All About Eve

The Sarah Siddons Award is perhaps unknown to you.

It has been spared the sensational publicity

of such questionable honors as the Pulitzer Prize

and those awards presented annually by that film society.

The distinguished-looking gentleman is an extremely old actor.

Being an actor, he will go on speaking for some time.

It is not important that you hear what he says.

However, it is important that you know where you are and why you are here.

This is the dining hall of the Sarah Siddons Society.

It is the annual banquet and presentation of the highest honor our theatre has:

the Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achievement.

These hallowed walls, indeed many of these faces,

have looked upon Modjeska, Ada Rehan and Minnie Fiske.

Mansfield's voice filled this room.

It is unlikely that the windows have been opened since his death.

The minor awards, as you can see, have already been presented.

Minor awards are for such as the writer and director,

since they merely construct a tower

so that the world can applaud a light which flashes on top of it.

And no brighter light has ever dazzled the eye than Eve Harrington.

Eve... But more of Eve later.

All about Eve, in fact.

To those who do not read,

attend the theatre, listen to unsponsored radio programs

or know anything of the world in which you live,

it is perhaps necessary to introduce myself.

My name is Addison DeWitt.

My native habitat is the theatre. In it, I toil not. Neither do I spin.

I am a critic and commentator.

I am essential to the theatre.

This is Karen Richards.

She is the wife of a playwright, therefore of the theatre by marriage.

Nothing in her background should have brought her closer to the stage

than Row E.

However, during her senior year at Radcliffe,

Lloyd Richards lectured on the drama.

The following year Karen became Mrs. Lloyd Richards.

There are, in general, two types of theatrical producers.

One has a great many wealthy friends who will risk a tax-deductible loss.

This type is interested in art.

The other is one to whom each production means potential ruin or fortune.

This type is out to make a buck.

Meet Max Fabian.

He is the producer of the play

which has won for Eve Harrington the Sarah Siddons Award.

Margo Channing is a star of the theatre.

She made her first stage appearance at the age of four

in Midsummer Night's Dream.

She played a fairy and entered, quite unexpectedly, stark naked.

She has been a star ever since.

Margo is a great star. A true star.

She never was or will be anything less or anything else.

Having covered in tedious detail not only the history of the Sarah Siddons Society,

but also the history of acting

since Thespis first stepped out of the chorus line,

our distinguished chairman has finally arrived at our reason for being here.

I have been proud and privileged to have spent my life in the theatre,

a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

and I've been honored to be, for 40 years,

chief prompter of the Sarah Siddons Society.

39 times have I placed in deserving hands

this highest honor the theatre knows.

Surely no actor is older than I.

I've earned my place out of the sun.

And never before has this award gone to anyone younger than its recipient tonight.

How fitting that it should pass from my hands to hers.

Such young hands. Such a young lady.

Young in years, but whose heart is as old as the theatre.

Some of us are privileged to know her.

We have seen beyond the beauty and artistry

that have made her name resound through the nation.

We know her humility, her devotion,

her loyalty to her art,

her love, her deep and abiding love for us,

for what we are and what we do, the theatre.

She has had one wish,

one prayer, one dream,

to belong to us.

Tonight her dream has come true,

and henceforth we shall dream the same of her.

Ladies and gentlemen, for distinguished achievement in the theatre,

the Sarah Siddons Award to Miss Eve Harrington.

Bravo!

Eve. Eve, the golden girl. The cover girl.

The girl next door, the girl on the moon. Time has been good to Eve.

Life goes where she goes. She's been profiled, covered, revealed, reported,

what she eats and what she wears and whom she knows

and where she was and when and where she's going.

Eve.

You all know all about Eve.

What can there be to know that you don't know?

When was it? How long?

It seems a lifetime ago.

Lloyd always said that in the theatre a lifetime was a season

and a season a lifetime.

It's June now. That was early October.

Only last October.

It was a drizzly night. I remember I asked the taxi to wait.

Where was she?

Strange. I'd become so accustomed to seeing her there night after night,

I found myself looking for a girl I'd never spoken to.

Wondering where she was.

Mrs. Richards?

There you are.

It seemed odd, suddenly, your not being here.

