Crowned Heads (31 page)

The final accolade came when Norman Rockwell painted him in the same costume and pose as Gainsborough’s famous “Blue Boy” for the
Saturday Evening Post. Life
and
Time
followed with cover stories. Total wordage of his interviews mounted into the millions. And what did Bobbitt say? “I’m so happy.” For the millions, he lived out all their hopes, dreams, and ambitions. He had been down in an atomic submarine, had been up in the Goodyear blimp. He had put his foot and hand prints in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, between Joan Crawford’s and Betty Grable’s. He had been invited to Eisenhower’s second inauguration, where he was presented with cuff links bearing the presidential seal, and photographed in the rose garden with Ike and Mamie. He was made a tribal member of the Sioux Nation, and a Kentucky colonel. He was guest of honor at the Seattle World’s Fair. He had been on Jack Benny and Perry Como and Bob Hope, had made eight guest appearances on
The Ed Sullivan Show.
He headlined the Christmas pageant at Radio City Music Hall. He was invited to the Command Performance Gala at London’s Palladium, where he sang and danced with Britain’s most celebrated actors, Olivier, Gielgud, Coward, and Richardson.

Then he got his Oscar, a special statuette awarded to him for the best juvenile performance of the year in Papa Baer’s production of
Peter Pan,
in which he made a greater success than ever playing the fantasy boy who lures the Darling children to Never Land and meets Captain Hook, played by William Marsh in one of his best-loved roles. But while Peter Pan might remain a boy forever, not so Bobby Ransome. “America’s Fantasy Child” was ten when he made
Bobbitt,
fourteen when he did
Bobbitt Forever,
the last in the series of books. The fact was undeniable that Bobbitt had reached the “awkward age.” In desperation, Papa Baer ordered a new character to be created, “Flying Rodger,” who, as some wag put it, never got off the ground. Bobby was temporarily “retired,” while scriptwriters were put to work fashioning a suitable vehicle. It was eventually called
Bobbitt in Love,
and Viola had found a lovely young Irish girl to play the love interest. She was called Pretty Kitty Kelly, but the movie proved only one thing: audiences weren’t interested in Bobbitt’s First Screen Kiss; they wanted more magic carpets. Bobbitt sat out a second period of “retirement” while another vehicle was found. Again Viola waved her magic wand. Since her tag of “the Gainsborough Boy” had enjoyed such wide usage, a script was turned out by a top team of screen writers, and an expensive production called
The Blue Boy
was mounted. Announcements followed this initial display of enthusiasm stating that the cost of the film had become suddenly prohibitive, then the project was abandoned.

Thereafter Bobby Ransome and Aunt Moira departed for Europe, where an English production,
Bonnie Prince Charlie,
was marked for filming, with Bobby Ransome as the young Scottish prince. It, too, never saw a foot of film exposed.

And there it was. The End. Time alone had put the quietus to the career of the lovable tyke whose face had appeared above a single match flame in the darkness of an air raid; the flame had burned out and in no time he was forgotten. “Ditto” passed out of the popular slang, and “But is it really truly true?” was considered pure corn. Kids were now wearing astronauts’ helmets, Bobbitt caps being as passé as hula hoops. As far as Bobby Ransome was concerned, it seemed it wasn’t really truly true at all.

Since he had mentioned that he was spending the weekend at Southampton, Nellie Bannister was surprised when her telephone rang that Saturday afternoon and she recognized the voice of Bobby Ransome.

“’Tis me, Nellie—Robin,” he said. His plans had changed, he was staying in town. Was she free for dinner and could they just talk? Of course she could. Her friends were dropping by for The Belle Telephone Hour; why didn’t he come and meet them and afterward they could slip away quietly by themselves.

He arrived casually dressed, in blue jeans and a flowered shirt and sneakers, and proceeded to charm and captivate the Belles. Nellie had told them what a sweet, gentle child he had been; the amazing thing being that he still was. Nothing seemed to have touched him, he wasn’t at all conceited about either his past or his present. As Nellie had pointed out to Naomi, it was never required of him to act endearing; he simply was.

