The Mask Makers

Filmed June 1962

My timing in real life was not as good as my timing in reel life. I left my paying job on DR. KILDARE just as television film production for the 1961-62 season was drawing to a close. The yearly spring hiatus, when there was literally no production going on, had arrived. And one episode of a successful and popular series, although greeted warmly within the company, did not produce an avalanche of requests for my services. The good news was that for the next 1962-63 season I was booked to direct two more segments of Dr. Kildare, but the first one wouldn’t be until June with the second one scheduled for September. Sometime in May just a year after I had reported to MGM the first time, I received the script of THE MASK MAKERS. Scheduled to be my first production, it was a drama with an interesting protagonist, who was, unusually, a woman, a rarity in television.

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. We had cast her to play Evy in Jerry McNeely’s drama about plastic surgery, and she had come in for a fitting. No, not a wardrobe fitting, a nose fitting. Our story was about Evy, a girl with a very large nose, who undergoes plastic surgery and her emotional traumatic after effects. It was a teleplay that a few years earlier could have been written for STUDIO ONE or PHILCO PLAYHOUSE. Jerry McNeely incidentally was a long distance screenwriter. He was a university professor in Michigan.

I don’t remember if we knew when we cast Carolyn that she had many years earlier undergone the same surgery. But 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 new nose 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.

It’s unfortunate this episode wasn’t in color. Charles Hagedon, our art director, designed a set for Evy’s apartment that was worthy of a top MGM feature production. It was a railroad apartment with charcoal gray walls and an accent wall of tomato red. He had two occasional chairs reupholstered in a gray and white wide-striped pillow ticking type material. And he brought from the MGM prop department a beautiful credenza that he said he had been wanting to use in a set for ages. He apologized for the fact that the colors of the credenza clashed with his gray and red color scheme, but since we were filming in black and white, it wouldn’t matter. But it did matter to Steve Potter, the set decorator. Charles very graciously conceded, and the credenza was replaced by another credenza of Steve’s choosing. This one’s color  blended into the set beautifully, and incidentally was equally magnificent. Oh that prop department!

Television in the early sixties was not afraid to take the time to be informative as well as entertaining. Jerry McNeelly’s script aimed to do more than just tell the story of a single person’s experience with plastic surgery. To accomplish that, since Kildare’s current hospital service assignment determined the weekly episode’s story line, in THE MASK MAKERS he was assigned to plastic surgery.

And unlike so much of what we see on the screens today, television was not afraid to take the time to explore people’s deeper emotional feelings, in the case of Evy, her need beyond vanity that could lead her to undergo the pain and uncertainty of plastic surgery.

Myrtle Oulman, the drama teacher who was the incentive that started me on the journey that led me to Blair Hospital, said once as we sat in the auditorium during a rehearsal, “If at any time the action on the stage froze, the visual picture that resulted should tell what is happening in the story.” I always subscribed to that theory, and in the many stage productions I directed I strove to accomplish it. I found that to be even more relevant when working in film; I always looked for ways to enhance visually the words the actors were saying and the thoughts they were thinking.

Although no scene in our story involved Evy’s surgery, as part of my preparation I viewed a documentary of a nose surgery, filmed in EXTREME closeup. Fortunately it was not in color. I remember I had to forcefully keep myself focused on the screen as the scalpel made the incision in the skin, which was then peeled away from the bone; my anguish continued as the instruments then chipped away at the bone through a full one hour ordeal. I ashamedly admit that was probably the most difficult thing I ever did pre-filming. I don’t know whether Jerry McNeely viewed a film of a nose surgery, I suspect he did, but I’m positive he did a lot of research. That showed in his script.

A problem facing any writer assigned to script a DR. KILDARE was keeping young Kildare  involved in the problem of the patient of the week without overstepping the professional ethics of his profession. That was not a problem always successfully solved. I think Jerry McNeely’s script was very deft in approaching the problem and very successful in solving it.

During lunch the day that Carolyn came to the studio for the 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. And she told me how she reacted. I couldn’t wait to get back to the office to ask producer David Victor to add that scene to our script.

Jerry’s research into the subject of plastic surgery went much further than the intricacies of the operation itself. His primary focus, more than the physical, was the emotional ramifications to Evy that the change in appearance brought her. And he took it minute step by minute step.

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! I remember Katharine Cornell’s first appearance in THAT LADY. There was a large archway up center looking out on a balcony. Miss Cornell swept into view from up left, looked upstage and leaned over the balcony wall, then turned and with a black patch over one eye and to thunderous applause moved to stand in the archway. I try to deliver my leading characters’ first appearance as an entrance whenever possible. Without the advantage of an archway to frame her, I thought I gave Evy with a nose an entrance at the opening of the show. I considered Evy’s first appearance after the surgery to be a NEW character, worthy of another entrance.

It would have been so easy (but less insightful) for Evy and her beau to discover their love for each other and live happily ever after. But Jerry’s script, which started with Kildare’s aversion to his assignment to plastic surgery, revealed the field to be more than a cosmetic process for the vain. Beyond that the script looked into the vulnerable areas of the psyche that could be affected after such an operation.

I loved Beulah Bondi’s definition of acting.  She said, “True acting is being, not seeming.” And that is exactly what is required when performing in film. The camera is like a microscope. It seems to have the ability to see right through the skin of the performer, to ascertain whether the performance is coming from the head or the heart, whether the actor is completely in the moment or just pretending. And acting is so much more than memorizing lines and hitting marks on the floor. Unlike in a play on stage where the actor starts the story at the beginning and plays through all of the turnings in the plot, the film performer plays scenes out of sequence. He or she might arrive at the studio and have to be prepared at 8:00 am to do a scene that starts at a high emotional peak. How do they do it? There is no one way. Each actor has his own way of emotionally preparing for a scene. Beulah arrived on the set in character and stayed in character, before the camera and between shots, the entire day. I’ll speak of other actor’s approaches as I discuss their performances. When Carolyn had a scene requiring her to start highly emotionally involved, I would tell her, “Let me know when you’re ready”, and she would turn her back to the camera; what she did then in her preparation was highly personal, private and internal. When she was ready, she would signal me with a nod of the head, I would order the cameras to roll and call for action and she delivered. She was a wonderful talent, a true professional.

Unlike television series today that have continuing story lines not unlike daytime soap operas, in the early years of filmed television each week’s episode was a complete story to be completed in the one hour time slot. I think that was a boon, but with a drawback. Sometimes the drama had the potential for extended treatment. THE MASK MAKERS did. But the restrictions imposed by the networks’ strict scheduling prevented that. The result could be a hasty, sometimes melodramatic resolution.

I liked shooting scenes in the hospital corridors, especially night scenes. Harkie lit the corridors differently for day scenes and night scenes. Just as a couple decades earlier Judge Hardy had his man-to-man talks with young Andy, possibly on this very same soundstage, DR. KILDARE usually had a similar scene between our older and younger doctors, and for this story the corridors provided a very effective place to stage it.

Being a weekly happy series, naturally Kildare finally brought the lovers together (not totally convincingly) for a happy ending. For me my ending was more convincingly happy. This was my second DR. KILDARE outing, and I knew I was returning in the fall for another assignment. What I didn’t know was that there had been a visitor on the set who, seven and a half years later, would have a very strong effect on my career.

The journey continues