By Myself and Then Some (44 page)

Early in the evening Bill Blair drove me to the airport and we stopped at the Governor’s farm in Libertyville to say goodbye. I couldn’t see the grounds at night, but the house was warm, cozy, and unpretentious. One of Adlai’s devoted followers and backers from 1952
– I can’t remember her name – was there. I wasn’t thrilled with that – but he gave me a big warm hello and she glared at me in a less than friendly fashion. I became more aware each time I saw him how many assorted women were vying for his time and attention. It’s touching to think of in retrospect. I mean, this man was not anyone’s notion of a Don Juan, no sex symbol, not a seducer, yet he was capable of dangling so many ladies, keeping them interested, grateful for his time, and each thinking that she was the One. I guess we each brought out something different in him – and we all flattered him, and he needed that. And he did the same for us. All the women were married, therefore safe. I remember only one who was too overwhelming – that was Marlene Dietrich. She became enamored of him, as we all did – wrote to him, called, got him to escort her somewhere public once, but never again. She came onto the set of
Millionaire
one day to tell me he hadn’t called her – she couldn’t understand why – if I saw him, would I please ask him to call? ‘Of course,’ I said, knowing that I wouldn’t. I did mention her, half kidding, and Adlai, not saying anything derogatory, just laughed – said she was a charming woman but too much for him. He never gave too much, just enough to keep you wanting more. And yet he was a life-enhancer. Being with him awakened a whole other part of yourself.

1953
was also the year
I declined to place my feet in the cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. It was to coincide with the
Millionaire
opening. The day I was told about it, I said to Bogie that it seemed to me anyone with a picture opening could be represented there, standards had been so lowered. Bogie, loving a chance to puncture Hollywood’s ego, said, ‘Why don’t you refuse?’ Joe Hyams, sensing a story, agreed. I, welcoming the idea of a new cause, however minor and short-lived, decided I
would
refuse. Joe said he’d print my statement in the
Tribune
, and I wrote, ‘Before I came to Hollywood, Grauman’s Chinese was something very special to me – it meant not only achievement – it was the Hall of Fame of the motion picture industry and the people in it were unforgettables and irreplaceables. I don’t think of myself as either – I feel that my career is undergoing a change and I want to feel I’ve earned my place with the best my business has produced.’ That statement made newspapers across the country and,
along with all the other news stories, was forgotten the next day. Time went by, I wasn’t asked again, and so twenty-five years later, a tourist or aspiring actor going to Grauman’s Chinese to see the legendary stars’ footprints will not see mine – or miss them.

Bogie had signed to do Joe Mankiewicz’s
Barefoot Contessa
in Rome, starting in January 1954, which meant three months or more there. I didn’t want to leave the children for that long, so we agreed that I would follow in three weeks. Despite the fact that Steve was a January baby, he was allowed to enter school (kindergarten) a few months before his fifth birthday – Westlake was a school for girls, but the kindergarten was coeducational. Bogie and I went to stand in the background on his first day. There was this small boy sitting at his own little desk – of course he looked adorable, like a little man. I looked at Bogie and saw his eyes filled with tears watching his son starting on the road to growing up, learning independence – it caught Bogie unawares. I think he had never believed he’d be seeing a son of his doing anything at all – ever.

