The Mask Makers Revisited

Filmed June 1962

I have recently read IN MORTICIA’S SHADOW, the fine biography of Carolyn Jones written by James Pylant. I’ve learned many things I didn’t know. For starters: the events that occurred between the time we made the offer to her agent, Bud Moss, for her to guest-star in THE MASK MAKERS and the call from him telling us she accepted.

From Mr. Pylant’s book:
      In 1962 General Artists Corporation, the talent agency representing Carolyn, found a guest-starring role for her on DR. KILDARE, but they were afraid that the storyline might offend their client. In the script for an episode called “The Mask Makers” the character of Evy Schaller underwent rhinoplasty. “They didn’t think because Carolyn in real life had a nose job that it would be a good idea to bring her a script about that,” recalled Budd Moss. “They didn’t know if they wanted to risk their relationship with Carolyn Jones,” he added.
“It’s an amazing script, and it’s DR. KILDARE,” Budd said in a telephone call to Carolyn.
“Well if you want to come over tomorrow at five o’clock and drop off the script,” Carolyn said, “I’m having drinks with June Allyson, and then we’re waiting for Aaron to come home.”
Budd arrived the next day, and with script in hand, described the role. “I told her the story about this woman who was kind of a wallflower who was dating this man for some time and they were just good friends, and there was Dr. Kildare who convinced her to get a nose job.”
Carolyn’s eyes started to line with tears as Budd related the story. “Wait a minute,” she said after he finished. “I have to show you something.”
She went upstairs to her files and came down about five minutes later and said she had a ‘before’ and ‘after’ photo of her nose surgery.
“I want to do this television show,” Carolyn said.

I used to jokingly describe an episode of DR. KILDARE as the disease of the week. During the early years of the series intern Kildare had rotating service assignments in all the hospital departments.

I knew that Carolyn had been a student at the Pasadena Playhouse’s College of Theatre Arts, but I learned from Pylant’s book that we had been at the Playhouse at the same time, but in different classes; I was in my second year, she was in her first.

Carolyn Jones was a real movie star in the tradition of old Hollywood. You knew it the moment she walked into a room; at least I sensed it when she arrived at our production office. She had come in for a fitting, not a wardrobe fitting, a nose fitting. I don’t remember if we knew when we cast Carolyn that she had many years earlier undergone rhinoplasty. She very conveniently and graciously brought photos of herself before her surgery to our meeting. We took her and the photos to the MGM make-up department, where they proceeded to construct a prosthetic to turn movie star Carolyn into plain, unattractive Evy. And I remember very vividly how Carolyn changed in the make-up chair. With the application of the prosthetic the movie star dimmed, not only visually but her whole personality changed, and the pre-surgery Carolyn emerged. I had a preview of the woman who would soon enter our camera.

I remember early Carolyn Jones’ appearances in small roles in features and mid-1950’s television. She was a wide-eyed blonde playing quirky characters. I thought she was very much like a young Bette Davis. Ironically her mother, who was a movie fan, named her younger sister Bette. Carolyn’s name was inspired by her mother’s admiration for Carole Lombard.

After Carolyn graduated from the Playhouse, she began her attempts to succeed in Hollywood as an actress, but with little success. She believed it was her appearance, her larger than normal nose that was the reason she couldn’t get cast after impressively auditioning. Unlike Evy she didn’t need to be convinced. She decided on surgery to further her career.

During lunch the day that Carolyn came to the studio for her ‘nose fitting’, she told me what had happened at the time of her surgery. Her surgeon had warned her that when she awakened after the surgery, she should positively refrain from looking in a mirror. Well when she awoke in the middle of the night, she did exactly what she had been told not to do. I couldn’t wait to get back to the office to ask producer David Victor to add that scene to our script.

Something happened on this production that later had an enormous effect on my career. I think it happened the day the following scene was filmed. A friend of Carolyn, Jimmy Komack, was visiting the set that day. Jimmy was an actor aspiring to move on to write, produce and direct. As an actor he appreciated that when I talked to an actor to give them corrections, I did it quietly and privately. Six years later in the aftermath of my being fired mid-filming of STAR TREK’s THE THOLIAN WEB (http://senensky.com/the-tholian-web/) I was suddenly, totally unemployable. Jimmy was producing a new series at MGM, THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIES FATHER. He hired me. He was the one who put me back to work.

I’m sure it’s my theatre training, but I love entrances. On the stage (at least back in the grand old theatrical days) stars didn’t just appear. They MADE AN ENTRANCE! Whenever possible I try to deliver my leading characters’ first appearance as an entrance. I thought I gave Evy with a nose an entrance in the opening shot of this show. I considered Evy’s appearance after the surgery to be a NEW character, worthy of another entrance.

In 1957 her audition for THE BACHELOR PARTY impressed Paddy Chayefsky and director Delbert Mann but her appearance didn’t match her performance. It was the blond hair. That was when Carolyn became a brunette. Her performance in THE BACHELOR PARTY earned her an Academy Award nomination and the blond never returned

From Mr. Pylant’s book again:
In THE MASK MAKERS, the actress relived the resentment she felt when male friends suddenly wanted to date the post-surgery Carolyn, whom they had ignored in the pas

And again:
This episode of DR. KILDARE, said one reporter, “explores the psychological outlook
of a young woman before and after cosmetic surgery,” unaware of how the actress’s
coming to terms with her own experience allowed art to imitate life.

And again:
“It isn’t a funny nose and it isn’t a funny script,” she said. “The show illuminates a genuine problem and contains lessons for a lot of people.

It was the type of role, like others, Carolyn found depressing because she identified too closely with the characters she portrayed. “It bothers me sometimes,” she said. “I become antisocial and don’t want to go out and see anybody.

And again:
Reflecting on Carolyn’s acting in DR. KILDARE, Budd Moss said, “It turned out to be one of her really great performances.”

And again:
The show’s producers were so pleased with THE MASK MAKERS that they scrambled to rearrange their fall schedule to place that episode as the second season debut of DR. KILDARE. In the end, THE MASK MAKERS aired as the fourth episode.

Television in the early sixties was not afraid to be informative as well as entertaining. Jerry McNeely’s fine script for THE MASK MAKERS aimed to do more than just tell the story of a young lady’s experience with plastic surgery. My only fault with the script are the final scenes in Evy’s hospital room, the ones following the long scene in the hospital corridor between Kildare and Gillespie. Evy’s character had been so carefully and meticulously developed that the resolution of the Evy-Larry relationship is too abrupt. But that was not McNeely’s fault. Time! It needed more time. But that was television, restricted to the time-format it inherited from radio.

THE MASK MAKERS turned out to be a case of art imitating life, but life doesn’t always reciprocate and imitate art. Evy had her rhinoplasty, went through the trauma of rehabilitation and found true love. I have wondered about Carolyn. She was married and divorced when she had her rhinoplasty and it was followed by a successful career, but three more marriages and divorces.

The time I spent with Carolyn! There was the day she came to the studio for her ‘nose fitting’. I remember that the weekend before we began filming I dropped off revised script pages at her home in Beverly Hills. And finally 6 days on Stage 11 at MGM filming, but I realize more of that time was spent with Evy Schaller than with Carolyn Jones.

I only saw Carolyn one more time — twenty years later at a Pasadena Playhouse Alumni breakfast. We chatted and I remember her saying, “We’ve got to work together again.” We never did. She died the following year at the age of 53.

The journey continues