Merv (29 page)

The happiness of finally realizing my lifelong dream of owning a great boat was overwhelmed by the devastation I felt at the news of Eva’s sudden death. We somberly returned to port, arriving back in Atlantic City on July 6, my seventieth birthday. The longer I live, the more I’ve come to understand that the composition of life is great joy and great despair, often in a single moment.

I flew back to Los Angeles for Eva’s memorial service. Nancy Reagan came with me; I wouldn’t have made it through that day without her. She’s been a tremendously supportive and compassionate friend to me, not only in the immediate aftermath of Eva’s death, but in the months and years that followed.

Since the president’s illness worsened, Nancy has had the very lonely role of caregiver. She never complains, but I know it exacts an enormous toll on her. We talk almost every day and I periodically succeed in coaxing her out of the house for either lunch or dinner. Last year we saw the revival of
Kiss Me, Kate
in Los Angeles. It was the first time I’d seen her enjoy an evening out in such a long time. We also have the same birthday, so it’s now become an annual tradition for us to share it together, usually with a quiet lunch at the Beverly Hilton.

Little more than a year after Eva’s death, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

My first reaction was no reaction at all.

When I told my son, Tony, and Ronnie Ward, they both cried. I thought, “What the hell is the matter with them?” I wasn’t even interested in it. I simply gave it none of my attention.

There’s that old joke about denial being a river in Egypt, but this is the way I’ve always been about rough news. I don’t dwell on anything. Give me a problem and I’ll try my best to solve it. If I can’t, I just go on to the next thing. Turn the page.

I asked my doctor, Skip Holden, if I was in any immediate danger. He said, “No, but…”

Before he could finish the sentence, I said, “Good, then I’m going out on my boat. I’ll call you when I get back.”

We took the
Griff
to the Mediterranean and I brought my chef along for the trip. I ate like a sonofabitch and thought, “I’ll just force the damn thing out with a little crème brûlée.” (It’s too bad it didn’t work. I’d be marketing it today as the world’s tastiest pharmaceutical.)

The first stop on the trip was the Cannes Film Festival, which I’d never been to before. After the festival concluded (
Secrets & Lies
earned the top prize, the Palme d’Or, and the Coen brothers won the best directing award for
Fargo
), I called Bob and Audrey Loggia, who were staying at a friend’s house in France. I invited them to join me on a month-long voyage along the Italian coast. They had their bags packed before we hung up the phone.

I also asked my friend Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia to join us, knowing that she needed a break from the extraordinary work she was doing in her war-torn homeland.

Elizabeth is the daughter of Prince Paul, the Prince Regent of Yugoslavia, and Princess Olga of Greece. On her father’s side she is the great-great-granddaughter of Karageorge, who led the Serbs in their insurrection against the Turks in 1804. From her mother, she is a descendant of Catherine the Great. She is also the second cousin to Prince Charles and to Queen Sophie of Spain. Yet for much of her lifetime, Elizabeth has been a refugee from her ancestral homeland. As a three-year-old prior to World War II, she was sent to live in Africa for her safety. Eventually she was brought to America where she became a U.S. citizen.

As an adult, she started the Princess Elizabeth Foundation, whose mission has been to transport medical supplies, food, clothing, and blankets to refugee camps in her native country. Even before the fall of the communist government, she snuck in and out of the country dozens of times, often at great personal risk.

Before joining us on the boat, Elizabeth had been working secretly in Belgrade to buy prosthetic limbs for children who had been maimed by land mines.

She arrived exhausted, but ready for some well-earned rest. We cruised along the Italian coast for a month, starting in the northern villages and working our way down to Corsica and Sardinia. Tony, Tricia, and baby Farah flew in to join us on what became one of the most enjoyable trips I’ve ever had.

Although it couldn’t cure my cancer, that voyage helped me begin the healing process after Eva’s death. Out on the water that she loved so much, I remembered the joyous trips we’d made together and, for the first time in almost a year, I was able to smile again when I talked about her.

All good things come to an end, so after two months on the water, I flew back to face the music. Prior to my departure, Skip Holden had listed the various treatment options for prostate cancer, the so-called champagne of cancers (I kept waiting for the bubbles). These included both radiation and surgery. But before they’ll do either, you’re given a hormone pill so that your body has a chance to fight the cancer on its own. When I later mentioned this treatment on
Larry King Live
, I quipped, “Hey Larry, did you ever have a hormone?” The joke went right by him. (I’ve since joined Homonyms Anonymous.
“Hello, my name is Merv. Stop me before I pun again.”
)

I told Skip that I was ready to start radiation and, in September of 1996, I began the five-day-a-week treatment as an outpatient at Cedars-Sinai. Every morning for seven weeks, Ronnie picked me up at 7:00 A.M. and drove me to the hospital. They pointed the radiation at me for five minutes and, bang, that was it. You’re in and you’re out. And I got weekends off.

