Norman Lloyd Reflects on Welles and Chaplin
Longtime Film Veteran Witnessed Amazing Sight During Limelight Shoot
Oct 1, 2009
S101: What was your first impression of Orson Welles, when you started working with him and John Houseman at the Mercury Theatre? Did your ideas about him change over time?
Norman Lloyd: Orson was, when I first met him, at his office at the Empire Theatre with John Houseman, which was an interview for whether or not I would be in the company of the Mercury Theatre and play in Julius Caesar and Chico in Shoemaker's Holiday.
Orson Welles Makes Nice First Impression
He impressed me then as being very polite, good charm -- great personal charm -- and lovely. Very nice. You're talking about a first impression? (Yes.) And he was professional, very professional, and you knew you were with a theater man as you talked to him. And we were both very young. He was, he was -- I turned 23 the night we opened, so we were both still 22. And we both had been on the WPA, professional theater. And as a consequence, we both had a great knowledge of each other.
And so we had a very professional meeting. I remember, indeed even my agent was present, in addition to John Houseman. So, in answer to your question, a professional, considerate, charming man.
In the course of work, (I) found a flamboyant, brilliant, in my view the finest talent we've ever had as a director in the American theater. In the theater, I'm not saying about pictures. But you then saw this wonderful talent with direction, and a kind of mad fellow, outsized, bigger than life -- and a pain in the ass!
You appeared in Chaplin's Limelight. Were you on set when Chaplin and Buster Keaton did their scenes together? [Note: in the 1952 film, director and star Chaplin -- a notorious control freak behind the camera -- appeared with Keaton for the only time in their careers. They played aging music hall performers.]
Let me tell you the story of the last scene. The last scene of the picture is...Chaplin falls into a drum. In the orchestra pit. And they lift the drum with him in it -- it's a big bass drum. Enormous. And they lift the big bass drum up onto the stage. And then he's carried offstage on that drum. He's lifted up, onto the stage.
Norman Lloyd a Witness to Movie History
And the people present in the scene are Charlie and whoever's helping him into the drum. And it pulls back from the center of the theater's stage, into the wings. And standing, witnessing this, are Nigel Bruce, myself and...Buster Keaton! And the necessity -- the thing that was required in this scene -- was for the camera to be focused on Charlie as he's dying. And as you pull back, with the center on Charlie, and Charlie must be certain not to move so the camera holds on him for this pull-back.
As we start the shot back -- now Charlie's directing, but he's playing dead, I hear Buster standing next to me, saying -- without his lips moving -- I hear him saying [Lloyd whispering], "All right, Charlie, you're right in the center. Don't move. You're right in the center. Okay, hold it. Yeah, right. That's fine, Charlie. (Laughs)
I love that moment of Keaton directing Charlie! That's history!
In Part One, Lloyd discusses his long association with Sir Alfred Hitchcock, including the critical role the director's wife played in Hitchcock's career. He also touches on mistakes Hitchcock quietly admitted to in his films.
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