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Book World P-' BroadwayIII.2,3i65 5s Mean Man By Jed Harris was a brilliantly gifted theatrical producer who for a time in the 1920s and '30s seemed to own Broadway. He pioneered what quick-

JED HARRIS: The Curse of Genius. By (Me, Bum. 230 pp, SIM)

ly became the Broadway style, de- scribed by his biographer as "clever, tense, urban, dynamic and, above all, contemporary." wrote: " . „ he continued to light up the the- See BOOK WORLD, B4, Col. 1 erable. Yet to women he was irresist- BOOK WORLD, From 131 ible; seems never Compelling to have gotten over her affair with atrical heavens with an unerring him (like another of his former lov- touch that had something of the un- ers, she died by suicide), Ruth Got- canny about it. Production after pro- don continued to regard him with a duction, whatever play he turned his `Jed Harris: certain affection notwithstanding his hand to, was catapulted into imme- mistreatment of her and their son, diate success, and his vagaries, his and any number of less celebrated flaring tempers, his incisive way with A Tale of but equally alluring women managed a script were already a legend and to find their way into his bed. fast becoming Broadway folklore." The shows that made him famous, As so often happens in show busi- Broadway's apart from "Broadway," were "The ness, Harris came almost overnight Front Page," "," to his legendary status. Born in Aus- "Coquette," "Our Them" and "The tria in 1900, Jacob Hirsch Horowitz Heiress." His genius was for the com- was the child of hard-working, de- Man mercial theater, though he proved manding parents who immigrated to himself sensitive to serious drama by Newark when he was very young. He he stopped to say hello to his father directing highly regarded produc- was frequently beaten for minor mis- in a restaurant; "You have got to tions of "Uncle Vanya" and "A Doll's behavior, to the point that he always stop bothering me," Harris told him. House." But for the last three dec- regarded his childhpod as "blighted" ked by Dick Cavett during a tele- ades of his life he did nothing of and as a result, according to a friend, vision show if he ever saw his son, note; "," in 1947, turned "He seemed to feel as if the world Harris replied: "As rarely as possible. out to he his swan song. Instead he owed him something. The world was don't particularly like him." After simply allowed himself to slide ever going to pay for some unexpressed ICanis' death his son told George more deeply into bitterness. In the hurt it had done him." Abbott: "When I was a kid and you last months of his life he was hos- Did it ever; from the instant he were working for my father, he'd pitalized in North Carolina, where became a success, with the triumph always tell me what a brilliant stage his female companion of the mo- of his show "Broadway" in 1928, Ho- manager you were. Then he'd look at ment resided; his behavior was so rowitz/Harris made the world pay, me and say, 'Jones, you're a nothing foul that, in the words of the senior and pay, and pay. His life story, as and you'll always be a nothing.' " nurse, "He was the first patient in narrated by Martin Gottfried, is fas- But Abbott himself had been a my memory who was ever thrown cinating lass as a show-biz biography victim of Harris' compulsive mean- out of a hospital." than as the chronicle of a man who ness. As director of "Broadway," he His biography makes oddly com- spent virtually his entire adult life had an agreement with Harris' co- pulsive reading. Martin Gottfried is bringing gratuitous grief to others producer that he would be paid a a prose stylist of no particular imag- and destroying himself in the pro- director's fee and 1 percent of the ination or grace, but he seems to he cess. Show business has had more gross receipts; Harris refused to pay a careful researcher and he per- than its share of mean characters, the percentage, leading to an es- suaded a great many people to talk but there cannot have been a mean- trangement that would last until his to him. The result is a book filled er one than Jed Harris. death a half century later. George with one vividly recalled horror story Harris' first marriage was in 1925, Kaufman so despised Harris that he after another; though some may find to Anita Greenbaum; as they drove "said when he died he wanted to be "Jed Harris: The Curse of Genius" to away from the ceremony he said, cremated and have his ashes thrown he merely one long sick joke, others "Well you got what you wanted. in Jed Harris' face." In 1933, on will be, as rather against my better Doesn't it make you happy?" His opening night of "The Green Bay judgment I was, hugely amused by second was in 1938, to Louise Platt: Tree," Harris encountered its ner- it. "On the trip back to California, Jed vous young star, , told her how sorry he was that he waiting to go on stage; he whispered had married her." His third was in to him, "Good-bye, Larry. I hope I 1957, to Bebe Allen, who ended it a never see you again." And to William few months later; the lipstick mes- Wyler he said: "You're a weak, un- sage she left on her mirror for Harris talented man married to a woman can't be printed in a family newspa- who is in love with me." per. Small wonder that his funeral, in Harris had two children. One, a 1979, drew a small crowd; everybody daughter, was born to Louise Platt hated him. His first wife had told after she and Harris had been di- him that his genius for making en- vorced. The other, a son, was the emies would hurt him, and he had illegitimate child of actress Ruth replied: "I know, but I can't help it." Gordon. 191f. the .4-year-oldAfild, Perhaps so; more likely he just en- Jones Harris :"Eit joyed it, getting back at his parents kit no oo ',T en ones by making the rest of the world mis-