Her stage name was Belle and she was a New York stripper during the thirties. She read Spengler’s Decline of the West, chatted backstage about liberal economic theory, and put a young burlesque comedian named Garson Kanin onto reading the works of outspoken British socialist Harold Laski. This was in the olden times (remember them?) when the notion that a sexy woman could also be brainy was a shockingly novel idea guaranteed to make an audience laugh. Years later, Belle, the intellectual stripper, was the inspiration behind Kanin’s creation of Billie Dawn in his first Broadway hit comedy, Born Yesterday.
Born Yesterday was a mega-hit during the confused post-World War II years when the American theatre was in recession. After the boom war years, when patriotic plays filled the theatres of New York and the hinterland, many venerable houses went dark forever, acting jobs were scarce, and new openings were few and far between. Production became prohibitively expensive due to union featherbedding, labor costs, new building codes and lack of air conditioning, and star salaries. Ticket prices zoomed out of the reach of ordinary folks and gasoline rationing made road shows impossible. Television for the masses was right around the corner in 1948. In 1948-49 alone, for example, despite fortune-making blockbuster musicals like Oklahoma and Kiss Me, Kate, the flops of Broadway lost $4,535,000!
So Born Yesterday was a god-send. It launched the long, distinguished career of Kanin himself, and propelled Judy Holliday (Billie Dawn), Paul Douglas (Harry Brock), and Gary Merrill (Paul Verrall) into acting fame. It ran in its first production for three years and earned almost $9 million.
The typical wise-cracking New York play, Born Yesterday is a mixture of sweet romantic comedy and sharp political satire where the tough guy gets what’s comin’ to ‘im, the good guy in the horn-rimmed glasses gets the girl, and the girl gets everything. But for all its ditzy blond sass, the comedy reflects some dark and serious things going on in post-war America (and, sadly, still going on today). Along with the terror of nuclear annihilation, the complicated business of setting up the U.N. and deterring hostilities, the reconstruction of war-torn nations, the daily reality of goods and housing shortages, there was the growing Cold War. The deep fears of Red Communism in the Soviet Union led to increasing Red scares at home. While the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) wouldn’t get going until the year after this play’s opening, the witch-hunt for commies connected with the stage, screen, and academia had already begun with accusations that Actors Equity was infiltrated with Communists.
It’s worth noticing that Garson Kanin and company get away with all sorts of political criticism about the American Dream being for sale to the highest bidder because Born Yesterday is funny—funny, sentimental, and entertaining while delivering (as one critic put it) “a swift kick in the American complacencies.” When, in the following year, Arthur Miller took up some of the same sordid political issues of war profiteering in All My Sons, the dramatic play won Tonys for both Best Play and Best Direction and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. Yet Miller, suspected of Communist sympathies because of his critical opinions and associates, was refused a visa from the US government to see the play open in Germany.
But give us a busty, peroxide blond who massacres the language and a playwright can even quote the revolutionary Tom Paine onstage!
I read this play as an idealistic little allegory of the rescuing of America. Little Lady Liberty (Billie) has been seduced into whoredom by the easy acquisition of material things (the mink coats, the diamonds) by the kind of selfish, exploiting thug (Harry Brock) that equates money with power. The lady is easily bought. Harry has made his millions in junk and war profiteering and now is buying senators to guarantee that he owns all the junk (scrap metal) in Europe as well. Convinced of Billie’s stupidity (that is, of America’s stupidity) Harry’s greed has led him to give her power over him (on paper, she’s president of his company) but not the knowledge or self-respect to use it.
Enter Paul, the idealistic, leftish intellectual writer. With Paul’s smitten help, Billie, our Lady Liberty, discovers her wisdom, abilities, and self-esteem. She awakens to intelligent idealism and learns that she has power beyond all the materialism and sexuality. She gets back in touch with her roots (contacts her father), escapes the clutches of the rich, controlling goon (who gets his just desserts), allies herself with the smart, idealistic liberal and takes control herself.
She wins. Love conquers. America lives up to its ideals and we’re all better.
If only.
Yet writing today, on the Fourth of July, I’m still tempted to believe it.