Candy at Last (3 page)

I still remember when my father-in-law called to tell me that he had purchased us a refrigerator. I asked if I could see it or choose the color before it was delivered, and he told me that I couldn’t. Instead, he gave me instructions to be home for the delivery. On another occasion, he drove me out to look at a house he was buying for us. It was not the “starter” home I was expecting. It was a five-bedroom family home, and he made it very clear those rooms were to be filled with grandchildren.

That, I think, is when Howard and I truly fell apart. There was a lot of pressure to have children, and up until that point, Howard and I had only had sex maybe eight times. I also started to feel like Howard’s father was my husband and not my father-in-law. I didn’t have the emotional vocabulary yet to express how I was feeling. I wasn’t completely unhappy, but I also knew I wasn’t happy. I couldn’t talk about how I was feeling with my mother. We just didn’t talk about those things. To his credit, my father initiated several conversations with me in which he told me it was okay to admit I had made a mistake and that my marriage wasn’t working. But I held on, fearful that if I couldn’t make this work, it meant there was something wrong with me.

They say that sometimes God does for you what you can’t do for yourself. One night after another fight, Howard walked out on our marriage. I was so scared and even more frightened of telling my parents. It turned out Howard had already called my parents to tell them he had left and that I was alone at the apartment. I’ll never forget my father saying they were coming to get me. Hearing those words made my heart skip a beat. I felt so embarrassed.

My mother was not a nurturing person, but she definitely had a “take-charge” personality. Her way of mothering me during this crisis was to rescue me. She had me and all of the furniture they had given us packed up and out of the apartment in record time. And in the best way she could, she did try to talk me through what was happening.

Three weeks after I filed for divorce from Howard, I received a phone call from Howard’s family physician. He asked me to come meet with him at his office. I wasn’t sure what this was all about, but I went in anyway. The doctor’s line of questioning was very personal, and I confided in him about our intimacy issues. He listened very carefully and then offered his professional opinion that it was unclear whether Howard preferred women or men. The bottom line for the doctor was that the United States was drafting men to fight in the Vietnam War, so I needed to reconcile with him to decrease his chances of being called to service.

The doctor’s mandate made me feel as if I were living in the dark ages and had no rights. I was not a possession and had no intention of going back to Howard so I could be his Draft Lottery “Beard.” I followed through with the divorce proceedings, and months later we finally had our day in court. I petitioned to have my name legally changed back to Marer, and Howard petitioned to keep the monogrammed poker chips my mother had given him as a wedding gift.

3

Caught in Aaron’s Spell

One of my all-time favorite movie quotes is from
Hannah and Her Sisters.
It’s at the very end of the film when Woody Allen’s hypochondriac character, Mickey, has found love again (with his ex-wife’s sister, no less). “The heart is a very, very, resilient little muscle. It really is,” he says to his former sister-in-law, who has turned out to be his soulmate.

Living back at home with my parents, I found this to be true. Possibly even more so since I was still so young. For a while I felt like nobody would ever want to date me again, but I really didn’t have any trouble getting dates. I also had lots of good conversations with my mother, and that helped me to move on as well. One afternoon, Jack Hanson, former shortstop for the Los Angeles Angels, stopped me on the street. It was Nancy Sinatra Jr. who best described Jack when she said, “My father, Hugh Hefner, and Jack Hanson are the three most important men in America.” Jack and his designer wife, Sally, had made a fortune with their signature “hip-slim pants.” Jackie Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, and Marilyn Monroe were just a few of the celebrities who wore his cute clothes. His exclusive stores, called Jax, were in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Palm Beach, and South Hampton. His flagship store
was in Beverly Hills. Jack offered me a job there. I told him I had never worked in a retail store and that I could only work four hours a day, but he gave me the job anyway.

I was being paid on commission, so I instinctively knew that having the right attitude was going to be the key to succeeding at the store. Boy, was I right. All of the other girls, who, like me, were hired for their looks, were incredibly lazy. They were all dressed up and made up, but they couldn’t seem to get up and out of their chairs to help the customers. I was adamant about being nice to customers regardless of how they treated me. I was also very industrious and didn’t make a big deal of bringing up the clothes from the back. The result was that in just four hours, I made more than most girls did working eight.

