every now and then, some elder statesman of the theater or cinema assures the public that actors and actresses are just plain folk. ignoring the fact that their greatest attraction to the public is their complete lack of resemblance to normal human beings.
it is senseless to insist that theatrical folk in new york, hollywood and london are no different from the good people of des moines, chillicothe and liverpool. by and large, we are concentrated gatherings of neurotics, egomaniacs, emotional misfits, and precocious children-
these so-called abnormalities - they're our stock in trade, they make us actors, writers, directors, et cetera in the first place-
what makes a man walk into a lion cage with nothing but a chair?
we all have abnormality in common. we are a breed apart from the rest of the humanity, we theater folk. we are the original displaced personalities.
that happens to be your particular abnormality.
that isn't a waiter, my dear. that's a butler.
you have a point. an idiotic one, but a point.
well done. i see your career rising in the east like the sun.  .  you were saying?
you're maudlin and full of self pity. you're magnificent.
hear, hear.
too bad! we'll miss the third act. they're going to play it off stage.
i've often wondered, max, why you bother with a chauffeur and limousine in new york city.
and too many of them are produced.
you have me confused with dan dailey. you go sit by the piano. and you come sit by me. good night.
dear margo. you were an unforgettable peter pan - you must play it again, soon. you remember miss caswell?
miss caswell is an actress. a graduate of copacabana school of dramatic arts. ah.  eve.
this must be, at long last, our formal introduction. until now we have met only in passing.
it could only have been your natural timidity that kept you from mentioning it.
we have that in common.
claudia dear, come closer. this is max fabian. he is a producer. go do yourself some good.
because that is what they are. go make him happy.
you mustn't worry about your little charge. she is in safe hands.
miss caswell, at the moment, is where i can lend no support - moral or otherwise.
being violently ill to her tummy.
miss caswell got lucky too late. the audition is over.
the audition was called for 2:30. it is now nearly four.
naturally enough, your understudy.
i refer to your new and unpregnant understudy. eve harrington.
didn't you know?
it just slipped your mind.
frankly, i don't remember.
completely. nor, i am sure, could anyone else present tell you how miss caswell read or whether miss caswell read or rode a pogo stick.
margo, as you know, i have lived in the theater as a trappist monk lives in his faith. i have no other world, no other life - and once in a great while i experience that moment of revelation for which all true believers wait and pray. you were one. jeanne eagels another.  paula wessely.  hayes - there are others, three or four. eve harrington will be among them.
it wasn't reading, it was a performance. brilliant, vivid, something made of music and fire.
in time she'll be what you are.
bill didn't say - but lloyd was beside himself. he listened to his play as if someone else had written it, he said, it sounded so fresh, so new, so full of meaning.
eve was incredibly modest. she insisted that no credit was due her, that lloyd felt as he did only because she read lines exactly as he had written them.
to the best of my recollection, neither your name nor your performance entered the conversation.
feeling better, my dear?
you next move, it seems to me, should be toward television.
that's all television is, my dear. nothing but auditions.
may i come in?
i expected to find this little room overcrowded, with a theater full of people at your feet.
of course your performance was no surprise to me. after the other day i regarded it as no more than - a promised fulfilled.
you're more than modest.
a revolutionary approach to the theater. however, if i may a suggestion.
i think the time has come for you to shed some of your humility. it is just as false not to blow your horn at all as it is to blow it too loudly.
we all come into this world with our little egos equipped with individual horns. if we don't blow them - who will?
it needn't be.
i am somebody.
leave the door open a bit, so we can talk.
after you change, if you're not busy elsewhere, we can have supper.
let's have a minimum of pretending. i'll want to do a column about you-
- perhaps more than one. there's so much i want to know. i've heard your story in bits and pieces.  your home in wisconsin, your tragic marriage, your financial attachment to margo - it started in san francisco, didn't it? i say - your idolatry of margo started in san francisco, didn't it?
san francisco. an oasis of civilization in the california desert. tell me, do you share my high opinion of san francisco?
and that memorable night when margo first dazzled you from the stage - which theater was it in san francisco? was it - the shubert?
a fine old theater, the shubert. full of tradition, untouched by the earthquake - so sorry - fire.  by the way, what was your husband's name?
eddie what?
i can wait. where would you like to go? we'll make this a special night.
i believe i will.
she was magnificent.
i was there. an eyewitness.
a happy coincidence.
they'll be wasting this much of their time at any rate. eve has no intention of going to hollywood.
from the smartness of your dress, i take it your luncheon companion is a lady?
margo? lunching in public?
she may be later than you think.
why not read my column to pass the time? the minutes will fly like hours.  .  and now we must join our sunburned eager beaver.
karen! how nice.
hungry?
i'm not surprised. after all that humble pie.
heart to heart? woman to woman? including a casual reference to the part of "cora" - and your hopes of playing it.
