Last Man Standing: Tales from Tinseltown (4 page)

BOOK: Last Man Standing: Tales from Tinseltown
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‘Sweetheart,’ she replied, matter-of-factly. ‘When I first
came on this lot all the producers fucked me. So now
I’m
fucking
them
.’

In 1962, Lana was making a film at MGM British Studios in Borehamwood. It was at the time of the really dense fogs – known as pea-soupers – that used to descend over London. Lana was married to Lex Barker at the time and he was visiting her on set one day when one of these fogs came down. The production called time early to enable everyone to get home safely.

Lana and Lex left the studio in a chauffeur-driven car to head back to the Savoy Hotel in London, but a few miles down the road – at Apex Corner – the driver could barely see the front of the car, let alone anything else on the road ahead of him, and Lex, being the concerned husband he was, got out and said he would walk in front of the car until either the fog lifted or they reached the hotel.

It must be about thirteen miles from there to the Savoy, but Lex dutifully paced it out and lead his wife to safety – or at least he thought so, until he went to open the door of the car and discovered it was another car all together that had somehow started following him and Lana was nowhere to be seen!

And speaking of feisty ladies, they don’t come much feistier – or more fun – than Joan Collins. Some time ago in Hollywood, Joan was having a romance with Arthur Loew Jr of the cinematic dynasty (not of the
Dad’s Army
dynasty, as some newspapers mistakenly reported in saying she was the girlfriend of the former Captain Mainwaring).

Anyhow, one night Joan was late for a ball in Hollywood,
which she was attending with Arthur. Arthur had been brooding about her punctuality for some time, and this time he snapped, ‘You are fucking boring!’

Two Mavericks and a Dynasty. With James Garner and Joan Collins – a veritable rose between two thorns – at an LA premiere in 1983.

‘And you are a boring fuck!’ snapped Joan, without a blink.

Joan has a lovely turn of phrase, as does her sister Jackie, and I love reading their books and articles. Their father, Joe Collins, was a big theatrical agent in the 1950s and was, in fact, my wife Dorothy Squires’ agent, and I got to know him well. He was a very dashing, handsome man-about-town and Elsa, his wife, was a very graceful, classically beautiful woman who believed implicitly in Joan’s innocence. When
Joan announced to Elsa that she wanted to marry Maxwell Reed, the man to whom she’d lost her virginity, Elsa said, ‘Darling, he’s an
actor
– and a spivvy sort of actor at that.’

Maxwell Reed was six foot four and wore jackets with enormous shoulders in them, a trilby pulled down over his eyes and looked every bit the gangster. He boasted of connections in the London underworld too. But in total contrast to his large frame was his high pitched and squeaky voice.

He had been offered a film contract with Alexander Korda in the mid-40s but was sent for voice coaching first as they wanted him to sound more like he looked – big, gruff and mean. When he returned with his squeaky shrill intact, Korda dropped him. It was then someone suggested he see a lady named Elsie who taught voice production, and she told Max that if he spoke with his chin pointing downwards, then he’d produce deep, round sounds.

I was in the Army at the time I next bumped into Max in London. He was wearing an over-sized camel-hair coat, with a script under his arm and with his chin facing downwards he said, ‘Hello, old man, how are you?’

He told me – in deep, rounded tones – that he was now under contract to Sydney Box and was on his way to a script conference, and just then he lifted his hand up – along with his head – to call for a taxi ... and all of a sudden his deep, rounded tones became a very high-pitched shriek again.

I digress. Joan told her mother that she planned to marry Max and Elsa said, ‘But Daddy won’t allow that.’

‘Then I will live with him,’ Joan replied, with a flourish.

Elsa told me that she never doubted it, and so, reluctantly, that’s why they agreed to the marriage.

Joan told me years later that one day, Max called out from
the bathroom of the flat they’d rented, ‘Joan! Have you been using my fucking mascara?’

‘No, I haven’t!’ came the reply.

‘Yes, you have!’

‘How do you know?’ she asked.

‘Because you always spit in yours, whereas I put it under the tap!’

Sadly, the marriage was doomed from the start and ended in bitter divorce a few years later; ironically just as Joan’s career was taking off and her earning power was on the up. Max demanded a hefty settlement, claiming he had ‘discovered’ Joan. Having now been married five times, Joan says that she’s kissed enough frogs to have finally found her true prince in Percy Gibson, whom she married in 2002. They’re incredibly happy together and complement one another perfectly.

Joan was aged just twenty-one when she was offered a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox in California. Darryl F. Zanuck, the rather tiny though incredibly randy boss of the studio, had seen her in
Land of the Pharaohs
, an epic set in the land of the pyramids, in which British stalwart Jack Hawkins played Pharaoh Khufu – inspired casting!

Zanuck had a reputation for propositioning virtually every actress who crossed his path and he was struck by the image of a semi-clad Joan sporting a diamond in her naval. Sure enough, when he bumped into Joan in the corridor one day he pressed her up against the wall.

