Never Just the Writer

When Ernest Lehman agreed to adapt and produce “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” he posed an ultimatum to Jack Warner. Lehman demanded “complete control over the selection of cast, director and crew.”

Warner agreed, and shortly after, he installed Lehman in the bungalow George Cukor had occupied during the production of “My Fair Lady.” When Lehman arrived, however, he was only given the back half of the bungalow, even though the front half was unoccupied.

He was told it was because he was “just the writer.” Later, when he became the producer, he would be given the rest of the bungalow.

Tonight, Ernest Lehman will receive a lifetime achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He will be the first screenwriter ever to receive one.

Coming from a culture in which he was “just the writer,” Lehman has left an indelible mark on the industry--one that will survive for generations.

For three decades, Lehman excelled at virtually every genre the movies had to offer. He was the king of the big budget musical (“The Sound of Music,” “The King and I,” “West Side Story,” “Hello, Dolly!”). He showed a deft hand with the sophisticated banter of romantic comedy (“Sabrina”). He flawlessly adapted naturalistic American drama (“Virginia Woolf”). He wrote confessionally from his own experience (“Sweet Smell of Success”).

Perhaps, most notably, he crafted the most stylish and arguably most original of all of Hitchcock’s films, “North by Northwest.” He has many other film credits that are too numerous to mention.

Recently, The Times asked me to sit down with Ernest Lehman to chat about his career, this award, his body of work and writing in general.

When I arrived at his house, a photographer was searching for a new background to shoot him against, and Lehman showed him “the Wall.” It was covered with six Oscar nominations, six Writers Guild awards, nine Writers Guild nominations and various other plaquage. You couldn’t see the paint.

And yet, when I asked Lehman, 85, about his latest award from the academy, he said it was “nervous-making.” He was thrilled about it, but writing is a solitary craft and the size of the audience at the Oscars was daunting to him. Perhaps it would be less daunting if he calculated the size of the audience he has entertained since the mid-1950s: the millions of kids who have known “The Sound of Music” as their first film, the new generations who discover “Sabrina” as some sort of private gem, the countless number of patrons who pull “North by Northwest” off the video shelf every week.

We talked for a couple of hours in his living room while the sun was going down.

Ross: Congratulations.

Lehman: Thank you.

Ross: You know, it’s the first time that a screenwriter’s been given the lifetime achievement award.

Lehman: I know. That’s what makes it so thrilling.

Ross: Why do you think it’s taken so long?

Lehman: I don’t know. It seems to be a predilection in the direction of directors.

Ross: But you always had really great relationships with the directors you worked with. I’m thinking of Hitchcock in particular--

Lehman: And Robert Wise. I did four with him. Lovely guy. Great director.

Ross: What do you think the key is in that relationship?

Lehman: Well, I have to try to get my ideas across without being threatening [to] the director. The fact that I have no authority makes it easier for me to get my ideas heard because they’re not threatening. When I became a producer of “Virginia Woolf,” I noticed that people were a little frightened.

Ross: Because of the authority?

Lehman: Yeah. Suppose I had an idea they didn’t like? I was the producer.

Ross: And when you were the screenwriter, they could, what? Listen openly because they could just sort of receive it?

Lehman: Yes. Well-put.

Ross: I loved how you and Hitchcock came up with “North by Northwest”: that it came out of your relationship. You liked each other so much, you were like two guys in search of a movie.

Lehman: That’s exactly it. I arrived at his house one day and told him I was quitting [another project], and he said, “Don’t be silly. We get along so well. We’ll just do something else.” So we just kicked ideas around.

Ross: First he said he always wanted to do a movie that had a chase on Mt. Rushmore. That was the genesis, right?

Lehman: Yeah, that really excited me. And he also had given me an idea about something that took place in the General Assembly of the United Nations, and of course it wasn’t what I used, but it gave me a locale.

Ross: So you knew that it started at the U.N. and you knew it ended at Mt. Rushmore. You had a geographical straight line.

Lehman: Right, but who it was and why was a big mystery, and it took a lot of talk and lots of agony, because Hitch was away from the studio soon after that. He was shooting “Vertigo,” and I was at MGM all by myself, and I was pretty lonesome.

Ross: I’ve heard you say that that was a great relief when he read those first 65 pages.

Lehman: Yeah. It was, because he liked it so much.

Ross: And you had a lot of doubt before that moment?

