By Cynthia Citron
BEVERLY HILLS, California — Two Davids met as freshmen at St. Gregory’s, which was then a community college in Shawnee, Oklahoma. After two years, they moved on — David McClendon to the University of Oklahoma and David Hunt Stafford to CalArts. But both of them went on to become successful actors and directors, and they remain best friends.
Now, Stafford and McClendon are working together again, bringing Vera Caspary’s classic noir mystery Laura to the stage of Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills.
Stafford joined Theatre 40 as an actor in 1989 and is currently its artistic and managing director, producing seven plays each year for the company. (He is also responsible for introducing McClendon to the girl who became his wife, a fellow cheerleader with Stafford in high school.)
McClendon, who was artistic director at Theatre Aspen, was also affiliated with San Diego’s Old Globe for a decade. He was associate director/casting director when he left in 1988; he directed nine productions there and taught in the Professional Actor Training Program. He currently divides his time between homes in Los Angeles and Colorado Springs.
“I’d like to do more here in California,” he says. “I’m back in the swing of life on the freeway, and besides, in Colorado the winters get awfully cold at 8,000 feet.
“My goal has always been to make my living in the theater,” McClendon continues. “It seemed an unlikely goal, but it’s all I’ve ever done, and I’m blessed. It’s an extraordinary way to spend my life, with actors and technicians and specialists—people who can do things that I can only dream of.”
He speaks with some regret of his three years at Aspen, which ended in 2007. Brought in to beef up this successful summer theater, he nearly doubled its operating budget, secured Broadway artists to play there, and elevated its status and reputation.
There were plans afoot to build a $50 million year-round art center with two theaters and facilities for multiple groups and projects, but with a change of leadership on the theater’s board, funding for and interest in the new complex disappeared from the agenda, as did McClendon and John Redmond, who had come with him as managing director.
The theater still operates for two months in the summer “and they’re still in a tent,” McClendon says. “It’s a lovely tent, but it can’t keep out the cold. It can get awfully cold in Aspen—even in the summer.”
Moving on, McClendon turns to his newest collaboration with Stafford and describes the history of Laura.
Vera Caspary’s novel was published in 1943. “A year later, Otto Preminger turned it into a movie that starred Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews,” McClendon says. (It also included megastars Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, and Judith Anderson.)
“But Caspary was unhappy with the changes Preminger made in the screenplay,” McClendon continues, “and also with the money she made on the movie [she was paid $30,000 for two books about her heroine]. She estimated that she was short-changed by about a million dollars.”
Preminger’s film was nominated for five Academy Awards but lost in three categories to Going My Way and in another category to Gaslight. The only Oscar Laura won was for best black and white cinematography by Joseph LaShelle. David Raksin, who wrote the haunting theme for the film, wasn’t even nominated.
The film’s place in movie history was redeemed, however, when the American Film Institute named it #4 in its list of the Top Ten Mystery Films, #73 in its list of 100 Thrills, and #7 in its list of 25 Top Film Scores.
Also nominated for AFI’s list of memorable Movie Quotes was this line from the film: “In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject so worthy of my attention.”
Caspary, who had written the story as a play before she developed it into a novel, later collaborated with George Sklar in re-adapting it as a play, and it is this version that is being presented at Theatre 40.
“We’re trying to honor the original noir,” McClendon explains.
“It’s difficult, because the actors have to play it each time as if it were the first time. They have to be in the moment, as if they don’t know what’s coming. They can’t tip their hand to the audience, so you don’t know who the killer is until the very end.”
In directing, “casting is 90% of the work,” he says. “The choices you make are so important. There is such a pool of fine actors in LA and Theatre 40 is such an extraordinary company. But you have to be patient with the process; you shouldn’t ‘make do’.”
To play Laura, McClendon and Stafford cast Julie Lancaster, who is starring with her real-life husband Grinnell Morris. “This is the fifth show they have done together at Theatre 40,” Stafford says. “They are the Lunt and Fontanne of our company.
“The first play they did together was J.B. Priestley’s Dangerous Corner, but they weren’t in love yet,” he continues. “It wasn’t until Dinner with Friends that they figured out that they were in love.”
“I’m eager to get David back here,” Stafford adds. “He’s a national figure and he raises the bar for what we’re doing. And he’s my oldest friend in the world.”
For the time being, McClendon and his wife Pat are happily ensconced in L.A. while he pursues the filming of his project El Camino and she serves as chief nursing officer at Palmdale Regional Medical Center.
“She deals with the real world and I delve in make-believe,” McClendon says with a grin.
El Camino, however, is not make-believe. It’s a true story about a Mexican woman who had lived in this country illegally for many years and returned to Baja to visit her dying father. When she tried to return to San Diego, she was denied re-entry into the United States. Her 10-year-old son, who was born in America, was forced to go on without her, and the mother then turned to a “coyote” to help her and her younger sister get across the border. They didn’t make it home, and the story of what happened to them makes for a striking drama.
“We’re scouting locations now,” McClendon says, “and we plan to start shooting this fall.”
Meanwhile, Stafford is excited about Theatre 40’s lineup for next season. “One of the plays we’ll be doing is Seven Stories by Morris Panych. I’m really jazzed about that one,” he says.
He’s also excited about the return of The Manor, the production he conceived and initiated with Kathrine Bates and Beverly Olevin for Theatre 40 and the City of Beverly Hills. The play takes place in the beautiful Greystone mansion and tells the story of the sinister things that occurred when the Doheny family lived there. It is scheduled to run in July and August.
Looks like a busy year for the two Davids.
Laura, presented by Theatre 40 and David Hunt Stafford. Opens March 29. Plays Thurs-Sat at 8 pm, Sun at 2 pm. Through April 29. Tickets: $23 and $25. Theatre 40, Reuben Cordova Theatre, 241 S. Moreno Dr., Beverly Hills, on the campus of Beverly Hills High School. 310-364-0535. www.theatre40.org.
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Citron is Los Angeles bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World. She may be contacted at cynthia.citron@sdjewishworld.com