she mentioned, of course, that margo expects to play the part?
just like that, eh?
do you know, eve - sometimes i think you keep things from me.
it wasn't meant to be.
i hope you mean what you say, eve. i intend to hold you to it.
we have a great deal in common, it seems to me.
d-day.
and tomorrow morning you will have won your beachhead on the shores of immortality.
are you that sure of tomorrow?
frankly - yes.
all paved with diamonds and gold?
paved with what, then?
almost four.
you could sleep, too, couldn't you?
the mark of a true killer. sleep tight, rest easy - and come out fighting.
did i say killer? i meant champion. i get my boxing terms mixed.
suites are for expense accounts. aren't you being extravagant?
also with the reluctant compliments of max fabian.
some plain soda. lloyd must be expecting a record run in new haven.
we're?
i find it odd that karen isn't here for the opening, don't you?
she's always been so fantastically devoted to lloyd. i would imagine that only death or destruction could keep her-
- something about an old road ending and a new one starting - paved with stars.
what else?
so that's it. lloyd. still just the theater, after all.
i know nothing about lloyd and his loves - i leave those to louisa may alcott. but i do know you.
lloyd richards is commercially the most successful playwright in america-
- and artistically, the most promising! eve dear, this is addison.
 and karen.
i see. and when was this unholy alliance joined?
was the setting properly romantic - the lights on dimmers, gypsy violins off stage?
you sat and talked until it was light.
there never was, there'll never be another like you.
what do you take me for?
it is possible - even conceivable - that you've confused me with that gang of backward children you've been playing tricks on - that you have the same contempt for me that you have for them?
look closely, eve, it's time you did. i am addison dewitt. i'm nobody's fool. least of all - yours.
yes, you did. you still do.
- it's important right now that we talk. killer to killer.
not with me, you're no champion. you're stepping way up in class.
very well, plainly and distinctly. although i consider it unnecessary - because you know as well as i, what i am about to say. lloyd may leave karen, but he will not leave karen for you.
more plainly and more distinctly? i have not come to new haven to see the play, discuss your dreams, or to pull the ivy from the walls of yale! i have come to tell you that you will not marry lloyd - or anyone else - because i will not permit it.
everything. because after tonight, you will belong to me.
a dull cliche.
so does the history of the world for the past twenty years. i don't enjoy putting it as bluntly as this, frankly i had hoped that you would, somehow, have known - have taken it for granted that you and
remember as long as you live, never to laugh at me. at anything or anyone else - but never at me.
you're too short for that gesture. besides, it went out with mrs. fiske.
don't pick it up! don't even put your hand on it.
something told you to do as i say, didn't it? that instinct is worth millions, you can't buy it, cherish it, eve. when that alarm goes off, go to your battle stations.
your name is not eve harrington. it is gertrude slescynski.
it is true that your parents were poor. they still are. and they would like to know how you are - and where. they haven't heard from you for three years.
a matter of opinion. granted. it is also true that you worked in a brewery. but life in the brewery was apparently not as dull as you pictured it. as a matter of fact, it got less and less dull - until you boss's wife had your boss followed by detectives!
but the $500 you got to get out of town brought you straight to new york - didn't it?
that $500 brought you straight to new york - didn't it?
answer my question! weren't you paid to get out of town?
fourth. there was no eddie - no pilot - and you've never been married! that was not only a lie, but an insult to dead heroes and to the women who loved them.  .  fifth. san francisco has no shubert theater and north shore, you've never been to san francisco! that was a stupid lie, easy to expose, not worthy of you.
she did like you, she helped and trusted you! you paid her back by trying to take bill away!
i was there, i saw you and heard you through the dressing room door!
you used my name and my column to blackmail karen into getting you the part of "cora" - and you lied to me about it!
i had lunch with karen not three hours ago. as always with women who want to find out things, she told more than she learned.  .  do you want to change your story about lloyd beating at your door the other night?
that i should want you at all suddenly strikes me as the height of improbability. but that, in itself, is probably the reason. you're an improbable person, eve, and so am i. we have that in common. also a contempt for humanity, an inability to love or be loved, insatiable ambition - and talent. we deserve each other. are you listening to me?
then say so.
and you realize - you agree how completely you belong to me?
take your nap, now. and good luck for tonight.
couldn't go on? you'll give the performance of your life.
as soon as the peasants stop pawing her.
you can have one at max's.
why not?
max has gone to a great deal of trouble, it's going to be an elaborate party, and it's for you.
it's the same thing, isn't it?
you're being childish.
very well. i shall drop you and go on to the party. i have no intention of missing it.
hello, there. who are you?
we won't disturb her rest. it seems she left her award in the taxicab. will you give it to her?
how do you know my name?
and what is your name?
phoebe?
why not? tell me, phoebe, do you want some day to have an award like that of your own?
then you must miss harrington how to get one. miss harrington knows all about it.