The Belles watched him carefully as Nellie showed him the apartment, the two budgerigars in the cage over the spinet piano, her collection of porcelain figurines, and the pictures of her family: her son and daughter, who both lived in Tucson; her grandson, Roger, who was close by in Garden City, where he operated a flying school; his wife, Nancy, and Nellie’s three great-grandchildren, Karen, three, Linda, four, and Roger, Jr., who was six. Ah, said Robin, just Bobbitt’s age. She didn’t immediately understand him, but he brought out his wallet and gave her some snapshots to look at. Who is it? she wanted to know. Surely not … Robin nodded. My stars, said Nellie, think of that! She could scarcely believe her ears when he told her he had married his movie sweetheart, Kitty Kelly. It was like a storybook romance.

Nellie felt the tears start in her eyes as she saw the dear little face: Bobby’s own son. What should be more natural than that Kitty should call him “Bobbitt,” though his real name, like his father’s, was Bobby. Nellie couldn’t decide which of them little Bobbitt looked more like: surely he had his father’s eyes, certainly his mother’s mouth. But was it true, she asked, that Robin and Kitty had really fallen in love? Robin nodded; they had been married in London, and spent much of their time at Castle Baughclammain, the Ransomes’ ancestral home at Galway. The house looked out on the bay, and Bobbitt had his own horses to ride, just as Robin had had ponies when he was a child in Hollywood.

Robin brought out his wallet again to show pictures of Rose, as he called his mother, a beautiful, sophisticated woman, handsomely coiffed and dressed. Around her neck was a diamond chain, at the end of which was suspended the Ballymore emerald, a gem almost as famous as the Hope diamond. Nellie found Lady Ransome a trifle lacquered for her own taste, but she could see why Robin was proud of her. A light seemed to spring into his eyes as he spoke of her, almost a kind of worship, but with an edge. Rose was radiant, she was dazzling, but Nellie felt Robin’s disapproval of her and his resentment that she had given him so little time when he was growing up, something he was determined not to do with his own child.

As for the Broadway show, though he was hopeful of getting it on, he could do nothing but wait for word from the producers, who were trying to raise the capital. Meanwhile he was just “in town,” with plenty of time on his hands. Could he see more of Nellie? She held her hands out to him, turning them palms up and down. See, she said, nothing but time on hers, too.

The following night, the Sunday, they went out to the Sheep Meadow to see “Broadway Stars for Children,” a huge open-air benefit for the Orthopedic Hospital, sponsored by a local television station. Nellie had fixed a picnic, and they sat on blankets in the enormous crowd, watching and listening to the host of stars who were entertaining. Afterward Nellie asked Robin if he’d had any desire to be up there; he laughed. No, he said, you’d never catch him on a stage again.

They were together a lot during the next few weeks. He would pop by the apartment on his way to and from the park, or she would meet him there while he played Mr. Thingamabob for the children, and she would sit on a bench and listen to the stories. Later he would walk her back to her apartment, and often stay for The Belle Telephone Hour with Hilda, Naomi, and Phyllis. Nellie found him like a new breath of life around the apartment. She loved his casual dropping in at odd hours and shaking her out of her summer doldrums. She felt guilty that she was taking up his time; he should be off enjoying his friends. But no, he said, he wanted to be with her. She realized it was because she had once been part of another life. That life had ended, but she was there again and between them existed an accumulation of shared memories. In those days she’d been almost a mother to him; now she saw that beneath his gay and charming exterior, he was vulnerable and needed looking after. She discussed it at length with the Belles; they couldn’t imagine what it must be like, having been one of the most famous children in the world. People had fought to be near and touch him then; now, it appeared, nobody even recognized him. But that seemed the way Robin wanted it. “Bobbitt” was a thing of the past, and he even objected to Kitty’s calling their son Bobbitt; Robin himself always called him Bob or Bobby.

For a person who had been so famous, there was nothing jaded or bored about him. Everything interested him, most everything struck him as funny. He was seldom out of sorts, and his gay good spirits, his easy amiability, his diverting talk—never banal, always
au courant
—never palled. The girls were charmed by his expressive eyes with their look of candor, his beguiling humor and persiflage. He was boyishly eager, yet there was a healthy, mature outlook about him.

