A weekly feature in which my five-year-old son is let loose on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Los Angeles, and chooses a star from among the more than 2,500 honorees. His “random” picks sometimes reveal unexplained connections such as the summer day in 2012 when he sat down on the star of actress Celeste Holm and refused to budge. We later learned that the Oscar-winning actress had died only hours earlier. There are five categories on the Walk of Fame: motion pictures, television, radio, music and theater but Charlie tends to favor the movies.
While he made dozens of films over four decades, many of them true classics, if you’ve only seen George Sanders in his Oscar-winning performance as acid-tongued theater critic Addison DeWitt in All About Eve, you are probably already a fan.
Sanders gives the performance of a lifetime in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s brilliant film which won the 1950 Academy Award for Best Picture as well as five other Oscars including the one for George Sanders. Was there ever a case of more perfect casting? Everything about Sander’s real-life demeanor made him the only possible choice to play acerbic Addison DeWitt. Here is how he introduces himself in a voiceover at the beginning of the film:
Those of you who do not read, attend the theater, listen to unsponsored radio programs, or know anything of the world in which you live, it is perhaps necessary to introduce myself. My name is Addison DeWitt. My native habitat is the theater. In it, I toil not, neither do I spin. I am a critic and commentator. I am essential to the theater.
Later on, in the famous fasten-your-seatbelts party scene, Addison arrives at Margo Channing’s New York apartment with a very young Marilyn Monroe playing aspiring actress Claudia Caswell. Mankiewicz’s perfect dialogue gets perfect delivery from everyone involved: Anne Baxter, Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, and George Sanders.
Margo Channing: I distinctly remember, Addison, crossing you off of my guest list. What are you doing here?
Addison DeWitt: Dear Margo, you were an unforgettable Peter Pan. You must play it again soon. You remember Miss Caswell.
Margo Channing: I do not. How do you do?
Miss Caswell: We’ve never met. Maybe that’s why?
Addison DeWitt: Miss Casswell is an actress, a graduate of the Copacabana School of the Dramatic Arts.
[Eve enters]
Addison DeWitt: Ah, Eve.
Eve Harrington: Good evening, Mr. DeWitt.
Margo Channing: I’d no idea you two knew each other.
Addison DeWitt: This must be at long last our formal introduction. Until now we’ve only met in passing.
Miss Caswell: That’s how you met me…in passing.
Margo Channing: Eve, this is an old friend of Mr. DeWitt’s mother. Miss Caswell, Miss Harrington.
Eve Harrington: Miss Caswell.
Miss Caswell: How do you do?
Margo Channing: Addison, I’ve been waiting for you to meet Eve for the longest time.
Addison DeWitt: It could only have been your natural timidity that kept you from mentioning it.
Margo Channing: You’ve heard of her great interest in the theater.
Addison DeWitt: We have that in common.
Margo Channing: Then you two must have a long talk.
Eve Harrington: I’m afraid Mr. DeWitt would find me boring.
Miss Caswell: You won’t bore him, honey — you won’t even get a chance to talk.
Addison DeWitt: Claudia, come here. You see that man? That’s Max Fabian, the producer. Now go do yourself some good.
Miss Caswell: Why do they always look like unhappy rabbits?
Addison DeWitt: Because that’s what they are.
A few minutes later, they are sitting on Margo’s stairs and Miss Caswell wants a drink. This exchange gets me every time.
Miss Caswell: Oh, waiter!
Addison DeWitt: That is not a waiter, my dear, that is a butler.
Miss Caswell: Well, I can’t yell “Oh butler!” can I? Maybe somebody’s name is Butler.
Addison DeWitt: You have a point. An idiotic one, but a point.
Miss Caswell: I don’t want to make trouble. All I want is a drink.
Max Fabian: Leave it to me. I’ll get you one.
Miss Caswell: Thank you, Mr. Fabian.
Addison DeWitt: Well done! I can see your career rise in the east like the sun.
Every line Sanders utters in the film is delivered with so much precision and wit, it’s no wonder it became hard to disassociate the actor from the role.
Born on July 3, 1906, to English parents in St. Petersburg, Russia, George’s family hightailed it back to England when the Russian Revolution broke out 11 years later. Sanders got a job at an advertising company after he finished school, and it was a secretary at the company, an aspiring actress named Greer Garson, who encouraged George to try his hand at the acting profession. After appearing in several British films in the early 1930s, he got cast as an aristocratic snob in Henry King’s Lloyd’s of London (1936) starring Tyrone Power and Madeleine Carroll. Sanders got a lot of attention in two classic 1940 Hitchcock Films: as conniving Jack Favell in Rebecca with Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier, and as reporter Scott ffolliott (he gave up the capital letter in his surname in memory of an executed ancestor!) in Foreign Correspondent with Joel McCrea and Laraine Day. He starred in two film series, one featuring The Falcon and one The Saint, and made two movies with his real-life brother, Tom Conway. I thought Sanders was great in movies such as The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) and Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949).
Following his huge success in All About Eve, Sanders starred in films such as Ivanhoe (1952), Call Me Madam (1953), King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), and That Certain Feeling (1956). He also ventured into television with The George Sanders Mystery Theater (1957) and played memorable villains in series such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Batman (remember Mr. Freeze?). When I was a kid, I enjoyed Sanders’ performance as Shere Khan the Tiger in Disney’s The Jungle Book.
Sanders’ personal life would have given Addison DeWitt plenty to write about. He was married four times, most famously to two of the Gabors, Zsa Zsa (from 1949 to 1954) and her older sister Magda (for just 32 days in 1970). He wrote an autobiography called Memoirs of a Professional Cad that garnered great reviews. Sanders’ good friend, actor Brian Aherne, later wrote a book about him called A Dreadful Man (George suggested the title himself). That book was published after Sanders’ death. With his health worsening, George Sanders swallowed five bottles of barbiturates on April 23, 1972, and took his own life. He left behind a suicide note which read as follows:
Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck. —George Sanders