It's All In the Playing by Shirley Maclaine Page A

floppy hair and pushed the curls forward as if to make sure their unkempt style would remain intact. This was a complicated and spellbinding crazy man. He shuffled back to my den, sat down with the script, and I closed the door in order to give Bella the respect she so richly deserved.
    Bella knew we were looking for a “Bella” and had been reading actresses, but she thought she should do it. What better way to protect the investment she had made in the character she had invented for herself. I was not enthusiastic, based on how much theatrical discipline I knew it would take for her—or anyone—to do scenes over and over.
    Bella had been a close personal friend since the McGovern campaign in 1972. We had had our personal ups and downs, but she has always remained, and I believe she always will, a friend who will be honest with me as I will be with her. She is earthy, witty, more than compassionate, and possessed of an intelligence that blazes with clarity. She is also pragmatic, ambitious, and loves to be the focus of attention. That is precisely why she is so charismatic. Besides all of that, I love her deeply.
    She entered my living room dressed in a color-coordinated red-white-and-blue business suit, patriotism being the mood of her day today since she was thinking of running for Congress again.
    “So? Why am I here?” she said as she walked toward Colin and me. “You people summoned me, right?”
    “Yes,” I answered. “We’d love for you to read for us.”
    She saw the script on the table, picked it up and flipped through it. “So you want me to read this?”
    “Well,” I said, “we’d like you to audition. You said you were available.”
    “But I’ll blush,” she said, “and I’ll be awake all night wondering if I get the part.”
    “That’s show business,” I said.
    Colin smiled at the interplay between the two of us, registering every nuance that might be valuable on the screen.
    “My God,” said Bella, turning and looking at herself in a wall mirror. “I’ll have to read my own lines, right?”
    “Right,” I said. “And you’ve already okayed the script, so you can’t object to the dialogue.”
    “God,” she laughed, “then I’m going to be more intimidated by you than ever.”
    I smiled mischievously. “Then you’ll know how other people feel about you.”
    “Be nice now.” She paused. “You know how I need you to be sweet to me.”
    She gave me that pout that she knows always melts my heart. We both knew, but it worked anyway.
    The phone rang. It was Stan.
    “Hey,” I said, “everything’s going great. We’re reading for Bella now.”
    “Okay,” he said. “When you finish with the Bellas, call me.”
    “You don’t understand,” I said. “We’re reading the real one.”
    “You’re what?”
    From across the room Bella yelled, “Call my agent.”
    “Shirley”—Stan spoke determinedly into the phone—“you know what discipline this business takes, even for an experienced actress. How would she even know how to repeat the same scene over and over and retain the emotional pitch?”
    I turned away from Bella. “I don’t know, Stan,” I said, “but she wants to try.”
    “Okay. Call me when it’s over.”
    I hung up and Colin and Bella and I went to work.
    We picked up the script. I played myself. Bella played herself. And all the while each of us retained the emotional memory of the exact events as they had actually occurred. It was an exercise in recognized illusion. I have never had an experience that so thoroughly brought home to me the truth that we each act our lives, we each project the image we really wish to convey—the appearance of spontaneity notwithstanding. There were so many choices for Bella and me to make in expressing ourselves: the choice of wardrobe, hairstyle, makeup, body movement, all vital but relatively finite. But when it came to emotional intent, vocal tone, facial expression, and so on, to say nothing of what we did and said,