Back Stage West critic, columnist, and one of Los Angeles' most beloved theatre supporters Polly Warfield died Oct. 2. She was 89. The cause of death was respiratory failure after a prolonged hospitalization following an automobile accident.
Born Theola Beech in Nebraska in 1914, young Polly lost her mother in the influenza epidemic of 1918, so the "strong Norwegian-American women" in her family, especially her Auntie Carr and Aunt Ida, raised her, while her grandmother took Polly's 9-month-old baby sister. As Polly recalled, "I was sent around to various aunties until they could figure out what to do with me."
Young Polly was a voracious reader--although at times the only things she could find to read were a dictionary and a Sears catalogue. She also was a precocious writer, keeping a journal and even penning a novel before she was 10.
When Auntie Carr moved to sunny Gardena, Calif., Polly longed to join her, and eventually she did. Her teachers at Gardena High School encouraged her; she flourished. She landed leads in school plays and continuing to write, winning a local writing contest by authoring an operetta on the theme of thrift: In Care of the Good Ship Thrift, set to the tune of "Funiculi, Funicula," for which she took home $25 from the contest's sponsor.
Thanks to her aunt's "scrimping and saving," Polly attended L.A. Junior College, now L.A.C.C. "I majored in journalism," Polly recalled. "What I really wanted to do was be in the drama department, but I was too shy. Eventually I got up the nerve to switch to drama my second year."
Polly won a lead in Taming of the Shrew, and immersed herself in the department. Here she met Harry Carr, a "handsome would-be actor," whom she married. The pair joined a newly formed West Coast spinoff of the East Coast's Group Theatre.
The marriage didn't last long. After graduation she took a job as a cashier clerk for the Southern California Gas Co. She hated it--until a colleague there broke away and took a job as a script typist at KNX CBS, an L.A. news radio station. Polly followed, starting at a salary of $15 a week, but happy to be once again "where the action is."
When World War II broke out, Polly joined the ranks of American women who got their first career break in jobs that enlisted men left behind. Her job was tearing off wire copy and taking it to the news desk, but Polly quickly moved up to writing news and even reading it--in a graveyard timeslot under the pseudonym Kathleen Carr. "I'll never forget how thrilled I was when the head of the news bureau said to me, 'I consider you one of my best newsmen,'" Polly recalled.
In 1949, she was hired to write for Eleanor Roosevelt's radio show, which would necessitate a move to New York. Polly had been dating a young intern named Pat Warfield, an East Coast native eager to return. Polly proposed.
"It was my good fortune to have been associated with Eleanor Roosevelt for about a year, while producing and writing her segment of The Anna and Eleanor Roosevelt radio talk show, broadcast over the ABC network, which also featured her daughter, Anna Roosevelt Boettiger, reporting from Hollywood," Polly wrote in one of her biweekly Random Sightings columns in BSW. "I should say I ostensibly wrote for Mrs. Roosevelt--she knew what she wanted to say and how to say it. She was a brilliant extemporaneous speaker; time-wise she always came out on the nose with a neat conclusion of whatever she was discussing. Gradually the show evolved into interview sessions with movers and shakers of the post-war era." Polly remembered spending New Year's Eve weekend of 1949 at Hyde Park, "in the company of the great lady and a few of her family members and friends."
The Warfields soon moved back to the West Coast, deciding on San Francisco for their home. A letter of introduction from Mrs. Roosevelt got Polly a job as a scribe for The Chronicle, but she and Pat decided to have children, and she quit her day job to raise them. Without consulting Polly, however, Pat bought an old Bay Area ferry boat, quit his ad copywriting job, and turned the boat into a floating restaurant in Oakland's Jack London Square. It folded in a year, and the marriage ended not long after.
"It's been time after time of starting over again from the beginning," Polly has said. With her two daughters, Carola and Jocelyn, in tow, she moved back to Gardena and got a job at The Gardena Valley News, advancing in a period of years from a "lowly clerical job" to become the community paper's editor.
She began spending as much time as possible at the local theatres, penning her thoughts in her column titled The Passionate Playgoer.
But, she recalled, "My big break and lifesaver came when my friend Bea Bernstein introduced me to Charles Faber, a distinguished theatre critic at The L.A. Free Press. He hired me as a theatre critic and titular news editor there. Then it was bought by Larry Flynt, who ran it until he was shot." The publication became L.A. Weekly.
In 1980 Polly became a theatre critic, and soon theatre editor, of Drama-Logue. It would be the job she'd hold the longest, first under editor Lee Melville, then under Faye Bordy. She then came to Back Stage West, where she continued to work, writing at least one review per week plus her column, until her automobile accident.
In 1996, Polly was honored by Theatre LA's Ovation Awards for Enduring Contribution to Los Angeles Theatre. In 1999, Polly was presented with the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement Award for her theatre criticism. In 2000 she was given the first L.A. Weekly Queen of the Angels Award.
Until her hospitalization, Polly continued to live in Gardena, having inherited her Auntie Carr's charming house, with its fruiting garden, and packing it full of homey items, including a baby-pink range that, she admitted, she didn't use often enough.
She is survived by her daughters, Jocelyn Lane and Carola Clasen; and grandsons Jesse, Jeremy, and Danny.
She leaves a void in Los Angeles that may never be filled. There will be a celebration of her life at the El Portal Center for the Arts, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, Monday, Nov. 17, at 8 p.m. Donations in her memory may be made to Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle to fund The Polly Warfield Award, presented annually "for an excellent season in a small- to mid-size theatre." Checks may be sent to Back Stage West, 5055 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036-6103, attn: Dany Margolies.
--Dany Margolies and BSW archives