Jack also happened to be the owner of the Daisy, a private nightclub and discotheque on Beverly Drive. It was the kind of place where everyone who was anyone went to be seen and have a good time. In 1967, Dan Jenkins of
Sports Illustrated
wrote, “Every night and most every day in the technicolor life of a man named Jack Hanson it rains dream girls. They pour down from the heaven of Beverly Hills with those exquisite faces, luscious figures, and that long, serious hair the color of ravens or oranges or sunlight. They are actresses and starlets, dancers and models, heiresses and conveniences, and Jack Hanson relishes them all—every slinking, shiny, unimpoverished one. He sees them in the evenings, either Twiggy-eyed or smoldering, at his brutally private club, the Daisy.”

The doors to the club were open to all of the girls who worked at the store. Even though Jack probably let my co-workers and me in as eye candy, it still felt very special to be there. Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Katharine Ross, and Peter Sellers were just a few of the stars referred to as “Jax Pack.”

One weekend while my parents were out of town, I stayed over at my girlfriend Ronnie’s house. Ronnie had a date on Saturday night and was pressuring me to double with her date and his friend Lee. I really wasn’t interested in
Lee, but as much as I liked Ronnie’s mother, I didn’t want to spend my Saturday night at home with her. So double date it was.

We started the evening with dinner at La Scala and of course wound up at the Daisy later that night. As usual, the club was a scene. Tina Sinatra was there with songwriter Wes Farrell, who was riding high on the success of his number-one single, “Hang On Sloopy.” Lee was friendly with both of them, so we sat with them at their table.

Aaron was also in attendance that night with a date on his arm. I knew all about him from the gossip at the store. It was a real “who’s who” in there during business hours. Aaron was a television writer at Four Star Entertainment, the production company behind shows like
The Big Valley, Burke’s Law,
and
The June Allyson Show.

Aaron was also known as a charming playboy around town. He was seen out with a different starlet or model every night. On this night, his date looked annoyed that he kept stopping by our table to whisper into Tina’s ear. I had no idea what he was saying to her. Finally, he asked me to dance.

There was something indescribable between us from the moment we met. It was a profound connection. New Agers might say we had shared a past life. Psychologists would probably say it was all projection. Cynics would say it was lust. Call it what you will, it was real. I remember feeling like we could see something in each other that no one else could. I think we danced to eight or nine songs together, including “My Funny Valentine.” During one of the dances, Aaron said, “I’m going to marry you some day.” It was an eye-rolling moment for me. I thought,
Oh yeah, what a line! I mean really, what a line!
When I got back to my table, Lee was standing there holding my coat open for me. Our date was clearly over. I have no idea what happened to Aaron’s date, and I never asked him.

On our way out of the club, Ronnie told Aaron that I was staying with her. He gave Ronnie his number and made her promise that I would call him. I made a detour to my house for a change of clothes before returning to Ronnie’s. As soon as I walked in, she handed me Aaron’s number and insisted I call
him. When I refused, she dialed Aaron’s number and practically forced me to take the receiver. He was very happy to hear from me, and we talked until five in the morning. Despite Aaron being a terrific “phone date,” I was all too aware of his reputation. I knew all about the starlets on the sets and what went on once the cameras had wrapped. As smitten as we both were, I didn’t want to be his flavor of the week. I determined that I would not get caught up with Aaron.

The next morning came around fast since I had been up all night. I was bleary eyed when Ronnie’s mom burst into the bedroom and said we were taking a spontaneous trip to Las Vegas to meet Ronnie’s father there. We got so caught up in the excitement that we forgot we didn’t have a ride to the airport. I’m not sure what got into me, but even though I hadn’t hung up the phone all that long ago, I called Aaron and asked him if he would drive us to the airport. I did my best to sound very cavalier to cover up how much I already liked him.

As for Aaron, he was happy to oblige on the condition that when we returned on Sunday afternoon, I would agree to play hostess at the barbecue he had at his house every Sunday evening. When he met us at the airport on Sunday, he presented me with a little gold pin in the shape of a rose with two little leaves made of rubies and emeralds. There was a diamond on the rose. I told him I couldn’t accept it, but he insisted and so I did. I was still a little suspicious of Mr. Spelling and his casting couch. Maybe he was a fast mover and this was part of his repertoire? I couldn’t be sure, so I chose to believe this was something special he had done for me.

