Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show by Daniel de Vise Page B

anyone from the No Time cast at will during the first week. Naturally, Don worried himself sick, contracting one of the worst colds of his life. When the week was over, Don shifted his angst to the director. He expected to learn a lot from the great Morton DaCosta, who would go on to direct Auntie Mame and The Music Man . But DaCosta rarely spoke aloud. After two weeks, he had not said a single word to Don.
    Finally, Don approached him. “Mr. DaCosta?”
    The director “whirled around and looked at me as if he had never seen me before in his life,” Don recalled. “Yes,” Morton croaked.
    â€œWell, I . . . er . . . uh . . . er . . . Am I doing it all right?”
    â€œYes.”
    It was the only conversation they ever had.
    The schedule for Sergeants called for three weeks of rehearsals and three weeks of out-of-town “tryouts” in New Haven and Boston. In addition to a preacher role, Don was cast as a corporal who tests Will’s manual dexterity with a steel-ring puzzle. This would prove a far more consequential casting.
    Ira Levin’s script calls for an “officious little Corporal.” Don played the part with palpable tension, rapping his fingers on his arm as Private Stockdale walks in.
    The corporal silently motions Will to sit. “What we do here, Private, is to evaluate your manual dexterity on a time scale in relation to digital-visual coordination,” the corporal announces, sounding like a highly caffeinated carnival barker. He holds up the steel rings. “Two irregular steel links, which can be interconnected . . . thusly.” He smoothly joins them. “I separate them . . . I join them.” He sets a stopwatch as the sergeant cautions Will, “Whatever you do, don’t get nervous.”
    As the corporal and sergeant converse behind him, Will wrenches open one link with inhuman strength, threads it through the other, and then twists it into a knot. “I’m done,” he announces.
    â€œDone?!” the corporal cries. “In fourteen seconds? He . . . look what he . . . look!” the corporal says, gazing at the twisted steel.
    â€œHe put them together, didn’t he?” the sergeant barks.
    The corporal is defeated and deflated. He seems ready to cry.
    The skit was short, but Andy and Don played so well off each other that their little scene seemed to burn a bit brighter than the rest of the production. “It’s there or it’s not there,” Andy would remark decades later. “And it was there with us.”
    Don quickly learned that Andy’s perfectionist zeal matched his own. The New Haven audience was laughing nonstop that first week, but one night, the show didn’t play so well. Don ran into Andy after the curtain fell. Andy began to pick apart the performance. Don surely felt the same impulse, but he tried to soothe his new friend with false levity, telling Andy, “You can’t win ’em all.”
    Andy, ferocity flaring in his eyes, spat back, “You can damn well try!”
    October 20, 1955, was opening night at the Alvin Theatre in New York. It fell to Don to walk onstage and introduce Andy. As Don stood in the wings, he feared he might faint and felt certain he could not move. He finally summoned the strength to stagger out and deliver his lines, although he could not recall having done so when the performance was over. Then Don retreated offstage and glimpsed Andy, who was hobbling forward in a state that made Don look positively relaxed. “I’ve never seen a man so frightened,” recalled Roddy McDowall, Andy’s costar.
    Then, Andy began to speak. “And a couple of people giggled,” McDowall recalled, “and then they began to applaud. Watching from the wings, you could see old Andy’s confidence coming back.”
    McDowall had heard about Andy’s magic. That night, he saw