In The Unsinkable Molly Brown, one of the hit musicals that has owned Broadway for more than a year, thre is a stumpy redheaded girl with the body of an urchin and the face of a Cruikshank caricature; a girl with the rare ability to make herself ridiculous without being ludicrous. Her name is Tammy Grimes.
She fights and bites her brothers, rolling on the ground like a puppy dog; she parades regally with a mop, wearing a bucket for a crown; she dances wild capers with miners; she pantomimes burglars; she fires shotguns at sightseers and pistols at the heavens; she speaks the bawdy profanity of the Wild West, strutting around the stage like a cocky kid in brilliant Edwardian gowns. She is, in short, a mad camp.
"Camp" (v., n., & adj.) is a slang expression describing the witty extravaganza and satire enjoyed by both the men and women of the theater public, and especially adored by the third sex. Bea Lillie, Hermione Gingold, Cyril Ritchard and Kay Kendall are classic examples of the camps, and Tammy Grime is the latest in a succession that probably started when Will Shakespeare camped Justice Shallow in Henry IV.
The clown is not a camp, for the clown is innocent; the camp is sophisticated. The comic is not necessarily a camp (although Milton Berle often was) becasue the comic concentrates on humor rather than satire. The camp makes an extravagant comment on life by inflating it to the absurd, and must be willing to make himself ridiculous, a rare quality in actors. Tammy Grimes has this quality.
The Unsinkable Molly Brown, in which Tammy hoots and hollers and makes sixteen costume changes, might have been tailored for her, but wasn't. Not until the show had been running for almost six months did the producers put her name above the title, the official acknowledgement of stardom, and even then Tammy got sore because they would do it only in the lights. "They were too cheap to repain the sign," she said, "for five thousand dollars"- a statement typical of her attitude toward money and success. As one old acquaintance remarked, "She's been a star before she ever got started."
Television viewers have seen Tammy on many specials and variety shows, singing, dancing and camping with Bea Lillie, Cyril Ritchard, Eddie Albert, Tony Randall and Rex Harrison. Her previous theater appearances have been the title role in Noel Cowards's Look After Lulu, the tart in Clerambard, and small roles in The Lark, The Littlest Revue, and Anita Loo's The Amazing Adele. Tammy also fractured New York nightclub fans in Julius Monk's Downstairs at the Upstairs, where Noel Coward first spotted her for his comedy.
Tammy was in thus spotlaht, singin' a numbah," says Mr. Monk, who is from Points South, both here and in France, "an' Noel Cowah was sittin' at the table alongsahd her, and durin' a pawse in thuh song he whispuhd, 'Ah want you to be in mah new show.' Tammy went raht on singin', but when she came to thuh next pawse, she whispuhd back, 'Okay.'"
She's twenty-seven years old, five-five, one hundred and twenty-three pounds. After she popped out the truth about her weight, she stopped, thought and said, "Bubby, we better lie about how much I weigh. Make it a hundred and fourteen." Her hair, dyed an acid red, is really a reddish brown. Her eyes are an odd off-color; she says they're gray-greeny-yellow." Her legs are fairly good, and she's rather proud of them; her bosom is small, and she's unhappy about that. An actress who worked with her reported that Tammy was always coming to her and saying, "I wish I had a pair like yours."
She doesn't have such a bad build," I said. "She has a kind of cute figure," the actress said. "She's chic and mad with that turned-up nose, but she's not satisfied with that. She wants to be beautiful." Photographer Burt Glinn, an old friend of Tammy's says, "She won't grow up until she gives up the idea of being a beauty."
Tammy was born in Lynn, Massachuseets, in 1934, the second of three children. She claims her family was society. Others jeer at this; I haven't checked the Social Register. Certainly she received a posh private-school education and speaks with an accent which she claims is Boston Society, but which sounds English. She swears it's not an affectation, but one actor blurted out, "Honey, where'd you get that English accent? I knew you when you were an apprentice at Westport, and you spoke plain American then." Tammy took a long beat and then murmured, "Well, you know, grandmother was Scotch."
She can kid herself about the accent. "I was at a party where I met George Axelrod [the playwright] and he kept talking to me in an English accent. So at last I asked, 'Are you English?' and he said , 'No, I'm a Jew from Brooklyn, but you're so damn English what can I do?"
After private school she went to Stephens Collegge where she studied acting and immortalized herself by walking clean out of a pair of lounging pajamas on an exit. It brought down the house and infuriated the rest of the cast, headed by George C. Scott (currently starring as the mastermind in The Hustler), who accused her of arranging the accident. Tammy denied this without much conviction, and then went on; "Stephens was like a rep company. They did a new play every three weeks. I played everything form Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday to Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest. I played 'em both exactly the same way. I worked in stock during the summers. Drama school is no good unless you've had experience. First get a job; then go to school."
