didn’t know what the script was, I didn’t know what it was about, I didn’t know anything except I was ordered by my boss to be back in New York.” “It was a low-budget film,” observes one of the actors. “The producers were saying, ‘Let’s hurry up. We don’t have any money.’”
O’Hara read the script when she unpacked, “and I thought, ‘I’m not so mad after all.’ ”
Miracle on 34th Street
was charmed from the beginning, according to O’Hara. “Every day, it was magic. We had a wonderful, happy, magical time making the movie. Edmund Gwenn
was
Santa Claus. I mean that literally. He believed he was Santa Claus.” So did Natalie, who found New York thrilling this trip, perhaps because she had Maria along for security. “I fell madly in love with Louie, the headwaiter at the Carlton, and had chicken salad for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
On the set of
The Big Heart
, One-Take Natalie, her new nickname, impressed everyone. If the adult actors forgot their lines, she cued them. Seaton, the director, was amazed at how businesslike she was. Her only coaching came from Mud whispering,
“Be Margaret O’Brien
.” (Mud’s coaching was strictly at night; on set, she continued to let the director control Natalie: “Marie never interfered with the filming. Marie interfered with the
negotiations
, the
contracts
. Once she got what she wanted, then Natalie went to work.”) Natalie was in effect playing two parts: Susan, and Margaret O’Brien
playing
Susan. She was so effective, states O’Brien, “a lot of people think it’s
me
in the movie.” Natalie’s most vivid memory of the film, later, was “Edmund Gwenn teaching me how to act like a monkey,” a scene where her O’Brien impersonation is evident: O’Brien had imitated a monkey in exactly the same way in
Meet Me in St. Louis
two years before.
Natalie may have mimicked O’Brien, but her talent was genuine. Seaton, her director on
Miracle
, said she had “an instinctive sense of timing and emotion” he had seen in only one other child. Natalie described her technique as a child actress, later, as instinctive. She first read the script; if she had any questions about her character or the story, she asked an adult. Then she re-read the script “many times.” The night before a scene, she memorized the next day’s lines, “visualizing the whole page.” When she played the scene, she said the lines the way she instinctually felt her character would. Her performances, as a result, were natural.
The part of a skeptical child whose parent teaches her Santa Claus isn’t real was a radical departure from Natalie’s own life. Her mother took her to see a department store Santa that December. When Natalie jumped off Santa’s lap, Mud jumped on, whispering in Santa’s ear everything she wanted for Christmas. Olga, who was along, cringed with embarrassment. Playing Susan required Natalie to create a character different from herself. She drew on her intelligence to become Susan, as opposed to the waifish vulnerability she projected as Margaret.
Natalie’s acting gifts were tested that month. While she was playing Susan, the cynical New Yorker, she flew back to California to perform her first scenes as Anna, the English child, then she returned to New York to finish location shots as Susan, switching back and forth between an American and British accent. She began each day on the set of
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
walking up to Mankiewicz in his director’s chair and spelling out “M-A-N-K-I-E-W-I-C-Z.” Mankiewicz, who had never directed a child before, called Natalie “the smartest moppet” he knew. “I knew she would become an actress because she was always watching. She watched Edna Best, * she watched Rex Harrison.” Word of her simultaneous performances in
Ghost
and
The Big Heart
started to circulate at Fox, where the publicity department was calling Natalie a “wonder-child.” When she received the Box Office Blue Ribbon Award
O’Hara read the script when she unpacked, “and I thought, ‘I’m not so mad after all.’ ”
Miracle on 34th Street
was charmed from the beginning, according to O’Hara. “Every day, it was magic. We had a wonderful, happy, magical time making the movie. Edmund Gwenn
was
Santa Claus. I mean that literally. He believed he was Santa Claus.” So did Natalie, who found New York thrilling this trip, perhaps because she had Maria along for security. “I fell madly in love with Louie, the headwaiter at the Carlton, and had chicken salad for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
On the set of
The Big Heart
, One-Take Natalie, her new nickname, impressed everyone. If the adult actors forgot their lines, she cued them. Seaton, the director, was amazed at how businesslike she was. Her only coaching came from Mud whispering,
“Be Margaret O’Brien
.” (Mud’s coaching was strictly at night; on set, she continued to let the director control Natalie: “Marie never interfered with the filming. Marie interfered with the
negotiations
, the
contracts
. Once she got what she wanted, then Natalie went to work.”) Natalie was in effect playing two parts: Susan, and Margaret O’Brien
playing
Susan. She was so effective, states O’Brien, “a lot of people think it’s
me
in the movie.” Natalie’s most vivid memory of the film, later, was “Edmund Gwenn teaching me how to act like a monkey,” a scene where her O’Brien impersonation is evident: O’Brien had imitated a monkey in exactly the same way in
Meet Me in St. Louis
two years before.
Natalie may have mimicked O’Brien, but her talent was genuine. Seaton, her director on
Miracle
, said she had “an instinctive sense of timing and emotion” he had seen in only one other child. Natalie described her technique as a child actress, later, as instinctive. She first read the script; if she had any questions about her character or the story, she asked an adult. Then she re-read the script “many times.” The night before a scene, she memorized the next day’s lines, “visualizing the whole page.” When she played the scene, she said the lines the way she instinctually felt her character would. Her performances, as a result, were natural.
The part of a skeptical child whose parent teaches her Santa Claus isn’t real was a radical departure from Natalie’s own life. Her mother took her to see a department store Santa that December. When Natalie jumped off Santa’s lap, Mud jumped on, whispering in Santa’s ear everything she wanted for Christmas. Olga, who was along, cringed with embarrassment. Playing Susan required Natalie to create a character different from herself. She drew on her intelligence to become Susan, as opposed to the waifish vulnerability she projected as Margaret.
Natalie’s acting gifts were tested that month. While she was playing Susan, the cynical New Yorker, she flew back to California to perform her first scenes as Anna, the English child, then she returned to New York to finish location shots as Susan, switching back and forth between an American and British accent. She began each day on the set of
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
walking up to Mankiewicz in his director’s chair and spelling out “M-A-N-K-I-E-W-I-C-Z.” Mankiewicz, who had never directed a child before, called Natalie “the smartest moppet” he knew. “I knew she would become an actress because she was always watching. She watched Edna Best, * she watched Rex Harrison.” Word of her simultaneous performances in
Ghost
and
The Big Heart
started to circulate at Fox, where the publicity department was calling Natalie a “wonder-child.” When she received the Box Office Blue Ribbon Award
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