Honky Tonk Angel (26 page)

“Owen,” she said, “I have a lot of faith in your talent. Together we can accomplish what I’ve dreamed of. I want to stay with Decca.”

“Then you’re on,” Bradley said enthusiastically.

“Great. In that case, will Decca advance me some money against my royalties?”

“What royalties?” Bradley replied.

Patsy had been spending money she wasn’t earning on furniture and clothes. The label showed their faith in her with a handsome advance. Bradley advised that the New York brass, in granting approval, had method to their madness. “The assumption was that if we were nice to Patsy, she’d be nice and record the way we saw fit.” Patsy didn’t see it that way: More than once, Bradley was to know how Bill McCall felt.

O
n September 10, 1960, after their appearances on the Prince Albert Smoking Tobacco portion of NBC’s Opry broadcast, Patsy and Del Wood’s conversation came around to husbands. Patsy told Del of a row between her and Charlie. “Since I went into my marriage with Gerald with my eyes closed, I shouldn’t been at all surprised at the lack of communication between us. But my marriage to Charlie was different. He knew from the beginning what I wanted and he’s been there with me all the way.”

“Sweetie, you know what keeps marriages together?”

“No. What?”

“Economics—and security. Theirs! Get rid of him if he starts to mess you up!”

“I couldn’t ever let Charlie go, especially since we’ve made it this far. I ain’t no different from most people. Since I was a kid, I’ve gotta be constantly reassured that somebody loves me. Charlie’s my security and I’m his.”

The problems between the couple got worse, according to Del, not because of physical abuse or drunkenness. “They were two of the most enchanted but disillusioned lovebirds and two of the most reckless people I’ve ever met. But they were definitely in love in spite of themselves.

“Baby Julie, who celebrated her second birthday at the end of August, helped add a stabilizing force to the marriage. This time Patsy was hoping for a boy. She felt that force would increase by leaps and bounds with another child.

“It wasn’t hard to like Charlie when he was sober. Through the years, I heard a lot of tales out of school about his beating on Patsy, but, if he did, I would imagine he’d be one dead son of a bitch. You didn’t want to get Patsy riled. When she got roaring, you’d best get moving!

“We spoke of everything under the sun and Patsy never much mentioned anything like that. From what she was saying, especially during her last months of pregnancy, the problem was his neglecting her. You know, sexually. She was starved for affection.

“Charlie never appreciated what type of wife Patsy was and wanted to be. He surely didn’t understand her drive to be a star. In fact, he was jealous of her success. He was a man. It wasn’t the natural order of things.

“Husbands of singers and entertainers don’t mind taking the benefits, but they mind the fact that it’s the wife who’s earning them. They love the money but don’t love you enough. And money was a problem with them. They had lean times. I can remember a few times Patsy begging the Opry officials to let her on so she’d have that pittance they paid. Sometimes it was the make or break between paying the rent or phone and gas bill.

“Neither foresaw the expenses a show business career requires. You may not be earning a nickel, but you have travel, music preparation, recording, and costume expenses. Everybody told Patsy to come to Nashville to make a buck, but in reality it was only a base from which to commute to work. If you had a few good records, the country fans were loyal and you could play weekends on the road the rest of your life. And some of us have!

“Patsy hated to go off and leave that precious Julie, but the bills had to be paid. But she also hated to leave Charlie. He had a job, so he couldn’t go out with Patsy. He always wanted to know why she didn’t stay home and let him support her.

“Charlie used to bitch with Patsy before she’d leave, then he’d call and bitch with her on the road, usually when he was drinking, and want to know when she was coming home. He’d tell her how much he needed her and then, when she’d get home, all he’d do is bitch some more. It went on and on. She had to work not only to live but also to survive. And not always from the financial side. I’ve never known anyone where it meant as much to be a star.

“Patsy’d go to Timbuktu to sing and would probably pay her own expenses. She thrived on the applause. It was heaven on earth. With the money she bought furs, fancy cars, and beautiful clothes. She’d have given anything to have the kind of love at home that the public gave. She’d tell me, ‘Things are gonna get better.’ They were like monkeys in the zoo! At each other’s throats one minute, then hopping all over each other the next. The road wasn’t the problem. Or the fact that Patsy was the star. If you have a tight marriage, the road or the temptation of other men, other women, isn’t going to disturb it.

“Patsy had plenty of chances to cheat. But it was her unfortunate experience, as it was mine, that anyone within her age group figured she had money to lavish on them, and anyone younger or older just wanted a place to crawl into and have someone wait on them. She had no desire to be a waitress or a wet nurse.

“One night she said something I’ve never forgotten. Grant was introducing her as the biggest female star of country music. She said, ‘Del, I’d rather be a
beloved wife than a woman bigger than life.’ I’ve heard a lot of entertainers say you have all the loving in the world when you walk out on that stage and you feel the beat of that applause. But, hell, when you leave that stage and the spotlight goes off, that goddamn applause don’t help any when you’re laying in that bed being ignored. No hit record’s worth that.”

