Living With Miss G (4 page)

The first clever pair of movie producer’s eyes to focus on Miss G after that
Whistle Stop
revelation was that of Mark Hellinger. He was a smart operator out
of New York City, well-cut dark suit, sharp profile, and inevitable white tie. He
had a lot of friends. He was “in” with the Algonquin-round-table-Dorothy
Parker clique. He was a buddy of Artie Shaw, who may have helped steer him in
Miss G’s direction.
He also had a famous friend named Ernest Hemingway, who had granted
him the movie rights to adapt one of his short stories,
The Killers
. Universal
Films agreed to collaborate. Hellinger set up the package. First was the loan of
Miss Ava Gardner from MGM for seven weeks at $1,000 a week, so in three
short months Miss G had already repaid MGM more than twice her yearly
salary.
Then he hired Robert Siodmak. Like Seymour Nebenzal, he was also an
expert in the shadowy, harsh black-and-white of “film noir” so fashionable in
that period. The screenwriters were two guys who were to earn reputations as
among the best in the business—Anthony Veiller and John Huston. This was the
first time Huston became aware of Miss G’s existence. At that time, Huston was
a major in an Army film unit, and as the Army did not care for officers
moonlighting in Hollywood pictures, the major did not receive a credit but
grabbed the cash.
Miss G made two hundred dollars a month. Our share was forty dollars for
Miss G and twenty dollars for me. Our total income was sixty dollars a month. I
was always mystified about where the rest of Miss G’s salary went.
I said to Miss G, “What happens to the other hundred and forty?”
Miss G smiled and patiently explained the facts of life to her dumbbell
maid. “Rene, in the film business, you have to have a business manager,
someone who looks after your funds. You know—taxes, insurances, agent’s
fees, investments. My business manager knows what he’s doing.”
Apparently, Artie Shaw had recommended him, and as Artie was the
stingiest man Miss G had ever met, she expected this guy to be the same sort. He
was.
Miss G went on about her business manager quite a bit. He had a pretty
young wife, two lovely kids, a great house on the beach, and he gave great
parties. He knew all the right people, and handled lots of big names, such as
Doris Day and Van Heflin.
A little later, Miss G said, “Rene, my business manager’s wife asked me if
you could do a little housework for them occasionally, and do a bit of
babysitting when they stay out late at parties and dinners. There’s an extra
bedroom where you can sleep. They won’t wake you when they come in, and
they’ll pay the usual rate.”
I said sure. So that’s how I discovered what an expensive lifestyle they
had, whereas Miss G and I scrimped along on bits and pieces. For her business
manager and his wife, every night it was roast beef, filet mignon, or salmon
steaks, and wines to match. I discovered a lot more too.
When I babysat, I’d put the kids to bed, and then hop into my own. Every
night when they came home late, their voices carried loud and clear to my
bedroom. The wife was often grumbling about money, but the husband was as
cheerful as a guy who’s just made a year’s salary at a race track.
“Don’t worry about money, darling,” I heard him say. “It’s rolling in.
Those dumb actors don’t know what’s happening to their investments. Up and
down, up and down, but it’s always down for them. My plans are going great. In
three years’ time, we will be millionaires.”
I could not quite believe what I was hearing. As I babysat for them and
they came home late, he was always a bit drunk and boasting about the way he
was hiding these vast amounts of money in phony investments. At first I
thought, Rene, it’s none of your business, and what do you know about
investments anyway? Then I began to think about that one hundred and forty
dollars a month he ripped off from us. It was my business because my business
was the welfare of Miss G. After the first martini one night, I blurted out what I
had discovered.
“Miss G, I think that your business manager is a crook.”
Miss G blinked and put down her martini. “Rene, you must be crazy.”
“A real con-man crook,” I repeated for emphasis.
Miss G looked thoughtful. I think she remained thoughtful for a couple of
days, as she knew that neither she nor I were ever likely to get a banker’s job on
Wall Street.
Then she told Bappie about what I’d reported. Bappie blew up. Bappie
always thought that Miss G’s money was her own money, and she could not
afford to let her waste it. Bappie had a good nose for crooks. We left Miss G’s
business manager very quickly.

I was cooking the spaghetti sauce when Miss G came home to heave her
usual sigh of relief, reach for the first martini, and tell me what had happened
between her and Clark Gable and Deborah Kerr on the set that day.

