The Associated Press
August 26, 1984
Caroline Lagerfelt in 'The Real Thing'
By MICHAEL KUCHWARA, AP Drama Writer
Caroline Lagerfelt is the first to admit that she's not a household name, at least not at the moment.
That's why she exudes an enormous amount of enthusiasm for director Mike Nichols and producer Emanuel Azenberg who took a chance on her and John Vickery, another little-known actor with extensive theatrical credits, as replacements for Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons in "The Real Thing," one of the few box-office smashes of last season.
In fact, Azenburg and Nichols put in almost an entirely new cast when Ms. Close and Irons departed the Tom Stoppard drama in July after a six-month run.
"Everything was laid on first-class for us. They treated us as a new production. It was an extraordinary experience," says Ms. Lagerfelt, a cool, crisp actress with long, blonde hair and startlingly blue eyes. "We had a month's rehearsal. The props were there on the first day."
And so was Nichols' unwavering support.
"He makes you feel that he is lucky that you decided to do this play with him," she says. "He gives you such a feeling of confidence."
And she says it was easier going into the play with a new cast.
"We all worked together on the production. I really didn't do any work on the play before I started rehearsal, except for just reading it through," Ms. Lagerfelt says. "I wanted to keep an open mind."
She and the other new cast members also were able to build their relationships from the ground up during rehearsals.
"It's a lot easier than coming in to act with somebody who's already decided what their character is like or what their relationship to the other actors is," she says.
Ms. Lagerfelt and Vickery met last year under very different circumstances. It was on the soap opera "Edge of Night." He played a spy who kept taking off his dark glasses and muttering into the camera, "My name is Constantine." She played the ex-wife of another cloak-and-dagger man and ended up being strangled.
"I did a great death scene, but you're not allowed to die with your eyes open. I lay there with my eyes glazed, and they had to reshoot it," she laughed.
But Ms. Lagerfelt doesn't knock the soaps. They provide a cushion for actors in New York who want to work in the theater but still have to pay the rent.
Fortunately she hasn't been out of work for the last five years, finding employment in a steady stream of Broadway and off-Broadway productions, usually plays by British playwrights Harold Pinter or Simon Gray.
Because of her appearances on Broadway in Pinter's "Betrayal" and Gray's "Otherwise Engaged," as well as off-Broadway in Gray's "Quartermaine's Terms," audiences tend to think she's British. They're only half right.
Her mother is English, but her father's a Swedish diplomat, and Ms. Lagerfelt grew up in Sweden. But her heart was in America, a land she learned about from "Seventeen" magazine. It was a place where young girls could stay up past 11 p.m. and eat hot dogs and angel food cake.
Ms. Lagerfelt arrived in New York after college, when her father was assigned to the United Nations as a special adviser to the General Assembly. On the advice of a friend, she auditioned for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and was accepted.
Two years later, she was on the dinner theater circuit, in places like Jackson, Miss., and Albuquerque, N.M., playing roles in shows like "Cactus Flower."
"We'd wait on tables, shower, rush on stage and act -- dreadfully I'm sure," she recalled. "After the show, we'd all have to line up and shake hands with everybody who was leaving, like little performing monkeys.
"And then -- we each had our own set of tables -- we'd rush to our tables for the tips," She did best with the lead role in "Cactus Flower," the story of an ugly duckling of a woman who suddenly blossoms.
"Audiences loved that character," Ms. Lagerfelt said. "I cleaned up on that show."
A turning point in her career occurred when she was fired from a play at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
"I was absolutely devastasted," Ms. Lagerfelt said. "You feel like you have a big sign across your forehead saying, 'inadequate."'
So she returned to New York and auditioned for "Otherwise Engaged," and was hired. She hasn't been out of work since.
Even after she broke her back in a bad fall, she was back at work six weeks after the accident. She was in physical therapy for nine months, but it didn't prevent her from appearing in "Quartermaine's Terms."
"They just reblocked the show a little bit so I didn't have to bend down," Ms. Lagerfelt said. "I would rest all day, come in, do the show and get off."
Now, she can't believe that she's actually starring on Broadway in a big hit directed by Mike Nichols.
"I just love the feeling in America that you can do anything you want to do if you really set your mind to it," she said. "It sounds corny. But foreigners like me really know that."