“Patsy and Charlie,” Faron Young said, “were always at each other. At first, it was small, silly things. They’d tear into a good fight and an hour—no! fifteen minutes—later they’d be cooing.

“God forbid someone should try to take advantage of Charlie! Patsy’s wrath was a thing best left unencountered. When he was on the road with us, we’d play pool. One night I beat him for about fifty dollars and he gave me a check. That thing bounced from here to kingdom come. I went to Patsy and told her, ‘That son of a bitch’s gonna pay me!’

“She turned on me and grabbed the check out of my hand and tore it up. She took fifty dollars out of her purse and threw it at me. She yelled, ‘Here, goddamn you, go and take advantage of him again!’ Then she gave it to Charlie in spades and told him, ‘If you want to bet on pool games, use your own goddamn money!’ ”

From early in their marriage, Faron claimed, “Charlie treated Patsy like a dog. He’d get her up in front of a bunch of people and call her a no-good whore, and everything else. He was drunk, just drunk. And jealous. Once he’d see Patsy was getting attention from somebody, he’d be right on top of her and sometimes even say something to that person.

“The only time you’d see Patsy down and crying the blues was when Charlie gave her shit. She’d come in from the road with money. He’d take it and blow it, gambling at pool, shooting dice. Stuff like that. Anything. He couldn’t win. But he could drink.”

Charlie grew upset at Patsy’s long absences—after a few drinks, friends observed, he berated her, saying such things as, “You ought to be home being a wife, instead of hauling all over singing and fooling around.”

For about a year, Young “never tried to fool with Patsy”; then he began his campaign “to get her” in earnest. Witnesses reported she laughed him off.

“We did become very close,” Faron said, “but all I ever got was the same ole same ole—you know, the story of what hell Charlie was putting her through—and I’d commiserate. It was depressing and not what I had in mind.”

The Dicks’ reputations as heavy drinkers gained considerable foothold. “The stories about Patsy are untrue,” Charlie asserts. “She enjoyed a drink now and then, but she wasn’t a drinker and never a drunk. We’d go to Tootsie’s after the Opry and have a beer, but that was about it. We partied and had a good time, but I was the one who raised hell and did the drinking.”

“As husband and wife, Patsy and Charlie, like any couple, had rocky roads,” Kathy Hughes said. “Patsy leaned on Randy when anything went wrong. It was especially so when she and Charlie had problems. Randy was her soothsayer. But we were used to that, since we’d gone through the same thing with Ferlin.

“Patsy threatened to leave Charlie, but that got to sound like a broken record.
They’d go through a bad time and then would be okay again. We had calls in the dead of the morning. Patsy was upset and excited and wanted Randy to come over and help her.

“When you get calls like that—made in heated moments—you don’t know what’s going on because sometimes that person makes the situation worse than it is. As far as I could tell, Patsy and Charlie were in love and married. That brings lots of joys and problems.”

Jean Shepard noted, “Oh, my, there had to be some love there! Patsy was no angel. That doesn’t come out often. It’s ole Charlie that gets it. He was no angel either, but I don’t know which was the biggest burden. Maybe they both deserved each other
and
medals!

“Patsy and I got along well because, like me, she was plainspoken. She had a great sense of humor. I don’t think, though some might disagree, I was quite as brassy as she was. But that was Patsy, and I liked her as she was. You either did or didn’t, and vice versa. There weren’t many people that met her who didn’t like Patsy. She could be mean as hell, but she could be as adorable as they come.

“The same for Charlie. I love him to death, but he had and has his problems, and they mostly come in bottles. That doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s one helluva nice guy.”

From all indications, Patsy had come full circle. It was life with Gerald all over again, only this time with booze.

Whatever Patsy and Charlie’s personal dilemmas and her current financial crisis, as every friend of hers attests, Patsy was overly generous.

“Of course, this is going to sound like a mother talking,” stated Mrs. Hensley, “but Patsy was never a selfish person with only her interests at heart. Her song ‘Come On In’ pretty well summed up her life. She was a good-hearted soul and never knew the meaning of the word no.

“As a child she’d bring friends home from school to play and insist they stay and eat supper. We had hardly enough for ourselves, but somehow I managed. Our doors were never closed. That’s the type of home I believed in having and this carried over into Patsy’s life.”

Del Wood, remembering Patsy’s constant praising of her mother as her best friend, said, “Patsy, her brother, and sister seemed to have a normal, happy home life in spite of their father’s absence and Patsy working one-nighters from the time she had to quit school. Hilda wasn’t an uneducated woman. She was a gifted seamstress.
¹⁸
She was also quite attractive—Patsy favored Hilda a lot. Not only in looks but also in outlook. Patsy spoke of her mom always lending a helping hand whether she knew the people or not. This must have influenced Patsy a great deal.

“Patsy’s heart, home, and wallet were always open. She especially wanted to do for her mom. She regretted that while Hilda helped make her life such a good one, hers suffered having to raise Patsy, Sylvia, and Sam alone.”