Jeannie Out Of The Bottle (8 page)

The day of the final shoot, I locked my dressing room door, put on my dress for the show (a nice if not particularly flattering number), and then tiptoed out, hoping against hope that Desi wasn’t around and waiting to pounce on me.

Instead, I bumped straight into Lucy’s assistant, who informed me that Lucy wanted to see me in her trailer dressing room at once.

Oh boy! I thought. Have I done something to make her mad?

I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I was still petrified. I followed the assistant into the trailer, where Lucy ordered, “Take that dress off.”

Literally trembling from head to foot in fear, I did what she told me.

Then she handed me another dress.

Remembering Ann Sothern, I looked at it and thought, Probably a sack dress.

Then I put it on. It was the tightest, sexiest dress I’d ever seen, one that showed off all of my curves.

“Take it off again,” Lucy said.

I did, and she and one of her friends spent more than an hour adding sparkles all over the dress so that it would look even more shiny and glamorous.

Now that’s the kind of woman Lucille Ball was. She was really smart and really dedicated to her show, and even though she realized that Desi was actively pursuing me, she still put me in that dress because she knew it was right for the character and right for the show. The show meant everything to her, more, even, than her hurt pride over her cheating husband.

Even to this day in Hollywood, you still hear stories about how Desi broke Lucy’s heart, but she still put her show first because she was smart and she was a professional.

Funnily enough, when I finally filmed the scene in which Desi and I dance together, he turned out to be a complete gentleman on camera and kept his distance from me. I was vastly relieved.

Afterward, the director took me aside and said, “You know, every time we have a young girl in the show and Desi goes after her, Lucy suffers so much. You were the first one who handled things professionally. Thank you.”

Lucy also obliquely thanked me for evading her husband’s advances: she offered to put me under contract for her new production company, Desilu. By then, though, it was too late. Twentieth Century Fox had finalized their offer for me to become one of their contract players, and it was far too good for me to turn down: seven years at $200 a week. I was on my way to making it in Hollywood at last!

WHEN I FIRST arrived at the Twentieth Century Fox studios, I instinctively gravitated toward the warehouse in which the wardrobe department resided, where the costumes worn by Betty Grable and Alice Faye, actresses now long gone from the studio, still hung with their names stitched inside them.

I spent hours wandering through the wardrobe department, asking questions about the clothes and the stars who once wore them, and, in the process, became increasingly aware of the fleeting quality of Hollywood and of stardom, and of the ever-present potential for tragedy inherent in both.

Jayne Mansfield, who starred in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, was a classic example (although I had no contact with her when I worked on the movie). Young, beautiful, sweet-natured, and far more intelligent than she was given credit for by the public and the press, she was to meet her death in a gruesome car accident. It seemed to me that her life story epitomized the quintessential Hollywood tragedy.

Then there was Debbie Reynolds, to whose “Aba Daba Honeymoon” Solly Hoffman and I had mimed. At the studio she was often on the telephone, issuing orders to the staff at her home. Very grand, I thought, secretly envying her and her happy marriage to Eddie Fisher. I could not know that Debbie’s idyllic-seeming marriage would soon be shattered when Eddie left her because he had fallen head over heels in love with Elizabeth Taylor.

Elizabeth was signed to MGM (although she did make Cleopatra at Twentieth Century Fox, and there would be a ripple effect with consequences for me and my nascent career), and when I met her years later, I could hardly talk because I was so stunned by her beauty. Joan Collins was another great MGM beauty. Many years later, when composer Leslie Bricusse and his wife, Evie, invited my current husband, Jon, and me to their home in Acapulco, there was Joan by the pool, swathed in a white caftan, wearing a white turban, reclining on a chaise longue. Jon took one look at her and went, “Oh my God, she’s so beautiful!” I wasn’t amused by my husband’s unadulterated enthusiasm for Joan Collins and snapped, “That’s quite enough of that, Jon.”

A Jeannie blink back to the past again: During my first few months at Fox, I experienced my fair share of disappointments. The first involved Mark Robson, my mentor and the man who had discovered me and brought me to Fox in the first place. Mark wanted me to read for the part of Betty in Peyton Place, which was projected to be a mammoth box office hit. I was elated at the prospect.

