Legion of Decency.

Patricia Bosworth: I don’t think it was very common to stand up to the Legion of decency. He was a very feisty guy, very, very argumentative. Very, very brave, very courageous. I mean, the work meant everything to him. He wanted that one of them movie to be a wonderful movie. And he was very angry because he felt maybe it wouldn’t be as good as it could have been. And then it wasn’t true to its to its authors that it didn’t feel that was true or you didn’t necessarily know. Lemon, please go back again. Because, you see, what I think happened, paradoxically, is I think that in the end, Tennessee Williams intentions are still very powerfully expressed in the movie. The the ambivalence about sexuality, the pro and con, you know, of being sexual and not being sexual, I think is very much there still.

Interviewer: But in the court in the course of this battle, this is a director who is going to stand up for his right. Right. And take on the right wing and the time when it’s not safe to do that.

Patricia Bosworth: Certainly tennis. Tennessee Williams was was protected and defended by Kazan always. And in this instance. Yes. And street with street car. He was certainly defending his rider and he wanted the work to stand on its own and B B be shown off as it should be.

Interviewer: OK, let’s shift gears a bit to humor. What is the relationship that you or your family have to HUAC in the late 40s, early 50s?

Patricia Bosworth: Well, my father, Wortley Crome, was one of the lawyers for the Hollywood 10, actually at the Hollywood 19. So I am very connected to that particular subject in that way.

Interviewer: What was your dad who your dad represented?

Patricia Bosworth: My father, Bartley Chrom, represented Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner, Eddie Demetrius, Adrian Scott, Walt Waldo Salt, the original 19 that went up in front of you back in 1947. He was one of the six lawyers who defended them.