We were in the middle of
The Hucksters
and in the future lay six more
movies, some comic, some pure rubbish, and one quite tragic.
Miss G went into her first sequence of angst as soon as she came through
the door. “God Almighty Rene, do you know what those bastards are telling me
to do now?”
I added the tomato puree, the first ladles of finely chopped onions and
celery, and stirred gently. I was really much more attached to the aroma than
Miss G’s dilemma. “I can’t guess,” I said.
“Universal has just called Arthur Hornblower,” she said. I knew that
Arthur Hornblower was producing
The Hucksters
. “What for?” I asked.
“Because they want to rent me to play in their movie
Singapore
. They’ve
already started shooting, but their leading lady’s dropped dead or got a cold or
something, and they’ve got to find someone to fill in for her.”
“Well, Universal loved you in
The Killers
,” I said.“They know a good
thing when they see one. They’ll just have to wait for you to finish
The
Hucksters
.”
“Rene, that’s the whole point. They want me to do both pictures at the
same time!”
“But that’s ridiculous! Can’t you complain?”
“I can complain until I’m blue in the face,” said Miss G. “I can refuse and
MGM will suspend me – so we don’t eat, and that sauce smells great. So in the
mornings I’m playing Jean Ogilvie, who’s loving and losing Clark Gable in
The
Hucksters
, and then scooting across in a hired car to Universal Studios in the
afternoons to play Linda Graham, who loses her memory, but gets it back again
just in time to live happily ever after with Fred MacMurray.”
Hollywood was booming. Studios that had been making a movie a week
during the prewar years were still averaging one every two, three or four weeks.
MGM was doing great loaning out Miss G without a bonus and at the same time
working her on their own productions.
“Well, that’s something!” I said, stirring the sauce and adding a nice dollop
of red wine to tickle up the flavor. “I like Fred MacMurray. I think he’s great.”
“I’ll give you my opinion when I get to know him,” said Miss G.
“Come and taste the sauce,” I urged. “The martinis are chilled and you are
going to feel better.”
Miss G did as she was bid. I said, “I know where Singapore is, but what
the hell has that got to do with a movie?”
Miss G explained, “Ever since Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart
made a smash hit in Casablanca, every studio has been trying to cash in on the
act. Pick a foreign-sounding town. Add bobbies, spies, baddies, and boy-meetsgirl and off you go. I’ve got the dreadful script. You’ll have to read in for Fred
MacMurray.”
I read it that night. Fred’s character is a pearl smuggler, and Miss G is his
girlfriend. Villains are after the pearls, and they kidnap Miss G because they
think she might know where Fred has hidden them. Everywhere Japanese planes
are swooping and firing machine guns. It was very exciting. Miss G gets
knocked on her head and is laid out. When she wakes up, she has lost her
memory and forgotten Fred, who thinks she’s dead and has gone off to war.
Miss G meets a man played by sweet little English actor Roland Culver and
marries him.
One critic I notice from our cuttings made this observant remark: “Mr.
Culver had also been rushed into the film at a moment’s notice, so Ava Gardner
and he had considerable difficulty giving a degree of conviction to their scenes
as man and wife.”
No so with Miss G and Fred MacMurray, because Miss G was getting to
know him better every day, and I don’t mean on the set.
In the movie, Fred’s character comes home to collect his pearls and hand
them over to their proper owners. Miss G gets another of those convenient
knocks on the head, and lo, her memory returns, and with it her deep love for
Fred. Ronnie Culver’s character, being a decent English gent, realizes any girl
can make a mistake and agrees to an annulment.
Fred and Miss G, avoiding the sunset which is full of Japanese Zero fighter
planes, walk happily towards the bedroom – movie bedroom.
It didn’t take much more than a week after filming had begun before Miss
G slid into the apartment with a smile on her face which I knew meant only one
thing. I said, “Fred?”
“Yes.”
“But where?”
“Dressing room; locked, of course.”
“Just rehearsing for your film love affair?” I asked. Miss G began to
sputter with laughter. “You could say that,” she said.
The affair didn’t last long. Maybe a few weeks longer than the movie took
to make. Fred’s code name was Mr. Norton. When Miss G rang me and Mr.