"Did you graduate from Stephesn?" "Yes, Bubby. Then I went to the Neighborhood Playhouse and studied with Sandy Meisner and Harold Clurman. My first part was in Playboy of the Western World. I had a ball imitating Siobhan McKenna's Irish accent, and flopping a broom around a stage. "Clurman said to me, 'When are you going to forget that you've got a personality and start acting?" "I said, 'Never. It's the only thing I know. When I've become an actress, like in ten years, then I can forget it.' "Clurman said, 'Well, you'll have to do the scene again. It's obvious you never used a broom in your life.'"
Tammy admits that her early seasons in stock were not exactly successful. At Falmouth (which she pronounces "Foul-mouth") she played one bit, a reporter in Three Men on a Horse, changed from a man to a girl, and then was transferred to the prop department. At Westport she started as box-office girl, mislaid $500 and was transferred to the acting company where it was felt she could do less harm. She was a mad-looking creature in those days, usually dripping wet from a dip (she rarely bothered to dry off), shoeless, wearing shorts and a blouse cut to the navel, hanging over the backs of chairs and displaying what cleavage she had where it would do the most good. After three years of this beat apprenticeship, she was offered a part in The Amazing Adele by Anita Loos, who was taken by her campy appearance. The rocket began to climb.

Tammy's interest include sport cars, spending, fun, spending, kicks, spending, clothes, spending, finding a man and spending. She discards money compulsively; she's continuously shopping for clothes, gifts, toys, trinkets, anything but a bargain. Tagging along after her on many expeditions, I was saddened that she didn't seem to enjoy spending money; she did it almost as a duty. A close friend says, "My God, the money that runs through her fingers! She goes into a drugstore for mascara and come out with eighteen dollars worth of junk. She has a little chinchilla wrap, and a little sable cape, and mink sunglasses. The more wildly extravagant she is, the more worthy and valuable she feels, which is kind of pathetic."
Arnold Weisberger, the famous theatrical lawyer who guides stars through legal and financial tangles, spent a long afternoon urging Tammy to start saving money now that she's earning a star's salary. Tammy came away annoyed with Weisberger. She told me, "He acts as though Molly Brown will be my only hit."
Rex Harrison once told her that he was a millionaire and was proud of it because he believed that he was the only English actor ever to achieve this status. "I thought about it," Tammy said, "and I figured, well, maybe he had a piece of My Fair Lady and then there were all those movies, so I said, 'How much money do you have, bubby?' Rex said, 'Just what I said. A million dollars.' So I laughed at him and said, 'Bubby, you're not a millionaire. Today you have to have ten million dollars to be a millionaire.' Rex got so mad he was ready to hit me."
But perhaps the most significant money incident was the remark that slipped out when she got the name part in Noel Coward's Look After Lulu. Tammy said, "Finally I think my salary's going to be as large as Christopher's."
Tammy married Christopher Plummer, the celebrated classical actor, some four years ago, acquired a daughter, Amanda Michael, whom she calls Manders, settled into a duplex apartment in Greenwich Village and finally had the misfortune to break up with her husband. This was a shattering blow for a girl who wants to be beautiful, and although she has been sorting through men and maintains cheerful relations with Plummer, she hasn't got over it.
"A writer's wife once whispered to me, "I think it's so chic the way you're friendly with Christopher,'" Tammy said wryly. She made a face and pronounced a word. Plummer put in an appearance at the apartment a few times. He's dark, handsome, restrained, every inch the heir of Edwin Booth and Henry Irving. Once, after he left, Tammy burst out, 'This crazy tight little group I'm in! I've got to find a new one." "Why? No men?" "There's men, but they're all older. That was good for me when I was younger, they seemed to know so much. And it was wonderful being married to Christopher, but I'd never marry an actor again." "What have you got against actors?"
"They back away. They're unattainable and fascinating because they look at you and back away at the same time. It's: I'll be marvelous to you, but you have to come to me.' Tammy looked around and spotted Plummer at another table with a girl. "Who's he with? she muttered, craning forward for a better look. Then she settled back with satisfaction. "I don't know who she is, but she's ugly." She told me a story about her early courtship days with Plummer: "Once I was doing a musical in Easthampton, and opening night I chartered a plane to go to a party at Stratford, Connecticut, where Christopher was playing. I was still in my costume, the plane took off, the pilot was plastered, I think, and we crashed into the top of a tree." "What was it like?" "It was a kind of slow, comfy ride down. I remember thinking, 'What am I doing here? I'm going to a party, and now I'm going to die.' Then I thought about my dog, and then we were all branches. "The pilot said, 'Get out! Get out!' and I said I can't. I'm not insured.' "I remember getting my wallet and climbing out and saying, 'You are the clumsiest pilot!; On the ground I said, 'I want another plane; I've got to go to a party.' Ambulances came, and they spent hours examining me. Then I got another plane, flew to Bridgeport and called Stratford from a phone booth. "Christopher said, 'Where the hell have you been? It's two o'clock.' "I said, 'Bubby, I was in a plane crash.' And then I fainted in the phone booth. Wouldn't you know Christopher took a plane the next week. Of course he wanted to top me. He was hoping his plane would crash."