I was sent for wardrobe tests, a sure indication that the part was in the bag for me. Then Terry Moore, who had been in Mighty Joe Young and Come Back Little Sheba and had been involved with Howard Hughes, and who had initially turned the role down, changed her mind and accepted it after all.

I was bitterly disappointed, but fortunately, I didn’t have too long to wallow in my disappointment. Just weeks later, I finally got my first big chance at Twentieth Century Fox after all: I was cast in the TV version of How to Marry a Millionaire, the movie that had starred Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall.

TV again!

However, when I learned that I would be playing the part of Loco, one of the three husband-hunting Manhattan bachelorettes, which Marilyn Monroe had played in the movie version, I mentally tipped my hat to Emma Nelson Sims and her hitherto wacky-sounding predictions. It was a star-making role if ever there was one.

At first I was a little intimidated by the thought of following in Marilyn’s footsteps, but then I gave the part more consideration and played Loco as being shortsighted. So that while I didn’t want to banish the image of Marilyn’s Loco completely from my mind while I was playing the part, I felt as if I’d stumbled on my own personal take on the character and was glad.

In the future, Marilyn would play a more significant role in my life than I had originally anticipated. And during How to Marry a Millionaire, our lives would intersect in a rather uncanny way, the significance of which I wasn’t aware of until long after Marilyn’s death, when her personal life became public knowledge.

I very much enjoyed playing Loco, and the series was a success. In November 1957, the producers of How to Marry a Millionaire sent me, Merry Anders, and Lori Nelson, the two other bachelorettes, to Manhattan to promote the series. As it was winter and the temperatures had plunged, they thoughtfully rented a full-length mink coat for each of us.

At the end of the tour, I was at Idlewild (as John F. Kennedy International Airport was then known), waiting for my flight to be called and about to buy some candy, when a dark, heavyset man sidled up to me and abruptly asked me whom I was with.

Startled, I said, “Booker McClay.” Booker was Twentieth Century Fox’s head of public relations.

The man strode off without another word. A few years later, I saw his picture in a magazine. The caption read, “Pierre Salinger.”

Back at the airport, just as I was paying for my candy, Booker came over to me and asked, “Barbara, would you like to meet Senator John Kennedy?”

I wasn’t in the least bit interested in politics, and the name Kennedy meant nothing to me at that time. But I didn’t want to insult Booker, Senator Kennedy, or the man who’d approached me in the first place, so I shrugged and said, “Fine.”

The heavyset man ushered me into an anteroom. Only a drum-roll was missing, or a battery of klieg lights, as he declared in a loud ringmaster’s voice, “I want you to meet the next president of the United States!”

Senator Kennedy was handsome enough to rival any Hollywood star. When he clasped my hand firmly, I looked up into the clearest, most hypnotic eyes in the universe. I blushed and looked away.

At that moment, fate intervened and my flight was called. I shook hands with the senator again. Then Pierre Salinger escorted me to the foot of the gangway.

As I boarded the plane in the ice-cold air, I tucked my hands into my pockets, and felt something in the left one. I pulled out a small piece of gray notepaper. Written on it were the initials “JFK” and a phone number.

Without any hesitation, I tore it up on the spot and handed the pieces to the stewardess to put in the trash.

I never once regretted it. The truth is that I wasn’t even momentarily tempted by one of the most glamorous, charismatic, sexually alluring men who ever lived.

For I’d already met the man of my dreams. And nothing and no one, not even John F. Kennedy in his glittering prime, ever would have succeeded in leading me astray, because I was wildly, utterly, and completely enthralled by my very own Mr. Right, Michael Ansara.

As far as I—and thousands of fans and love-struck female fans throughout the world—was concerned, Michael Ansara was a magnificent specimen of alpha-male masculinity. Six foot four and darkly handsome, with blazing brown eyes, a deep, resonant voice, and a powerful aura of strength and dependability, Michael was a Hollywood heartthrob with sex appeal to burn.