So he left for Rome and
The Barefoot Contessa
, and I headed for New York a few weeks later. The day before I was to leave for London, Frank Sinatra called to ask if I’d mind carrying a coconut cake to Ava Gardner, who was in the film with Bogie (apparently she liked coconut cake). We had started seeing Frank the year before. I don’t recall quite how the friendship began – he was alone and not happy, neither work nor his personal life had been going well, so we’d had dinner with him a few times and he’d been to our house. Close friendship was still to come. On the morning of my departure from New York the cake was delivered to me in a large white box – unpackable, of course, so I took off with the coconut cake permanently attached to my hand to keep it from getting crushed. I stayed a night in London, and then Bogie was at the Rome airport to greet me. The care he took of me – that he was still excited to see me, still looked forward to me – I marveled at his ability to keep our relationship fresh. He took me and my cake box to the Excelsior Hotel and I asked him to tell Ava Gardner I had brought it. He told her – she did nothing about it – so two days later I decided to take it to her before it rotted. I didn’t know her and felt very awkward about it – who knows what has happened between a man and a woman when it goes sour? Bogie had told me the picture was going well and that Ava had many people with her all the time, including her
sister and a bullfighter named Luis Miguel Dominguin, with whom she was in love. I took the damn cake to the studio and knocked on her dressing-room door. After I had identified myself, the door opened. I felt like an idiot standing there with the bloody box – there were assorted people in the room and I was introduced to none of them. I said, ‘I brought this cake for you – Frank sent it to me in New York, he thought you’d like it.’ She couldn’t have cared less. She wanted me to put it down on some table she indicated – not a thank-you, nothing. I stood there very much out of place and finally managed to get away. I was furious with her and never did get to know her on that film, but have a little since and like her. Her reaction had only to do with Frank – she was clearly through with him, but it wasn’t that way on his side. I never told Frank the coconut-cake saga, he would have been too hurt. Bogie always said the girls at M-G-M were so pampered, so catered to, that they were totally spoiled and self-indulgent. But she was professional about her work, and that’s all he cared about.

Our time in Rome was fun. Howard Hawks, Harry Kurnitz, and William Faulkner were there preparing for
The Egyptian
, and a group of us, including Edmond O’Brien, also in Bogie’s film, would go around the corner from the Excelsior to Harry’s Bar for dinner. Invariably Bill Faulkner would be sitting alone at a table. He was such a shy man – Bogie or I would go over and ask him to join us and he was so grateful for company that he’d stay with us until we left. One night Howard gave a dinner at a great Italian restaurant called Passetto. I was seated next to Kurnitz and opposite Bill. With my usual tact, I said, ‘Tell me, Bill, why do you drink?’ Bill, in his soft Southern drawl said, ‘Well, with one martini ah feel bigger, wiser, taller, and with two it goes to the superlative, and ah feel biggest, wisest, tallest, and with three there ain’t no holdin’ me.’ An enchanting and revealing answer. I suppose the fact of his being a small man had always bothered him, probably started him drinking. He was a charming and gentle man, and very serious. He was telling us what he planned to do after he finished the script: ‘I thought I’d drive through the Loire Valley – tasting the wine of the country as I go.’ I remember Kurnitz telling us that Faulkner was poured off the plane on arrival in Cairo. After a few days of not seeing him around, Harry decided, as they were collaborating on the script, to stop by Bill’s hotel and visit him. He knocked on the door – a nurse quickly left the room, which had a few empty bottles on the floor. Bill
was sitting up in bed. Harry said, ‘Well, Bill, it’s good to see you – how are you doing?’ ‘Just fine, Harry – ah just can’t seem to shake this cold!’

My two months in Rome consisted mainly of walking the same streets over and over again to keep myself busy while Bogie was working. At night, when Bogie got back to the hotel, I was full of energy and raring to go – but he, of course, had to work the next day, so we’d go to dinner and hit the sack. Still, whenever he had a few days off, we’d go to Florence or Venice, and he loved Italy as much as I did. But our time there was finally over and it was back home, via London and New York. Oh, how I wanted to see my children – the best part of going away was opening my own front door. Everything I really wanted was there.