‘You haven’t had anyone till you’ve had me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got the biggest and best and I can go all night.’

Joan sensibly declined his kind invitation, though she did catch sight of what she had missed when she visited his office, as Zanuck had a life-sized mould of his manhood – in
solid gold – in pride of place on his desk. I’ve never asked Joan whether the sight of it impressed her or otherwise, but do know that another famous Joan – Joan Crawford – was in his office on one occasion and Zanuck – gesturing to his mould – said, ‘Impressive, huh?’

Without missing a beat, Joan Crawford replied, ‘I’ve seen bigger things crawl out of cabbages.’

Zsa Zsa Gabor is perhaps better known for the number of her marriages rather than anything else, and I was once coupled with her by MGM – albeit platonically. It was the studio’s habit of partnering their contract artists with each other to attend events, premieres and dinners, purely for publicity purposes. I accompanied Zsa Zsa to one such premiere, and on to dinner afterwards. She was exquisitely beautiful, if a little large in the lower rear region I felt – well, not literally felt, you understand.

At one point Zsa Zsa was married to George Sanders, he was husband number three of nine I think, but she was also having a great affair with Rubirosa (aka Mr Ever Ready). Porfirio Rubirosa was a Dominican diplomat whose reputation as a playboy far exceeded any political accomplishments and was only matched by stories of his sexual prowess. His larger-than-average penis actually inspired restaurant waiters to name the gigantic pepper mills ‘Rubirosas’. Many women, and some men, have assured me he was indeed built like a stallion, and his penchant for rich women saw him marry heiresses Doris Duke and Barbara Hutton among three other wives.

George was obviously aware of something going on
between his wife and the playboy and returned home one day, just before Christmas, propped a ladder up against the bedroom window and caught the duo in mid-service. The ensuing flash of a camera bulb quite put Rubirosa off his stroke, and there was a mad scramble out of the bed as George gently descended his ladder, and let himself in through the front door to wait at the foot of the stairs.

Zsa Zsa and Rubirosa sheepishly descended.

‘Merry Christmas, Zsa Zsa ... and to you Rubi,’ he said in his deliciously wonderful sardonic voice, before leaving. They divorced the following April, and Rubirosa continued his womanizing ways elsewhere.

Zsa Zsa had followed her younger sister Eva to Hollywood, and it was Eva I knew better, having worked with her in
The Last Time I Saw Paris
. I was having a cup of coffee with her in her trailer one day, between set-ups, and Bill Shanks the First Assistant Director appeared and said, ‘Eva, you’re in the next shot.’

‘Oh my goodness,’ she said, leaping up and taking off a diamond ring the size of a baseball. ‘I didn’t have this on in the last shot, Bill. Would you look after it for me?’

‘I’ll put it in my trouser pocket,’ Bill suggested. ‘Is it worth much?’

‘About $50,000,’ replied Eva.

‘Oh my god!’ shouted Bill. ‘Someone will cut my goddamn leg off for it!’

‘Don’t worry, dahlin’,’ she replied. ‘It was only two nights’ hard work.’

That was the difference between her and her sister – Zsa Zsa would have said it was ‘only one night’s hard work’.

Eva was very down to earth and nothing really fazed her. One day, while on the road publicizing a film, Eva was staying
in a fairly grand hotel suite that had an interconnecting door with her publicist’s room. They were due to appear at a television studio, so the publicist knocked on said door at the designated hour, entered and stood patiently waiting for Eva in her sitting room. Moments later, Eva, having thought she heard something, walked into the room absolutely naked apart from multiple layers of jewels.

Without missing a beat she spread her arms, gave a twirl and said, ‘Well, Jeffrey? How do I look?’

Shelley Winters always had a great reputation for being good fun on set. We made a film together called
That Lucky Touch
in Belgium in 1975, and late one evening in the depths of winter we were preparing for a night shoot. The set-up was that I was to be filmed hanging around outside on a window ledge and then had to go off to a field somewhere – the details escape me but it was bloody cold. Consequently, my wardrobe man had procured all manner of thermal underwear for me. At one point, Shelley walked in to my dressing room to discuss something, and noticed all my long johns and vests hanging over the chair.

‘What are all those?’ she asked.

‘My warm underwear,’ I replied.

‘If it’s going to be cold, then I want some as well,’ she said, and picked up a selection of mine.

In the film, Shelley was playing Diana, the brassy wife of the American General (played by Lee J. Cobb) and she certainly stole every scene she was in – along with making an indelible imprint on my memory when she alighted, in character, from the General’s car on our location wearing a lovely, warm fur coat. Just as she stepped out of the car she flashed at us – wearing nothing underneath apart from rolls of ample flesh all held in place by my white thermals.

BOOK: Last Man Standing: Tales from Tinseltown
6.14Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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