Nellie admitted she’d got into a rut, but he kidded and cajoled and charmed her, and she never would have thought anyone could have wooed her away from
As the World Turns
the way he did. If you lived in New York, he said, you ought to take advantage of what it offered, so East Side, West Side, all around the town they went. She’d always hated shopping, but with Robin it became an event. Saks, Bonwit’s, Henri Bendel; so many new things in the stores, she had no idea. He took her to Halston’s, where she would never dream of going—and the
prices
—and found things he said were made for her, less fuddy-duddy, more youthful. She learned she could rely utterly on his taste; he planned a visit to Mr. Kenneth, and though Robin and the hairdresser suggested the white hair be tinted gold, she thought it too daring, and meekly submitted to a blue rinse, quite enough change for one day. When Robin mentioned the new Lehman wing at the Metropolitan Museum, a trip was immediately planned. Afterward they went downstairs to see the exhibition of movie costumes mounted by Diana Vreeland. There was Vivien Leigh’s dress from
Gone With the Wind,
Garbo’s from
Queen Christina,
Dietrich’s from
Blonde Venus,
and Fedora’s from
The Player Queen,
for which Cyril Leaf had received an Oscar. The costume was magnificent, with its wonderfully exaggerated farthingale, the high collar of starched lace, the velvet and satin brocade encrusted with pearls and
diamantes.
Nellie said she had never realized Fedora was so small.

It was lunchtime, so they took cafeteria trays to a table by the pool and talked. Because there were just the two of them, Robin was not averse to recalling the old days; inevitably Viola Ueberroth’s name came up, since it was she who’d been mainly responsible for all their successes in the Bobbitt series—Robin’s, Willie Marsh’s, and even Nellie’s—and the clever stunts she had pulled with Papa Baer to get them cast.

One evening Vi had arranged to bring the Baers to the Biltmore Theater in downtown Los Angeles, where Willie Marsh was playing a supporting part in a revival of
The Red Mill.
Warned ahead of time, when Papa and Mama Baer came into his dressing room, Willie put on his best British accent, he and Bee Marsh charmed the Baers, and he was signed for the important role of Alfie, the butler. His career rejuvenated, he went on to become “The Grand Old Man of Hollywood.”

Similar nimble machinations on Viola’s part saw to the casting of the equally important role of Missy Priss. There was, Viola informed Papa Baer, a certain actress about to sign for a major New York play; contracts still hadn’t been finalized, however, and if one was fast and if the money was sufficient … Papa Baer was immediately intrigued. How much? Vi named a figure considerably higher than what they could have had Beulah Bondi for; nonetheless Papa jumped at the chance. Soon after, Viola and the two Baers drove to the airport and greeted the plane that had borne Nellie Bannister west. Papa pinned an orchid corsage to her dress and off they went to sign the contracts.

It was part of Viola’s fairy-godmother technique that this flight was the second transcontinental trip Nellie had made in a two-day period, for the actual fact was that she had been living in Los Angeles all the time. Vi had known her since her days as a secretary at the old AyanBee studio, when Nell had left “The Four Belles” and become a struggling young actress. Now, years later, she was a resident of a run-down Hollywood hotel, where she had been living in near penury, unable to find work at any of the studios. Remembering her old friend, Viola had decided that Nell and Nell alone would play Missy Priss, and to this end she had looked her up, loaned her money to fly to New York, where she turned around again and arrived back in Hollywood, presumably as the star of a Broadway show, but in reality a down-and-out and nearly forgotten woman.

Like his alter ego, Mr. Thingamabob, Robin came and went like quicksilver, Nellie said. He came like a Greek, bearing gifts: a bunch of flowers, a box of Godiva chocolates, which Hilda doted on, a book. If Nellie was out, he would pop down to Phyllis’s or up to Naomi’s, then he was gone again, to meet friends. He knew all the famous people in New York, what
Women’s Wear Daily
called the BP’s and the QP’s (the Beautiful People and the Quality People), and the names came rolling from his lips as unconcernedly as if he were speaking of the corner butcher: Babe Paley, Chessy Rayner, Nan Kempner, Mica Ertegun, those ladies who oiled the machinery of New York’s social set. Visiting Nellie, while she was cooking in the kitchen, he sat with his feet up in the chintz-covered chair, doodling on the memo pad, and she couldn’t help hearing as he laughed and joked with the president of Henri Bendel, a Miss Strutz—“Hello, Gerry, ’tis me, Robin”—and when he’d hung up, he’d immediately dial Nancy Martin and they’d have a chat, or Shirley Clurman or Marti Stevens. Other calls followed; when Nellie tore off his doodles she’d glance at his list: Hal Prince, Milton Goldman, David Merrick, Arnold Weissberger.