The old lady of the island about to be covered by the man-made lake was played by one of the great character actresses of that day, Jo Van Fleet, aged thirty-seven, as difficult and dear a woman as a director in need of a performance could hope for. I’d worked with Jo in Camino Real and in East of Eden, knew her strong will and knew its purpose: to excel. Full of unconstrained violence, she’d eat Clift alive, and I was prepared to let her. No lump there. And what a professional Jo was! Whereas Clift, sleepy and shaky, had something wobbly about his appearance in the morning, Jo would barge into the makeup room at 4 a.m. and give five hours to transforming herself into an indomitable backriver matriarch. Even on days when I told her we wouldn’t be coming close to her with the camera, she’d spend an hour applying the liver spots of an old woman on the backs of her hands. “Jo,” I’d say, “we’re not going to photograph your hands today. Get another hour’s sleep.” “This is not for the camera,” she’d answer. “It’s for me.” Clift was a tenderhearted shell of a man, Jo as formidable and unyielding as the rock-ribbed country where we were working.