I didn’t know the wonderful actress, teacher and author Marian Seldes very well, but seeing her always thrilled me. She was naturally, helplessly theatrical, and every greeting was an event. “Darling!” she’d exclaim, and sometimes this word may have been a cover for the fact that she wasn’t quite sure of my name. But her delight and graciousness were always genuine, and moving, because she hailed from a land all her own, where talent, discipline, style and compassion flourished. Marian’s death has just been announced, at 86. Among my memories:
While there was something gloriously regal about Marian, as an artist, she relished a challenge. I attended a reading of a one-act by the great Harry Kondoleon, where Marian was playing the flamboyant, dedicated leader of an artists’ colony. Marian was wearing a crocheted poncho, and at one point her character recited a performance piece which began, “I am a roast chicken!”
I was in rehearsal with a play up at Williamstown. Marian was rehearsing another play, accompanied by her beloved husband, Garson Kanin, who was quite frail and well into his eighties. I was staying at the Williams Inn, and one morning as I left my room, the door across the hall opened and Marian appeared. She staggered backwards, as if in pleasureable shock. In her sublime, husky, perfectly articulated gush of a voice, she said, “Paul! I didn’t realize! Why, Garson and I are staying directly across the hall from you!” Then she lowered her voice and said, quite seriously, “I hope we haven’t kept you up.”
A dear friend was playing the lead in yet another play that season at Williamstown. After a performance, Marian swept into the green room, and took this actress’s face in her hands. “Oh my darling,” said Marian. “You were superb. I am going to tell you my most favorite moment of your entire performance.” “Yes, Marian?” said the actress. “Right after you close,” said Marian, and she swept out.
I saw Marian onstage in many shows, but I particularly treasure her work as a society hostess who only appears in the final act of Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker. I have no idea how Marian accomplished her alchemy, but she seemed completely insane, and every word she said was blissfully hilarious.
Marian Seldes, onstage and off, was theater at its finest.
