Lloyd Richards
Unlike Bill, Lloyd is ensnared by Eve, but as usual, Addison DeWitt is correct when
he tells Eve that Lloyd will never leave Karen. At the end of the Sarah Siddons
dinner, Karen holds the playwright’s award, and she and her husband kiss
passionately, while Eve has only her ambiguous relationship with de Witt, and
‘this’—the award.
Like Mankiewicz, Lloyd is a playwright; like most of the other characters, he equates
theatre with life. He is most vulnerable to Eve, perhaps because he, unlike Addison
DeWitt, is not a cold observer, and unlike Bill, applies the rules of theatre to
relationships, especially when Karen’s influence is weakest. If she is, to an extent, an
adjunct to him, he needs her to ground him, so that he can be creative. Lloyd falls for
Eve’s performances; perhaps Mankiewicz is suggesting that Margo’s and Bill’s love
is stronger than that of Karen and Lloyd. Additionally, his gullibility, and hers, could
indicate a quality of moral goodness quite lacking in Eve.
Like Bill, Lloyd is not as interesting to Mankiewicz as are the women in the film. The
two actors even look superficially alike, so that they lack the individually of the
female characters.
VATE INSIDE STORIES 2014—ALL ABOUT EVE
KEY QUOTES: LLOYD RICHARDS
• [about Eve] "I like that girl, that quality of quiet graciousness."
• "It's Addison from start to finish. It drips with his brand of venom. Taking
advantage of a kid like that, twisting her words, making her say what he
wanted her to say." • "There are very few moments in life as good as this. Let's remember it. To
each of us and all of us, never have we been more close, may we never be
farther apart."
• "The atmosphere is very MacBeth-ish...what has, or is about to, happen?"
• "She can play Peck's Bad Boy all she wants and who's to stop her? Who's to
give her that boot in the rear she needs and deserves?"
• “Actresses never die; the stars never die and never change.”
• “ I shall never understand the weird process by which a body with a voice
suddenly fancies itself as a mind. Just when exactly does an actress decide
they're her words she's saying and her thoughts she's expressing?"
• (About Margo) “It's about time the piano realize it has not written the
concerto!”
• “For once to write something and have it realized completely. For once not to
compromise.”
• “All this fuss and hysteria because an impulsive kid got carried away by
excitement and the conniving of a professional manure-slinger named De
Witt. She apologized, didn't she?”
• (To Karen) “That bitter cynicism of yours is something you've acquired since
you left Radcliffe.”
Unlike Bill, Lloyd is ensnared by Eve, but as usual, Addison DeWitt is correct when
he tells Eve that Lloyd will never leave Karen. At the end of the Sarah Siddons
dinner, Karen holds the playwright’s award, and she and her husband kiss
passionately, while Eve has only her ambiguous relationship with de Witt, and
‘this’—the award.
Like Mankiewicz, Lloyd is a playwright; like most of the other characters, he equates
theatre with life. He is most vulnerable to Eve, perhaps because he, unlike Addison
DeWitt, is not a cold observer, and unlike Bill, applies the rules of theatre to
relationships, especially when Karen’s influence is weakest. If she is, to an extent, an
adjunct to him, he needs her to ground him, so that he can be creative. Lloyd falls for
Eve’s performances; perhaps Mankiewicz is suggesting that Margo’s and Bill’s love
is stronger than that of Karen and Lloyd. Additionally, his gullibility, and hers, could
indicate a quality of moral goodness quite lacking in Eve.
Like Bill, Lloyd is not as interesting to Mankiewicz as are the women in the film. The
two actors even look superficially alike, so that they lack the individually of the
female characters.
VATE INSIDE STORIES 2014—ALL ABOUT EVE
KEY QUOTES: LLOYD RICHARDS
• [about Eve] "I like that girl, that quality of quiet graciousness."
• "It's Addison from start to finish. It drips with his brand of venom. Taking
advantage of a kid like that, twisting her words, making her say what he
wanted her to say." • "There are very few moments in life as good as this. Let's remember it. To
each of us and all of us, never have we been more close, may we never be
farther apart."
• "The atmosphere is very MacBeth-ish...what has, or is about to, happen?"
• "She can play Peck's Bad Boy all she wants and who's to stop her? Who's to
give her that boot in the rear she needs and deserves?"
• “Actresses never die; the stars never die and never change.”
• “ I shall never understand the weird process by which a body with a voice
suddenly fancies itself as a mind. Just when exactly does an actress decide
they're her words she's saying and her thoughts she's expressing?"
• (About Margo) “It's about time the piano realize it has not written the
concerto!”
• “For once to write something and have it realized completely. For once not to
compromise.”
• “All this fuss and hysteria because an impulsive kid got carried away by
excitement and the conniving of a professional manure-slinger named De
Witt. She apologized, didn't she?”
• (To Karen) “That bitter cynicism of yours is something you've acquired since
you left Radcliffe.”