He was born in Lebanon but came to America with his parents when he was two years old. He grew up in New England, where he lived until he was twelve. Initially he had wanted to become a doctor, but the theater beckoned, and he joined the Pasadena Playhouse, where his fellow students included Charles Bronson (who was to become a close friend), Aaron Spelling of Dynasty and Beverly Hills 90210 fame, and sultry brunette actress Carolyn Jones. Down the line, with his dark, strong good looks, Michael would frequently be typecast in biblical epics, and he appeared in The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and The Robe. Ironically, the first time I saw him on the screen, in Julius Caesar, he aroused my interest only because he had the same last name as my first boyfriend, Al Ansara.

In October 1957, a month before I met Senator Kennedy, How to Marry a Millionaire was rising in popularity and I now had top billing on the show. I’d even managed to move out of the Studio Club and into an apartment of my very own on Sunset.

One morning, Booker McClay called me into his office and in no uncertain terms told me that it was high time I stopped hanging out with my boyfriend, Tony, a nice guy who delivered refrigerators for a living, and went out on the town with someone important in the business, so I’d see and be seen.

Before I could protest, Booker went on, “Barbara, you’re in a hit series. You’re a TV star. You get fan mail every week. Those fans expect you to be seen around Hollywood on the arm of a sexy date, and so do I.”

I stifled a yawn.

I suppose I could have used my relationship with Tony as an excuse for not wanting to play the Hollywood social game, but that wasn’t true. From the first, I’d made it clear to Tony that I didn’t plan on going steady with him and that I was going to date other people.

I did meet actor Robert Vaughn at the Studio Club and go on one date with him. He was studying at UCLA at the time and was working extremely hard, but there was no chemistry between us and we never went out again.

Since then, Tony had suited me just fine and I wasn’t remotely interested in dating another actor. But Booker just wouldn’t take no for an answer. He insisted that I go to astrologer Carroll Righter’s birthday party on Halloween as the date of Michael Ansara, one of Twentieth Century Fox’s major stars, who was playing Apache chief Cochise to great acclaim in the TV hit Broken Arrow.

Tony or no Tony, the prospect of a blind date with some actor utterly underwhelmed me.

Michael, it later turned out, felt exactly the same way at the thought of meeting me. His exact words to Booker were “Why should I go out with some actress I don’t know when I’ve already got so many girls in my life that I do know?”

But Booker was relentless, the date was set, and I was left wondering whether I ought to bone up on the Chiracahua Apaches and their current problems. In short, I expected Michael to arrive for our date sporting a shoulder-length bob and carrying a bow and arrow, just as he did in Broken Arrow.

Booker arranged for Michael and me to first have dinner at the Tail of the Cock, a restaurant on La Cienega, then to go on to the Halloween party, where photographers (who’d been tipped off in advance) would be waiting to grab a shot of us together. Mission accomplished, Booker McClay style.

However, things didn’t go according to Booker’s plan. From the moment Michael and I sat down to dinner, we didn’t stop talking. We talked and talked and talked and talked, and practically closed the restaurant. We never did make it to the Halloween party, so Booker’s photographers didn’t get their pictures, and he was livid with both of us.

But Michael and I didn’t care. We were far too busy falling madly and hopelessly in love.

Soon after, I left for Manhattan on the How to Marry a Millionaire publicity tour. While I was away, Michael called me every night, and our relationship deepened.

By the time I left Manhattan to return to Los Angeles, I knew that Michael Ansara was the man for me, that I wouldn’t be dating anyone else, that I wanted our relationship to be exclusive.

But Michael, a decisive man with very little self-doubt, wanted more. One afternoon, without any warning, he showed up on the How to Marry a Millionaire set. He kissed me, then held out a white paper bag.

“Oh, goody!” I said. “Candy!”

My mouth started watering. I foraged inside the bag for the candy, and pulled out a diamond engagement ring instead.

“I think it will fit,” Michael said laconically.

It did. It fit perfectly. A metaphor, in more ways than one, for our relationship and, I hoped, our future together.

Nevertheless, I wasn’t quite prepared to commit to marriage to Michael then and there. My mother’s advice not to go steady too soon or marry too young still held sway over me. So I hesitated in accepting Michael’s proposal.