Norton might be coming around that evening, I took my book to bed knowing I
could get a good night’s sleep.
Miss G liked Fred. Then she discovered he had a sick wife. I guess by now
her sense of morality was getting a bit twisted. She didn’t object to secret
adultery, but when a guy was two-timing a sick wife, she objected to that –
strongly.
Our next film,
One Touch of Venus
, was supposed to be a light-hearted
comedy, but for both of us, it held a share of tragedy. Miss G played in four
movies during this period, and three out of that four were produced by
Universal.
In this case they were quick to recognize Miss G’s potential as a
comedienne. Anyone who knew her recognized that she had a great sense of
humor, a quick wit, followed by a noisy, joyful stream of laughter, and most
importantly when needed, a wonderful wide-eyed air of innocence.
One Touch of Venus
started light and achieved success as a bright and
decorative musical, but as very often happens, it never really came to life as a
rather contrived, hard-worked-for comedy. The basic idea was that a marble
statue of a beautiful young Greek goddess has been borrowed to aid the sales of
a store in a shopping mall. The young store manager, played by Robert Walker,
after a few drinks, stops to donate a kiss to the marble lips.
Oh, dear me! Through the tricks of expert cinematography, the statue
becomes human, falls in love with the manager, and then pursues him with fiery
love aided by magic endowed her by the ancient Greek gods from whom she
came.
Naturally, Greek statues looking exactly like Miss G were hard to come by,
so sculptor Joseph Nicolosi was commissioned to execute such a work. Miss G
was instructed to pose for him in his studio every day until it was completed.
Little difficulties arose. To start with, it was winter and it was cold, and
Miss G returned to our apartment after the first sitting with the breathless
reaction, “Jesus Christ, Rene, his studio’s freezing, and I’m supposed to pose in
a pair of shorts and a bra, and he’s not very happy with that.”
“With what?” I asked.
“Joe is sculpting a bare-breasted Greek maiden. They didn’t wear bras
back in those golden Greek days,” Miss G explained.
“Well, you’re very well-proportioned in that respect,” I said.
“Mama would turn in her grave if she thought I was being sculptured half
nude,” Miss G said.
I countered, “Mama’s not here, and actresses have to suffer for their art.
She’d have much more of a fright if she knew what you and Fred were getting
up to in that dressing room.”
Miss G had one of the most beautiful figures ever given to a woman. She
was, I know, quite shy about exhibiting it. This time common sense prevailed.
The topless figure, dress draped artistically over one shoulder, was completed
and dispatched to the studio.
Someone had made a mistake! Producers came in, looked, and took annual
leave. Executives were spellbound. Assistant directors, when their blood
pressure had found refuge in their ankles, screamed that this crazy sculptor had
been commissioned to sculpt a clothed figure – not a half-naked one!
The Hollywood Movie Censorship Board, called the Hays Office, would
raze Universal Studios to the ground. No one shouldered the blame. The statue
was shipped back to poor Joseph Nicolosi with the command that he produce
another statute with breasts covered.
At least by now the weather was warmer. That was the funny part.
The tragic part was Miss G’s co-star, Robert Walker. He was in his late
twenties and fast becoming an alcoholic, helped by several so-called buddies
who were also heavy drinkers. The reason for his heavy and consistent boozing
was that he was deeply in love with his wife, beautiful actress Jennifer Jones,
and now the marriage had fallen apart.
David O. Selznick, famous producer of
Gone With the Wind
, carried a lot
of weight in Hollywood in that period. He had become infatuated with Jennifer
Jones, and Jennifer had moved across. Robert Walker was heart-broken, and his
plight was driven home to Miss G and me in extremely poignant fashion.
Miss G was very fond of Walker. There was no question of any affair
between them. She felt motherly towards the poor lad, and on occasions,
knowing that he was likely to be picked up by his drunken friends and arrive at
the studio next morning with a hangover that rendered him almost unfit for
work, would join him for dinner, and try and talk him out of his troubles.
One night in question, Walker got so drunk that he became unfit to drive
anywhere, so Miss G piled him into her car and brought him back to the
apartment. We had three beds, a double in Miss G’s room and two singles in
mine. Miss G moved in with me and slept like a log.
