European Trip

I have been in Europe for the last six months making a film called What's New Pussycat, starring Peter O'Toole and Peter Sellers and myself, in that order, and it's the first time in my life, that I ever acted in anything like that. I have acted before, but I don't count it, many many years ago I was the nursery school play, when I was a child. I played the part of Stanley Kowalski in the school play of A Streetcar Named Desire, and I was one of the great five years old Stanleys. And..I wrote the film, and it's an autobiographically movie. It's based on the experiences of a great ladies man and I ... you're laughing? ... it so happens, on my honeymoon night my wife stopped in the middle of everything to give me a standing ovation.

Yes, as a matter of fact, you should know the etymology of how I got to Europe in the first place, which is fascinating. I was appearing in Greenwich Village at a coffee house in Bleeker street called the Integration Bagle Shop and Flea Parlor. I was the master of ceremonies on the bed, y'know, and I was on with real Greenwich Village acts, y'know, myself and an eskimo vocalist, who sang Night and Day six months at a time. A little blond girl with a child by a future marriage, y'know, [???] and in walks one night mr. Feldman, our producer, and he just adored me on sight. He thought I was attractive and sensual and good-looking, y'know, and just made for motion pictures. He is a little short man with red hair and glasses. And he asked me if I ever wrote anything before, and I have been a televison writer for years, and I wrote a three-act versed tragedy about a vetenarian faith healer, who restored speech to a parrot, y'know, and I also wrote a short story about my first year of marriage, which Alfred Hitchcock showed interest in for a while. And he flies me out to Europe, absolutely all expenses paid, TWA flight, y'know, movie on the flight and everything. Irene Dunne in The Life of Emelia Earhart, y'know, ... sitting shaking on the plane, y'know.

And I meet a girl at my European analyst's. I have to explain this: I was going to a European analyst, that meant a European boy can see my analyst for six months, y'know. The neurotic exchange program. And I invite her up to my hotel. I get all ready for our dinner date, y'know, I anoint myself completely, I beat my body with auto wrenches. I throw an ample light on me, to make me look really effective. Two little backlights to give me the illusion of three dimensions, a baby spot to pick out the brown in my eyes, and I put on my mood music records, y'know, my Arthur Godfrey Hawaiian music. She had invited me over to her place, but I didn't want to log the lights and everything, y'know, so...and...oh! I didn't dress properly, this was partially my fault, I know how to dress better now, but I was not a good dresser a short while ago. You don't wear argyle with dark blue. I had on dark blue socks and an argyle suit. I looked like a farmer, y'know, and my radiator breaks and the hotel room is absolutely freezing, and I'm ashamed, y'know, because she is going to come into a cold room, so I go into the bathroom and I turn on the hot water in the shower, which is an old Brooklyn trick to heat the apartment, and hot water comes down and billows of steam come into the living room. And icecold air is seeping in under the windowsill and the two fronts meet in the living room, and it starts to rain in my hotel room. I'm standing there in the rain, and I did not do well with the girl.

Europe for me, as a matter of fact, was a series of near misses. I was at a cast party with our cast, and I was in the corner and I was playing the vibes, very sexy like a jazz musician - up and down. And a great girl comes up behind me, really elaborate, and she says to me "You play vibes?" I say "Yeah, it helps me sublimate me sexual tensions." She says "Why don't you let me help you sublimate your sexual tensions.", so I figured "Great", y'know, "here's a girl who plays vibes." I turned quickly and asked her out for a date, but Peter O'Toole, who's in the movie, asked her out first - aces me out, y'know - and she was a beautiful girl, so I said to her "Could you bring a sister for me?", and she did: Sister Maria Teresa. It was a very slow night, y'know. We discussed the New Testament, y'know. We agreed that He was extremely well adjusted, for an only child.