Lehman: Always. Doubt is the name of my game.

Ross: [Laughs.]

Lehman: So it encouraged me. It got me to move a little faster. But whenever I ran into a real snag, I would get Hitch and throw some ideas at him. If he didn’t like them, he’d say, “Oh, Ernie, that’s the way they do it in the movies.”

Ross: That was pejorative?

Lehman: Yeah. That was the most he would say in the negative way. He was very polite.

Ross: Didn’t you take the train journey personally? Didn’t you get on the 20th Century Limited?

Lehman: Yeah. First I tried to climb Mt. Rushmore. That was a ridiculous procedure for a screenwriter. Halfway up, I looked down and realized I could be killed if I slipped.

Ross: They think we’re always in our rooms at our typewriter. . . .

Lehman: Right. There’s a sequence in “North by Northwest” in which Roger Thornhill gets arrested for drunk driving. Well, I got a very friendly judge to put me through the whole procedure. But I believe in really going through the whole adventure if I can.

Ross: Did you know in the Eva Marie Saint character you were going to be writing an archetypal Hitchcockian cool, icy blond?

Lehman: Absolutely. And to try to get away with as much double-entendre, risque dialogue as I could.

Ross: Wasn’t there a famous looped line on the train? You wrote something a little more risque than in the movie.

Lehman: She said, “I never make love on an empty stomach.” We shot it that way, and the [Hays] Production Code made us put the word “discuss.” We had to loop it into the picture.

Ross: “I never discuss love--”

Lehman: “--on an empty stomach.”

Ross Which do you like more?

Lehman: “Make.”

Ross: We always like our first draft more.

Lehman: Yes. Oh, I sneak quite a bit in.

Ross: Do you think some of the restrictions from the Hays Code created sexier situations because it required a certain amount of suggestion or invention?

Lehman: Well, I don’t know. Now it would be nothing. It would appear on a kiddie show.

Ross: But the suggestion sometimes makes it that much sexier.

Lehman: I love that kind of writing. That’s why I made him an advertising executive.

Ross: So that was your way into his character? You knew you could write that voice?

Lehman: I knew I could write that voice and I knew--well, I pretty well knew that Cary Grant was going to play the character and I could hear his voice uttering those words.

Ross: What did it feel like seeing Tony Curtis play you in “Sweet Smell of Success”? Well, it’s obviously not you--you’re a much more decent individual than that guy, but it was such an autobiographical story.

Lehman: Well, I had lived the life of a press agent and I had prowled the streets, nightclubs. In fact, I handled a couple of nightclubs. I used to set up headquarters at the Beachcomber.

Ross: Really?

Lehman: Oh yes, that was one of our accounts. I was on the prowl for gossip, so that I could feed the columnists so that they would let me live for another day. Oh, we were terrified of the columnists.

Ross: And what did you think of Curtis’ performance?

Lehman: I think it’s one of the best performances by a male actor in the movies. Still gets me.

Ross: It’s fantastic. Does it feel different to you because it came out of your life?

Lehman: Well, listen, there were some pretty hairy untold stories in that life, and I put in what you could. I kind of resisted selling the novel to Hollywood because I was scared stiff.

Ross: That you would alienate people?

Lehman: Not people, but J.J. [the character, a powerful columnist, was based on a person Lehman knew]. And the studios were fearful. And it took a long time before they lost their fear, and when [‘Marty’ won the Oscar,] I felt, well [that production team is] respectable, so I said yes to them.

Ross: And had there been a lot of overtures to you to make “Sweet Smell of Success” before that?

Lehman: Oh yeah. I remember Walter Winchell coming to my apartment in his tennis shoes trying to talk me into it.

Ross: Obviously that was a personal story for you. It’s your life. Something like “Virginia Woolf” seems like the opposite. You’re trying to preserve [Edward] Albee’s vision. How much did you depart from the Albee dialogue?

Lehman: It’s hard to tell. I once compared the two, but . . .

Ross: But isn’t that sort of the essence of adaptation: that it fluidly becomes a movie without losing the essence of the original?

Lehman: Oh, that’s so important, never to lose that which works on the screen just to prove yourself as a writer. I think I did that very well.

Ross: There’s no question.

Lehman: “West Side Story.” I changed a lot but you’d never know.

Ross: Didn’t you reorder numbers in “West Side Story”?