4

The Writing on the Wall

My mother was fit to be tied when she returned from her long weekend and heard about how I had spent mine. In fairness, Aaron was twenty-three years older than me, I had met him at a nightclub, and after knowing him for less than two days, I had gone to his house to play hostess for his weekly Sunday night dinner gathering. She was also convinced he had a sock drawer full of those Raymond & Company Jewelers pins. For her, the writing was on the wall.

“Why are you dating Aaron Spelling when Del Coleman is crazy about you?” Del Coleman was someone I’d had a few dates with. He owned a vending machine company and was quite handsome. We’d been out a few times, but I just wasn’t into him.

True to her eighteenth-century sensibilities, for my mother it always came down to finances, and she was ever determined to find me a marital situation in which I would be taken care of. When I met Aaron, he was not yet Aaron Spelling as we would come to know him. He had just left an enviable staff writing position to set up his own shingle with Danny Thomas. It was a huge risk and an unprecedented move at the time for a television writer. Aaron was
completely without pretension. In fact, he made no bones about scrounging around Desilu Productions for office furniture he could use in his empty office. His vision and drive were intoxicating. He was unlike anyone I had ever met.

Despite our completely different upbringings, we actually had a lot in common. Aaron understood my confidence issues. He had grown up poor in Dallas, Texas, where his only opportunity to watch television was through the window of a local appliance store. On the way to school, he had to watch out for a group of boys who would beat him up and take his shoes. He had to finish his walk to school without them and arrived to the schoolyard barefoot and humiliated. The saddest story Aaron ever told me was when he won a shiny red bicycle from a store called Sanger Brothers. It was a poetry contest, and he won fair and square, but the store owners refused to give him the bike because he was Jewish.

Even before Aaron had given me this glimpse into his childhood, I felt I could be vulnerable with him. On our third or fourth date, we spent the whole night practicing my social skills. Aaron was, of course, the master. He could talk to anyone. It didn’t matter whether it was a busboy at a restaurant or a prince, he could have an interesting conversation that made the other person feel good about themselves. So Aaron coached me on making eye contact, shaking hands, and stirring up polite dinner conversation with strangers. It sounds like an odd way to spend an evening, but it helped me and it meant a lot to me that Aaron believed in me.

Another commonality between us was that we both had first marriages that hadn’t worked out. Aaron was thirty years old when he came to Los Angeles in 1953 on borrowed money. He didn’t have a car or even a typewriter. Just his ideas and his work ethic, which he quickly to put to use working as a roadie of sorts for an all-woman orchestra known as the Ada Leonard Orchestra. Aaron was also working on developing his writing at the Actors Studio in Hollywood. It was there that he met actress Carolyn Jones, who was a fellow Texan.

For a pair of struggling creative types, one rent payment was better than two, but they both had their sense of Texas propriety. So instead of just “shackin’ up,” Aaron and Carolyn were married. Not unlike my own young marriage, Aaron quickly became disillusioned once he was living with Carolyn. He came home every evening to find his wife intoxicated. The smell of alcohol filled their home and was all over their things. Even though she was earning recognition as an actress, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in Paddy Chayefsky’s 1957 film
The Bachelor Party
as well as a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer, Carolyn remained emotionally unstable. Being the caretaker that Aaron was, he was determined to honor his commitment to the “worse” of “for better or worse” in his marriage vows.

Aaron and Carolyn were known for entertaining, and the guest list to their parties was like the list of invitees to a Hollywood premiere. It was what went on in the house when nobody was around that was so difficult. The straw that broke the camel’s back came twelve years into their marriage when Carolyn tried to shoot herself in the bathtub at their house on Beverly Drive. Aaron felt awful for calling it quits but followed through with the divorce. His Jewish guilt got the better of him, so he remained friendly with her afterward. We even went to a few cocktail parties at her house when we were dating. It was more than a little bit awkward, but I did it for Aaron.