AN APPRECIATION : Remembering a Terrific Dame

“Come by tomorrow,” said the still-beautiful voice of Dame Judith Anderson, “and have a drink.”

When I arrived at the house that August day it was closed and dark. There wasn’t a sound from within except for the wild yapping of Bozo, her beloved dachshund. On the front door was pinned a note: WE’VE TAKEN HER TO ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL.

I went immediately.

She was still in the emergency room. I was told that she had had a stroke. Yes, I could see her, but wait--was I a relative? I lied glibly. I had known too many people to die alone while friends of years were kept from them. I was a relative.

Seeing her was a shock.

The lips that had kissed Errol Flynn--on the screen, at least--were bloody from the random clawing of her fingernails. The eyes, those eyes that had looked so beguilingly into Charlton Heston’s, were milky white and empty. The mouth, that mouth that had urged suicide on Joan Fontaine, could no longer form words.

It was not, they ultimately concluded, a stroke after all. There was a tumor on the brain. And a touch of pneumonia. At 93, there was no thought of surgery and little hope of recovery. And yet the tiny body, racked by violent coughing, fought on. Dame Judith may have been ready to die, but Medea was not.

As the days went by, her hospital room filled with friends and flowers. There was not a one of us, I think, who had not spatted a bit with Dame Judith--she wasn’t easy--and there was not a one of us who didn’t love and admire her. We knew the marvelous artist in her and we knew we would never see the like again.

And, Medea at the helm, she improved. Sometimes she would be coherent, but it would come and go. One couldn’t tell what she knew, what she was aware of. Occasionally the clouds would part, however, and she would smile her sly little smile, reach for your hand, and say, “I love you.”

She was moved to a nursing home, which Medea didn’t care for at all. In her lucid moments, she groused about the bed, the food, the service, the staff. It began to sound like the old Judith.

“Isn’t she getting better!” her friends exclaimed.

And so, one day, she was able to return to the handsome house in Montecito.

I visited her as she lay in the elegant bedroom, surrounded by exquisite furniture and golden cherubs dancing on the walls. Bozo reclined at her feet--one eye always on her--and across the room French doors were open to provide a view of the magnificent mountains.

“You look great,” I said.

“Cosmetics,” she replied perfectly clearly. “All thanks to Fax Mactor.” She wouldn’t know she had gotten the words wrong.

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in September, we gathered, a few of her friends, in her garden. It was an event we’d feared she wouldn’t live to see, but Medea wasn’t about to miss it.

She was, she often claimed, just an “uneducated girl” from Australia and nothing thrilled her more than the four honorary degrees bestowed upon her unless, of course, it was that happiest moment of her life, the day Elizabeth II proclaimed her a Dame of the British Empire.

And, more recently, she’d gloated--I think that’s the only word--over the highest honor her beloved Australia could give a woman.

I’d thought we’d have the ceremony around her bed, but there she was suddenly in the garden, dressed, helped into a high-backed chair. Behind it the Australian flag fluttered on a standard. Oh, how old she was and how ill and gallant!

We stood as the Australian national anthem was played, even Judith attempting, futilely, to rise. Nevertheless, as the Consul General read out the proclamation and gently pinned the medal on her chest, she sat as straight as a ramrod, proud, humble, deeply moved.

Death, however, ultimately wins. Medea finally gave up.

When I heard the news, I went home and put my video of her “Medea” into the VCR. It was, as always, like an electric shock to see such power in a performance. There was not another actress on the face of the globe who could ascend such dazzling heights of drama. No voice would ever again match the beauty of Dame Judith’s. No soul would ever be bared so nakedly. No cries would issue so terrifyingly from the human heart.

But that was only a small part of her remarkable career. Who can forget the wicked Mrs. Danvers in “Rebecca”? Who doesn’t remember those lovely, muted scenes--so beautifully underplayed--with Vincent Price in “Laura”? And, going back, the glamorous nightclub owner in “Blood Money”? Or the disfigured gun moll in “Lady Scarface”?

Or--the list seems endless--her vicious Lady Macbeth opposite Maurice Evans in “Macbeth”? Her motherly Gertrude with Sir John Gielgud in “Hamlet”? Her frustrated sister with Katherine Cornell and Ruth Gordon in “The Three Sisters”? Her very small Big Mama in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”?

She was 87 when I first met and worked with her. I had written a play for television called “Bread” and wanted Julie Harris for the leading role. The director, George Schaefer, said he could imagine Judith Anderson in the part, however, and thus began my several years of friendship with Dame Judith.

She could no longer remember lines and the filming was difficult, but her performance was exquisite. She acted with a clarity that astonished and delighted me. Judith, of course--always her own sternest critic--wasn’t satisfied. When she’d finished and the crew applauded her, she stopped them. She felt she hadn’t earned it.

There was never a friend more loyal. She was also a passionate supporter of one’s work and full of ideas for projects. Had I sent my new play to Robert Whitehead? Had I talked with Toby Rowland in London? How about tackling a new play on Mary Stuart? Why didn’t I write something about Sarah Bernhardt that Zoe Caldwell could do on the stage?

It was just this interest that I think kept her young.

But now Judith is dead. We often laughed together about her demise which, at her age, seemed always around the corner. Would she, we wondered, go up or down when the time came?

Wherever you are, darling Judith, may flights of angels guide thee to thy rest. I’m crying a little as I write this, but you’ve left me a wonderful legacy.

I have known greatness.