Book Review: Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage and the Making of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(Received as a birthday present): My parents must have sensed something was up when I started quoting Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at age 12. Edward Albee's scathing portrayal of a sadomasochistic marriage always intrigued me. I first saw the movie on TV and even with network edits, it was so powerful. Then I viewed the film on the big screen in college and was overwhelmed. This is probably Elizabeth Taylor's best performance and Richard Burton's too. Philip Gefter entertainingly exposes the struggles to get this explosive property on film, and the backstage conflicts, principally between producer Ernest Lehman and first-time director Mike Nichols. Gefter traces the origins of the play and the bohemian gay circles Albee inhabited. The impact of Virginia Woolf on popular culture is seismic as it tore off the facade of polite depictions of American marriage and showed the raging emotions underneath.

The film version effectively ended studio censorship and ushered in the ratings system so film language was no longer so restricted.

Of course, the meat of the book is the day-to-day travails of filming which were mainly a power struggle between Nichols and Lehman. The Burtons did not make things any easier. Their contracts stipulated they would not work before 10am and at 6 pm sharp, an assistant would show up on set with a Bloody Mary for each of them signaling they were through for the day. It's that kind of detail that makes the book fun to read. 

Ernest Lehman Bio In the Works

Ernest Lehman

My colleague Jon Krampner, author of "Female Brando: The Legend of Kim Stanley," is at work on a biography of screenwriter Ernest Lehman. His previous book of the legendary and complex actress Kim Stanley is worth a read. He also helped me out on my bio of George C. Scott, providing lots of information and even videos of a BBC interview from when Stanley and Scott starred together in an ill-fated London production of Chekhov's Three Sisters.

Jon sent me the following email on this fascinating new project:

I'm working on a biography of Lehman, whose film credits include "Sabrina," "The King and I," "The Sweet Smell of Success," "North by
Northwest," "West Side Story," "The Sound of Music," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," and "Hello, Dolly." A pretty diverse and illustrious bunch. Interestingly, before he becoming a screenwriter in the early 1950's, he spent a decade as a Broadway publicist, working for Irving Hoffman, who planted items with Walter Winchell and other columnists. (Hoffman was also a theater critic and had a column, "Tales of Hoffman," in The Hollywood Reporter. He was legendary for being one of the few publicists who could actually stand up to Winchell.)