photographs of Carol Marcus, but I had never seen her, in the flesh, which is what it feels like when you watch her in Mikey and Nicky. I was going to say that I actually saw her, for that’s what it felt like to see her ‘act’ in this film. You probably haven’t seen Mikey and Nicky -- directed by Elaine May in 1972. The film is iconic; not only is it totally absorbing and deeply upsetting but it is an exercise in method acting. The two handsome stars — Peter Falk and John Cassavetes -- wrangle and wrestle and woo, bonding and then hating, snared in an impossibly conflicted platonic love. They are mafia thugs and Falk has been told to kill his friend. There was a huge dispute over the film; May took ‘too long’ to make it, she famously just left the camera running at times. Hence, the studio stole the film from her, putting out their own edit that they considered more marketable; May kept the original footage and ultimately released her own version which you can see on Criterion. May knew Cassavetes and Falk -- as friends and method actors -- would love being left to their own devices at times. Much of the dialogue is improvised, and it’s a lesson in acting — long silences, unexplained chuckles, odd stares, explosive non-sequiturs — the two men are connecting in a way we don’t completely understand, but it is for that reason, perhaps, that it is so convincing. This all fascinates me as a gay man, because if ever there was a film about same sex love, it’s this. I had a friendship with a straight man like this in my 20s — he was a confirmed hetero but we lived together for awhile, and shared a strange co-dependency filled with love and rancour. Well dropped into the very heart of Mikey and Nicky is Carol Marcus (her acting name was Carol Grace). Nicky (Cassavetes) wants to get laid, so he drags his friend to the apartment of an ‘easy' girlfriend who he characterises as kind of mad, delusional slut who will sleep with anybody. The scene is heartbreaking; Nicky tries to have sex with her while Mikey tries to make himself invisible in the next room. When the sexual encounter is over (it’s not clear exactly what happened) Nicky tries to persuade a reluctant Mikey to screw Carol too — she lies hurt, whimpering on the floor (Nicky later comes back to the apartment for final brief painful scene). I did not know this was Carol Marcus until a friend told me. I remembered only her haunting beauty and her pain. Of course such a movie could not be made today, instead we have ‘Wonder Woman’ and assorted other exploitation crap that frame women as 'powerful.’ The problem is that in real life women are not presidents and rarely corporate heads, and they are still treated regularly by some men as ‘mad sluts.’ We don’t solve this reality by hiding it and pasting together corny peons to the heroism of women, instead we are just shrouding the problem and nurturing its toxic growth. Elaine May was a kind of genius (her other films A New Leaf and The Heartbreak Kid are also masterpieces) but no one speaks of her anymore. Perhaps her crime is still hanging out with Woody Allen -- he recently starred her in his TV series A Crisis in Six Scenes. (It has been universally panned because well -- we all hate Woody, don't we?) The fact that he is the only person who seems to care that Elaine May lives or dies should count for something. But back to Carol Marcus. Who was she? You might well ask, her mother had her at age 16, and promptly put her up for adoption. Her mother then married a wealthy tycoon who scooped little Carol out of the orphanage to live in a mansion. (This tumultuous history should have been enough to warp any child.) Carol went on to marry writer William Saroyan after hanging out with Oona O’Neil (who married Charlie Chaplin) and Gloria Vanderbilt (who married Howard Hughes). All romanced these considerably older -- very very famous -- men, as teenagers. Saroyan (a brilliant writer) abused Marcus. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Marcus — galloping about in cafe society with the two other heiresses -- was a madcap, witty, desirable and very desiring young woman (she said she only stayed with Saroyan because he was a good lay.). Capote admitted that she was the model for Holly Golightly, and one can imagine her at the age of 18 enchanting the 45 year old Saroyan, who was more than twice her age. For many — and most of us are gay men — Holly Golightly is a very special gay heroine, she is the type of woman gay men adore and want to be — promiscuous, tortured, brilliant, performative, and beautiful. We don’t quite know why we aspire to be her, but we do (just as we want to be Sally Bowles). I have had many female friends like Holly Golightly and I think they forgive me for at times aspiring to be them. No one speaks of Carol Marcus either, but I learned from Mikey and Nicky that she was more than just a famous muse -- she was an artist of considerable talent. Capote wanted Marylin Monroe for the role of Holly; he was disappointed when they cast Audrey Hepburn. If you look at early photos of Carol Marcus you will see that she could have given Marylin a run for her money. The women that I love are hard as nails and soft as butter, they are tender as the moon and as fearless as a bear. Speaking of which, I now have the key to the bear that chases Antigonus in The Winter’s Tale - it was based on Ovid’s tale of Callisto, a woman transformed into a bear and then hunted by her son Arcus. Arcus did not know his mother was a bear and almost shot her. Like all of Ovid, this fantastical fairy tale seems to make a lot of sense. I know it did to Shakespeare -- as I believe the real Shakespeare was lucky and unlucky enough to have Queen Elizabeth I for a mother (we’ll talk about that another time). Undoubtedly Shakespeare -- all his life, felt chased by her. The fact that my mother was a bear and still chases me in my dreams — perhaps has something to do with my obsession with Carol Marcus. I’m sure no one cares, but it’s nice to have a blog where I can say to no one in particular that I do.
