Dropped Names Read Online Free PDF

he’s as queer as a three-dollar bill.”
    â€œHe can’t be queer,” she said. “He’s married, with two children!”
    Coward retorted, “That only means he managed to lash it to a toothbrush . . . twice!”
    S itting on the porch of a country cottage one warm afternoon, watching a young boy play, one of his dogs mounted the other and began a happy hump.
    â€œWhat are they doing, Uncle Noel?” said the little boy.
    â€œNothing, dear. One of them is sick and the other one is pushing him to the doctor.”
    R eceiving a secret fan letter from Lawrence of Arabia, signed with the code name “227460,” Coward replied: “Dear 227460, May I call you 227?”
    A nd in fond memory of his hoped-for conjugal visit from me in 1961, there is a wonderful story of his having invited a boy of another moment to come up to his apartment. When the elevator doors closed, Noel moved quickly across the floor and kissed the boy full on the mouth. Once upstairs, he changed into a smoking jacket, poured some white wine, lit a cigarette, placed it in a holder, and coquettishly stood at the mantel. The young man mustered up his courage and said:
    â€œMr. Coward. I’m afraid I must tell you now before we go any further, I’m not gay.”
    Coward took a deep drag of his cigarette, looked deep into his eyes, and said:
    â€œYes. I knew it when I kissed you!”

LEE STRASBERG
    O f all the short men I’ve known, the guru of the Actors Studio, Lee Strasberg stood tallest on the list of the arrogant and insufferable. Even climbing as he did onto a self-constructed pedestal, he seemed still, in my estimation, to rise only to the height of a pompous pygmy.
    Many classic traits of the diminutive man were his in abundance: misplaced narcissism, imperiousness and the tendency to view himself as a benevolent god. He was, I thought, a cruel and rather ridiculous demigod who ran a highly profitable racket.
    Our first meeting was not a meeting at all, and I was not even supposed to be there. A good friend of mine wanted desperately to belong to the Actors Studio. At the last moment, her scene partner backed out, and she asked me to help. It was the early 1960s. In a room so dark you could see no one other than your partner, sat a few bodies facing the light. By the end of the audition one could make out their shapes and sizes. Sitting in the center was Strasberg, most definitely in need of a booster seat. He said nothing. When he left the room, a man came over to me and said:
    â€œWe would like you to prepare something of your own and come back to see us.”
    â€œOh, no thanks,” I said. “I just came by to help out my friend.” I was, at that tender age, already uninterested and unimpressed with Mr. Strasberg and the Method. And I will confess, at the height of my own youthful arrogance.
    I can still see the look of incredulity on the messenger’s face. It was as if he had told me I’d inherited a fortune and I told him to keep the cash. It was reported to Mr. Strasberg that I had declined to cross the moat, and his drawbridge was forever after closed to me.
    My future encounters with Strasberg were all the same. We would be introduced, he would look at me with disdain and condescension—not easy to do when you’re the height of my belt buckle—and give me a clammy, all fingers, no grip handshake. Hell had no fury it would seem like a Strasberg scorned.
    L ee Strasberg encouraged his actors to act not in spite of their neuroses, but because of them. The result being floods of tears, both on celluloid and floorboards, from actors determined to sacrifice their characters’ lives to a subplot of personal turmoil and aimless rage that may make them comfortable, but leaves the viewer misled. I had occasion to work with one such Strasberg acolyte onstage, whose predilection to wallow in sense memory obliterated his character as written and subsumed