Lehman: Oh, did I ever. I was amazed at the location of certain numbers on the stage, and let’s face it, on the stage it’s been a huge hit, artistically, economically, and yet it always struck me that with two bodies lying on the pavement, you don’t sing “Gee, Officer Krupke” because you’re getting laughs.

Ross: On “Virginia Woolf,” did you work with [Mike] Nichols in the adaptation or did he come on after you’d finished the screenplay?

Lehman: He came on after I had done about two screenplays, and he had never done a movie, and I had tested Sandy Dennis, and casting was a real difficult thing.

Ross: How did you become the producer of “Virginia Woolf”?

Lehman: I’ll try to make it a short story. When I read the play “Virginia Woolf,” it was sent to me by my agent, Abe Lastfogel, who handled the property. I read it, and I was so disturbed by it that I said I’m never going to see this play. Never. I don’t want it in my life. It was very upsetting to me. And about a year later, it came out to California, and I had just recovered from the flu and I was in a weakened state. My wife managed to talk me into seeing a play, and there I was seeing “Virginia Woolf,” totally destroyed in that audience with people I knew seated around me. It was on opening night. I was trying to conceal sobs that were coming out of me. I was just decimated by that play, and I stumbled out of the theater. I was working on “The Sound of Music,” I believe. . . .

Ross: Quite a contrast.

Lehman: Yeah, and during the course of a telephone conversation with Abe Lastfogel, I described the effect it had had on me, and never in a million years had I thought of it as a movie, particularly for me, and he said there’s one other person in this town who had the same reaction to it. “Who’s that?” “Jack Warner.” “Jack Warner? Really?” He said yes. He said, “Shall I talk to him?” I said, “Abe, please, I’m working on a movie.” He’d call me every week or so and say, “Ernie, I’m going to try and sell this property to Jack Warner. Would you like me to include you in?” I said, “Absolutely not, absolutely not.” This went on for weeks, and Abe was a very crafty guy. One day he called me. He said, “Ernie, this is official. Jack Warner has requested you as the producer and writer of ‘Virginia Woolf.’ ” I said, “Oh Jesus, you mean I’m going to have to make up my mind?” He said, “Absolutely, it’s official, you have a weekend to make up your mind.”

Ross: It sounds like Abe was being a rather clever agent during this process.

Lehman: He was very, very shrewd. And I sat beside that pool with a close friend of mine, Larry Turman, whom I had talked into [producing] “The Graduate” when he was in doubt. So, I said, “Larry, come over, I’m in real trouble. I’ve got a weekend in which to decide whether to do ‘Virginia Woolf.’ I haven’t the faintest idea how you do it as a movie. Who the hell is going to go see it?” He said, “Ernie, let’s face it, you cannot afford to turn down ‘Virginia Woolf,’ it’s too important.” I said, “You think so?” “Absolutely. To hell with whether you know how to do it, you’ve got to say yes.” So I called all the executives at Warner Bros.

Ross: How do you think you worked so well in so many different genres? You’ve written drama like “Virginia Woolf,” you’ve dealt with suspense in the Hitchcock movies, you were a specialist in these Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals. How do you have so many voices going on that you were able to sort of master?

Lehman: I never thought of it as voices going on. I mean it. To me, screenwriting--I don’t have a credo. I was good in different genres. I’m very proud of it.

Ross: Did you feel as emotionally connected to all the different movies? Did you feel more connected to some than others?

Lehman: It’s a good question. Let me think. I didn’t feel connected to “From the Terrace.” I think a picture like “North by Northwest,” which was an original screenplay, starting from nothing, I felt very connected to that.

Ross: So, do you think you feel more connected to original work than adaptation? Do you feel more satisfaction in original work than adaptation?

Lehman: I should. That much I know.

Ross: But do you?

Lehman: To me, a project is a project, and you make it as good as you can, and you make sure the audience knows who the protagonist is and knows who the antagonists are, and senses what they feel even though you can’t put it into the movie script. I just have an idea as to what makes a movie successful. And if you can move them emotionally, like “Virginia Woolf,” even though I didn’t know how to do it when I started with it, to me it was emotionally moving, and to me there’s nothing more admirable in a movie than to create an emotion in the audience.

Ross: No question. When I was getting ready to talk to you about all this, I read your first page of “The Sound of Music.” I think you described every rock in that aerial montage that eventually finds its way to Julie Andrews. What was so interesting to me was that after reading the page, I ran the movie and it was literally shot for shot the way you had written it.