"Weren't you scared, Tammy?" "I was twenty then. Nothing counted. You had the world on a string and swung it around. I was like that until I had Manders. Then it all ended and I had to find ways to stay on the ground." Her way of staying on the ground is sport cars. I listened while she chatted with another buff. "Why don't you get the Mercedes 300 SL? They're the best except for the Ferrari. I got one and cracked it up- broke my ribs and they took my license away." I asked her about the accident later. She said, "I have an MG. Christopher bought it for my birthday, but I wanted a Mercedes. I got a dark green one and cracked it up the first night on the Merritt Parkway- rolled right into a Chevy. "Now everything's out of line. I'm going to give it to my father. If you've got a sport car, you've got to be able to bash it up. They get all chokey if you don't. But you can't here. There's always the police." We discussed sport cars and then the backstage scandals of Molly Brown (this was in Tammy's dressing room) until a fan magazine's reporter entered for an interview, in the course of which Tammy disgraced herself. The report asked what she'd like most in the world. Tammy answered, "Time," and when the reporter failed to understand her, Tammy got impatient and flip with him. Afterward, she said, "I get mad at stupid interviewers, and I get sore as hell when my press agent tells me that everything's going to be all right and I should just be myself in an interview. Which self? IF people had only one face it'd be so boring.
I noticed that it was impossible fo rher to keep her eyes off her reflection in the makeup mirror. She changed the sujbect abruptly, as she often does, and made a jump to the problem of whether she should pay for the tickets of a couple whom she'd invited to see the show. "If you invited them you should pick up the tab, Tammy." "I suppose so, but he owes Christopher $5,000. You know Bubby, that's my dividing line, when it comes to spending money. I feel guilty up to $5,000. Above that, I figure the hell with it. A friend came in and made a date to go shopping early the next morning. I said, "Tammy, are you out of your mind? You'll never be up in time for a 10:30 date." "I know, but I always hope I'll get up early the next day. I hate to sleep. I'm afraid of missing something.
"Eileen Herlie is always nagging me about my health. Once she asked me, 'Do you take sleeping pills?' I said, 'Yes, Every night.' She said, 'Do you take Dexymils?' I said, 'Occasionally,' She said, 'Why don't you get up early and see a psychoanalyst? I said, 'Because I'm twenty-six years old and I damn well don't want to see any any analyst!'" She clapped on her fiery red wig for the show. "Why do so many actresses mar doctors? I guess because they're hypochodriacs. I'm going to marry a cowboy."
We spent an afternoon together before her celbrated collapse on stage. Tammy wore a light shift and was lying on a couch covered by a furry rug. Occasionally she displayed her legs. I wanted to talk about acting, but she didn't seem interested in her profession or her plans. She said she didn't want to do Molly Brown in London and thought that Judy Garland might do it. "I met her the other night. She's amazing. From the waist down she's built like a little girl; but upstairs---" Tammy held her hands a yard before her chest and laughed.
She jumped to Hollywood and what squares there were out there, and described how she and Rex Harrison had gone to a formal party wearing slacks, to the consternation of everybody. I tried to lead her back to professional talk by asking whether being a star had given her assurance. She said, "Yes, but the next play I'll do, I'll be frightened. Sure. You have to do better each time; you have more responsibility. You have to be frightened. Bubby, unless you experience the depths- the worst you can possibly be- you can't shoot for the heights."
Then she jumped to people, friends, parties, snobbery and the trouble she has as a single girl. "It's a marvelous thing to walk into a room and find someone poised enough to take care of you, make you comfortable, say sweet things. You start from there and maybe you go on. You get so tired of defending yourself. You have to play a game. Unless marriage is a game, it won't last."
And she talked, half-seriously, about death. "When I die I want to be cremated and have my ashes taken to that sphinx that Vivien Lay...? Leigh...? loused in Caesar and Cleopatra and have them blown all over the Nile."
That night she came unglued during the first act of Molly Brown. We met a few days later, and she poured out the story. "I felt good through the whole afternoon with you, Bubby, and I went to the theater early. Suddenly I felt bad getting into my costume and I felt even worse putting on the makeup and the wig. "The stage manager came in worried. I said, 'No, I can do it.' I felt awful during the first two scenes. At the end of the second scene the stage manager said: 'Why don't you quit? Your understudy's ready.' I thought: 'To hell with her! I'm going to finish the show. "In the third scene I found myself holding on to the leading man's coat sleeve with my upstage arm while he was singing. I whispered to him I think I'm going to faint.' Then I thought, 'You son of a gun, if you go down, do it on your own song.'
"So I held on. I lost track of time, and suddenly I noticed everybody in the cast staring at me. There were just eyes, eyes. I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that there was a blackout coming. I delivered the final line and collapsed. I came to backstage and you know what? All the time I was thinking about Manders and Napoleon." "Napoleon?" "You know," she said solemnly, "Apres moi le deluge." "That was Louis XV."
"Oh no!" She burst out laughing. "That ruins everything." THE END

The article was accompanied by a third page black and white photo of Tammy in costume, standing next to a tall manikin- PHOTOGRAPH BY HANS NAMUTH