Walker tumbled into the double, and I heard him moving around in the
bathroom before he made it into bed. For hours he kept me awake because the
walls were pretty thin, and his crying and pitiful imploring of Jennifer to come
back to him were heard easily. I knew I could do nothing to help him, but I felt
so terribly sorry for him.
Next morning I got up with the light just breaking and went into the
bathroom to get the bits and pieces I needed to start the day. I opened the
cupboard where we kept the brooms and cleaning materials, and wondered what
on earth was hanging there. Then I worked it out. It was a sort of leather harness
that Robert Walker wore under his loosely cut clothes to fill him out as a
muscular figure. I did not touch it.
After he had been to the bathroom, Miss G and I tried to force coffee down
him, and off they drove to Universal for the day’s shooting.
I did not tell Miss G what I had discovered until she came back that
evening with Walker. We felt quite powerless to help. The movies had made
him famous and given him what amounted to a false physique, and his skill and
charm as an actor had introduced him to the lovely Jennifer Jones. Then it had
all crumbled and he had inherited this burden of tragic and overwhelming grief.
He never really recovered. He died in his early thirties.
After two failed marriages, an affair with Howard Duff, and what can
really only be described as a roll in the hay with Fred MacMurray, I knew very
well that Miss G was not happy with her situation. It was the same old thing.
She wanted to be married. She needed to be married.
That state had been implanted in her mind from the moment she had been
born. The Mama and Papa syndrome was as much a part of the North Carolina
landscape as the winters and summers and the plants that grew.
Marriage was a woman’s destiny. Marriage fulfilled her, gave her children,
a role in life and happiness. Her mother and father, despite much hardship,
proved that to her. Her sisters were married. Her own two marriages and two
quick divorces rankled in her mind as a deep sense of failure. Oh sure, we could
laugh and joke about it all, but the feeling wouldn’t go away.
Then into our lives after
One Touch of Venus
came another MGM
potboiler,
The Bribe
, with Robert Taylor, Charles Laughton, Vincent Price, and
John Hodiak. Robert Taylor was very handsome, very experienced, very
famous, and very married to Barbara Stanwyck
He had a roving eye, which fastened upon Miss G. And this time, Miss G
took it very seriously.
Taylor had first zoomed to movie fame when he played Greta Garbo’s
lover in
Camille
. The scene between the dying Greta as Camille and Taylor’s
character at her bedside remains to this day as a gem of cinema history. Trouble
was Taylor was now labeled as the swooning lover in the Rudolph Valentino
mold, a near gigolo type.
Taylor hated that image. He was in truth very macho–the ranching, riding,
hunting, shooting, fishing male—but Hollywood type-casting had fixed him
eternally. He hated his part in
The Bribe
.
Filmed on the back lot at MGM against scenery and back projection slides
suggesting some vague Latin American background, Miss G played the unhappy
wife of the villainous character played by John Hodiak. The wife is rescued
from her martyrdom by handsome Federal Agent Taylor. Hodiak is popped into
jail, and Taylor gets Miss G as his just reward.
During the weeks it took to make
The Bribe
, I was beginning to wonder if
Miss G was going to make a habit of going to bed with her leading men. In our
heart-to-heart talks, I began to see that she was dwelling seriously on the
possibilities of marriage to Robert Taylor.
Frankly, I couldn’t stand the sight of him. He didn’t like me either, and he
had not the slightest idea that I knew all about his affair with Miss G. If he had,
he would have rocketed sky-high, because his opinion of “colored” people
hadn’t shifted much since the slave trade was banned.
On rare occasions, he did skip back to our apartment to share Miss G’s
bed, but I crouched like a mouse in my room without his even suspecting my
presence. Oh yes, he talked to Miss G about how unhappy he was in his
marriage and how hard it was to get a divorce. The lengths he went to keep their
romance a total secret were hard to believe.
He was a good pilot and on several occasions flew her out to lonely
farmhouses owned by his friends. And Miss G, quickly realizing where she
stood, said, “Rene, I’m sometimes surprised he doesn’t wear a black beard when
we’re off on a trip.”
It couldn’t last. It was far too fugitive and sneaky for Miss G. She liked
him enormously but was female enough to know it couldn’t last. Taylor had no
intention at that time of changing his lifestyle for Miss G or anybody else. He
was quite content with his public image as a happily married man with a
beautiful film star wife.