Lehman: Absolutely.

Ross: I don’t think people realize how much of what screenwriters do is visual.

Lehman: That’s very true. They think in terms of dialogue.

Ross: The only writer-director that you worked with was Billy Wilder.

Lehman: Yes.

Ross: How was that different? What was that experience like on “Sabrina”?

Lehman: That was a nervous breakdown experience.

Ross: I loved that movie.

Lehman: Oh, I think it’s a pleasure.

Ross: So, what happened?

Lehman: Well. Working with Billy was repairing to his house. Let’s say he’s shooting. The minute he stopped for lunch, we rushed back to his office because we never had a script. We kept writing as we went along.

Ross: And the original [Samuel] Taylor play? You used very little of it?

Lehman: That’s why Sam was off the picture. [Taylor was one of three credited writers on the movie.] Billy was changing the play before it even opened on Broadway, and Sam couldn’t take that. So he left and I don’t know why [Wilder] asked for me. I was a new writer in town. What had I done?

Ross: Had he worked with Iz Diamond [frequent Wilder collaborator I.A.L. Diamond] at that point or not?

Lehman: No. It was exciting and nervous-making, and I had never been on a sound stage with a director-writer who was shooting scenes. I remember, one day I watched him shooting the Glen Cove station scene, and I pulled his arm and I said, “Billy, we did it all wrong.” And he said, “Get up to your office where you belong.” So I went up to my office where I belonged and I quickly rewrote the scene, and then I quit.

Ross: [Laughs.]

Lehman: Then I came back down to Billy and I gave the pages to him and immediately he realized. Of course, he had already shot half of it, re-creating the station where Sabrina recognizes Bill Holden in the car.

Ross: And he doesn’t know who she is.

Lehman: Yeah, but that isn’t the way we wrote it the first time. The first time it was all wrong. He knew who she was.

Ross: Oh, no kidding. So the change you made was to have Bill Holden unaware of who Audrey Hepburn was in her return?

Lehman: Yeah, and she was playing games with him.

Ross: That’s a brilliant change.

Lehman: What a change it was. It made the whole scene.

Ross: Absolutely.

Lehman: It was one of the best scenes in the picture. So anyway, Billy realized this and said, “OK, strike it. That’s it for today.” He said, “We’ll shoot it on location in Glen Cove.” Which is what we did.

Ross: Was that the first time that you’d written in that style, in that genre? In romantic comedy?

Lehman: Oh yeah. I would have loved to have continued with Billy. What did I do after that? What did I do? It must have been something, some musical--

Ross: “The King and I”?

Lehman: Right.

Ross: What was your relationship like with Oscar Hammerstein.

Lehman: I loved him. I have a very nice letter from Oscar hanging upstairs in my study thanking me for my delicate treatment of their baby.

Ross: And what about “The Sound of Music”? You made a point somewhere that it was a movie that opened up so well because it almost felt too claustrophobic on the stage, and when you got in the Alps you really saw the potential.

Lehman: Oh my God. Salzburg is a dream as a location for filmmaking. Just marvelous places.

Ross: Didn’t Bob Wise direct that?

Lehman: Bob [Wise] won for directing and producing. And I was the only one who didn’t win. Was I embarrassed? Oh, gee.

Ross: Well, I think you’re winning the most important Oscar, to be honest with you. A whole body of work--

Lehman: That’s nice of you to say that.

Ross: You have, what? Six Oscar nominations?

Lehman: Yes.

Ross: That’s quite a lot.

Lehman: That’s a lot of loss.

Ross: How does it feel to be getting this award?

Lehman: Thrilling. But nervous-making.

Ross: Why does it make you nervous?

Lehman: I’m a writer. I’m not used to getting out in front of 4,000 people.

Ross: Well, I think it’s wonderful that a screenwriter is finally being honored.

Lehman: Yes, I think it’s about time.

Ross: Is there anything else you want to add about getting this or how it feels or looking back on a career or--

Lehman: Funny, I just felt a little strange.

Ross: Did you?

Lehman: That’s strange. I don’t know what to say. I felt sad.

Ross: Why do you think?

Lehman: It’s so late in coming. And . . .

Ross: You mean, how long the road was?

Lehman: I’ve never felt bitter. I’ve never felt overlooked. I never felt I haven’t been given sufficient reward. I think I’ve been praised aplenty.