-Why should you think I wouldn't be? -Why should you be?

Six nights a week for weeks

of watching even Margo Channing enter and leave a theatre.

-You don't mind my speaking to you? -Not at all.

I've seen you so often. It took every bit of courage I could raise.

To speak to just a playwright's wife?

I'm the lowest form of celebrity.

You're Margo Channing's best friend. You and your husband are always with her.

And Mr. Sampson. What's he like?

Bill Sampson? He's a director.

-He's the best. -He'll agree with you.

Tell me. What do you do in between the time Margo goes in and comes out?

Just huddle in that doorway and wait?

Oh, no. I see the play.

You see the play? You've seen every performance of this play?

Yes.

But don't you find it...

Apart from everything else, don't you find it expensive?

Standing room doesn't cost much. I manage.

-I'm gonna take you to Margo. -Oh, no!

-Oh, yes. She's got to meet you. -No, I'd be imposing on her.

I'd be just another tongue-tied fan.

There isn't another like you. There couldn't be.

If I'd known... Some other time. Looking like this.

You look just fine. By the way, what's your name?

Eve. Eve Harrington.

-Good evening, Gus. -Good evening, Mrs. Richards.

-Good night. -Good night, Gus.

You can breathe it, can't you?

Like some magic perfume.

Wait right here. Don't run away.

"If the South had won, you could write plays about the North."

-Hi. -Hello!

"I don't think you can rightly say we lost the war."

"We was more starved out, you might say."

"I don't understand all these plays about love-starved Southern women."

"Love is one thing we were never starved for in the South."

Margo's interview with a reporter from the South.

When it gets printed, they're gonna fire on Gettysburg again.

-It was Fort Sumter they fired on. -I never played Fort Sumter.

Honeychild had a point. Lloyd, honey, be a playwright with guts.

Write me one about a nice, normal woman who just shoots her husband.

-You need new girdles. -Buy some.

-Same size? -Of course.

I find these wisecracks increasingly less funny.

-Aged in Wood happens to be a fine play. -That's my loyal little woman.

The critics thought so. The audiences think so.

Packed houses, tickets four months in advance.

I can't see that Lloyd's plays have hurt you any.

-Easy now. -Relax, kid, it's just me and my big mouth.

You get me so mad sometimes.

Of all the women with nothing to complain about...

-Ain't it the truth? -Yes, it is.

You're talented, famous, wealthy.

People waiting around night after night just to see you. Even in the rain.

Autograph fiends. They're not people.

Little beasts that run around in packs like coyotes.

-They're your fans. -They're nobody's fans.

They're juvenile delinquents. They're nobody's audience.

They never see a play or a movie. They're never indoors long enough.

Well, there's one indoors right now.

-I've brought her back to see you. -You've what?

She's just outside the door.

The heave-ho.

But you can't put her out. I promised.

Margo, you've got to see her.

She worships you. It's like something out of a book.

That book is out of print. Those days are gone.

But if you'd only see her. You're her whole life.

You must have spotted her by now. She's always there.

Oh, the mousy one with the trench coat and the funny hat.

How could I miss her? Every night, every matinee.

Come in, Eve.

-I thought you'd forgotten about me. -Not at all.

Margo, this is Eve Harrington.

-How do you do, my dear? -Oh, brother.

-Hello, Miss Channing. -My husband.

-Hello, Miss Harrington. -How do you do?

And this is my dear friend and companion, Miss Birdie Coonan.

-Oh, brother. -Miss Coonan.

-Oh, brother, what? -When she gets like this,

she starts playing Hamlet's mother.

I'm sure you must have things to do in the bathroom, Birdie, dear.

If I haven't, I'll find something till you get normal.

Won't you sit down, Miss Worthington?

Harrington.

-I'm so sorry. Won't you sit down? -Thank you.

Would you like a drink?

I was saying how often you've seen the play.

No, thank you.

Yes, I've seen every performance.

Every performance? Then am I safe in assuming you like it?

-I'd like anything Miss Channing played in. -Would you really? How sweet.

I doubt very much that you'd like her in The Hairy Ape.

Please don't misunderstand me, Mr. Richards.