We were deluged with phone calls from our friends welcoming us back, and we started seeing everyone. Lee and Ira Gershwin gave a large party for Leonard Bernstein, whom we’d never met. He was ravishing to look at, with enormous vitality, energy, and a great sense of fun. Bogie and I were dazzled by him, though if it came to a contest I would have won. Lenny sat down at the piano, I sat at his feet, everyone sang their old and new songs. I was in my element – there was almost nothing I enjoyed as much as sitting by a piano, hearing and singing songs. One of the rituals at the Gershwin house was the playing of new scores by the men who wrote them, as Harold Arlen and Ira himself did that night with the score for
A Star Is Born
. Judy Garland and Sid Luft had moved to our street, two houses away from us – their daughter Lorna was about six months younger than Leslie, so we had all become very chummy strolling back and forth between houses. Judy had just finished
A Star Is Born
, with Sid as producer, and we were all looking forward to it, feeling that at last Judy, after her many professional and private ups and downs, was about to realize her dream and win an Academy Award for her performance, proving to all the cynics that she was still very much an artist. So everyone that evening was ‘up,’ and the party lasted until the wee hours. Lenny Bernstein was in Hollywood to see
On the Waterfront
, as Sam Spiegel wanted him to score it. He and I were very much attracted to each other, I don’t know why – we were both happy with our mates. Anyway, Bogie and I saw a lot of him from that night on – he’d come to the house for tennis, drinks, dinner. He was always work-consumed. Bogie said that he was a genius – that he
would always be on the move, had to do what he had to do. He was right, of course. Once when he knew Lenny was coming to town, Bogie said, ‘Oh, I can’t take that sitting on the floor, playing the piano all night, I’m going on the boat.’ With Lenny it was always music until three in the morning. It was fun – it was new, and all my life I have been prey to anything new. Besides, at Hollywood parties, women were ignored. If you weren’t the hottest, most successful kid in town, men stayed away from you and talked among themselves about the movies they made – about the picture business. Women did not feel like women, we were just there. So anyone who paid special attention became a necessary part of one’s life. I used to think that if we had been free souls, Lenny and I might have run off together. Another childish fantasy. As Bogie said, ‘Lenny has too many things to do in his life to be a satisfying mate. You’d probably have a great time for a weekend but not for a lifetime.’ That’s where the twenty-five-year differences in our ages showed. He had the patience and trust in me to let me grow. He knew I was an innocent, never having had the chance to spread my sexual wings, so he allowed me my intermittent crushes. He had taught me early that all through one’s life one meets people whom one is attracted to – sure, it’s fun, but that’s when you decide whether one weekend is worth it. I never dared. Not only did my nice-Jewish-girl syndrome get in the way, but I knew that Bogie – however much he loved me – would put up with flirtation, but if I ever really did anything, he would leave me. He valued character more than anything, and he trusted mine – I knew that and it kept me in check.

Time
decided it was time for a cover story on Bogie. In the piece Bogie sounded off on all his favorite subjects:

He talked about how much better he felt when working – ‘Puts me on the wagon.’

John Huston and a few friends were sitting around one evening and he asked if anyone had the desire to relive part of his life. Only Bogie said yes – ‘When I was courting Betty.’ (Is it any wonder?)

We opened an Edward R. Murrow
Person to Person
season that September. Great excitement in the household then – we were wild Murrow fans, stayed home every Sunday night for
See It Now
. Anyone who lived during that time had to be aware of Murrow’s dedication, character, and purity of soul. He changed the face of broadcasting, and had as much to do with McCarthy’s downfall as anyone in government. On
Person to Person
we took him through our home, talked about me on Truman’s piano, Bogie’s being the Maud Humphrey Baby, and Bogie’s future project,
The Man Who Would Be King
. Bogie’s definition: a project is what it’s called until you get the money together. Huston had talked about Bogie and Gable doing this film in the Himalayas – another inaccessible Huston location and another dream unrealized until 1976, when Huston actually made it, but with Sean Connery and Michael Caine. Stephen and Leslie, dressed for bed, made a brief appearance – even Harvey and his family were seen coast to coast. I was a nervous wreck as usual, but, as always, once it was over I wanted to go back to the beginning and do it all over again.

That summer and fall began our close friendship with Sinatra. We began by seeing more of him through others – then he started to visit us and we to visit him. Bogie always liked Frank – he enjoyed his ‘fighting windmills’ and Frank made him laugh. It was not a great career time for Frank, though getting better steadily since
From Here to Eternity
. He was lonely and still in love with Ava Gardner – I do believe it was the first and only time that someone else had done the leaving. Frank was attracted to Bogie and to Spencer Tracy – he admired them as men and as talents, and being with them gave him a feeling of solidity that his life lacked. He was a restless man, totally incapable of being alone. He really came alive at night, due to a lifetime of training as a band singer. Frank had an apartment in a great building on Wilshire Boulevard which belonged to Gladys Belzer, mother of Loretta Young. On his way to being superagent, Swifty Lazar lived in an apartment next to Frank’s. Whenever Swifty gave a dinner party,
we were there and Frank often was too – the two bachelors were always free.