After several weeks, I had occasional moments of exhaustion, so I took half-hour naps, like a little baby. Other than that, it was surprisingly easy.

I was lucky because they caught it early with a PSA (prostate specific antigen) screening. At my age, I was tested regularly. After the treatments were complete, I decided to share my story with the media, in part as an incentive for other men to get tested early.

I called Steve Coz, editor-in-chief of the
National Enquirer
, because I knew how he would handle it. Steve is a tough guy, but he’s scrupulously honest. I called him and said, “Steve, I don’t usually do this, but I’ve got a scoop for you.” I told him what it was.

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Will you tell that same story to my reporter?”

“Absolutely.”

I figured that if I hadn’t given the story to them first, it would have only been a matter of time before there were banner headlines in the supermarkets screaming, “Merv Griffin Dying of Cancer—Distraught Vanna Says, ‘I Can’t Turn Letters When My Heart Is Breaking.’ ”

The
Enquirer
printed a very fair and accurate piece. Within twenty-four hours all of the so-called mainstream media had picked it up and run with it. They don’t like to admit it, but that happens a lot. As I recall, much of the original reporting on the Monica Lewinsky story was done by the
Enquirer
, a fact that even the
New York Times
was eventually forced to acknowledge.

Three years later Skip told me that my PSA level was again on the high side, but that it was nothing to worry about.

Because prostate cancer is so slow-growing, most experts believe that careful monitoring is all that’s necessary in older men. The theory is that after a certain age you will die of something else before the cancer becomes lethal. (There’s a happy thought.)

So, what did I do? I bought a new boat. Hey, it worked the last time.

I flew to Majorca to pick up the
Griff II
, having sold the first
Griff
just the week before. She was another beauty—165 feet long, four stories high, with a crew of fourteen. Over the next three years I made many trips with her, including another two months spent cruising along the coasts of Spain, France, and Italy. I confess that after that last trip, as wonderful as it was, I was beginning to have a sense of déjà vu. If there’s one thing I’ve come to understand about my life, it’s that whenever I start to repeat myself, it’s time to move on.

So, earlier this year, when someone made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, I sold the
Griff II. Turn the page.

T
he wacky comedian Rip Taylor once told this joke on my show:

I’ve always been interested in astrology and psychic phenomena, especially after meeting a number of famous astrologers like Carroll Righter and Sydney Omarr and psychics like Jeane Dixon, Kenny Kingston, and the Amazing Kreskin when they were guests on my talk show. (Think about this: Kreskin used to get lost on the way to my studio.)

I don’t have any firsthand experience with the psychic world, but I know someone who does. In the spring of 1982, even before she was considered as a possibility to replace Susan Stafford on
Wheel of Fortune
(Susan hadn’t given her notice yet), Vanna White left her home in North Carolina and flew to Palm Springs on a modeling assignment.

Strolling through the town before her modeling job began, Vanna passed a sign that advertised psychic readings and decided to give it a try. In the course of a long session, she was told the following: “In November you will sign a long-term television contract with a man whose last name is Schwartz.” The psychic had difficulty determining the man’s first name, finally deciding that it was “McCoy.” Vanna, who had no television experience at that point, thought the reading was interesting, but gave it little credence.

Six months later Vanna was back in Los Angeles, signing a long-term television contract with a man named Schwartz—
Murray
Schwartz, then the president of my company.

I can’t explain how that happened, but it did.

Every day before breakfast, I go to the Calendar Section of the
Los Angeles Times
and read my horoscope to see if I’m going to live through the day. If it says, “You’re going to drop dead today,” I’d eat a bigger breakfast.

I’ve personally seen astrology work. And Ronnie Ward was a witness to it; he was in the room with me when it happened.

Here’s the story: I’d heard about a woman named Dana (pronounced “Danna”) Haynes who lives in Palm Springs and who was said to be a highly skilled astrologer. I arranged to have her do a chart reading and, as I mentioned, Ronnie was also present as an observer. She came to my office in Los Angeles. We chatted briefly about some of the successful forecasts she’d made in the past, then she started looking at my chart.

“Do you plan any travel?” asked Dana.

“In my plane.” Having long ago outgrown the Beechcraft, I now owned a Challenger jet that could make transatlantic trips, although it needed to take on fuel along the way. The refueling stop would be Newfoundland, in the town of Gander.

“And what day will you be traveling?” I looked at Ronnie, who knew the date in his head, and told it to her.

“Don’t go.”

I studied her face. There was nothing the slightest bit ambiguous about her expression. She was clearly serious.

“I have to go,” I said, wondering if that was really true. “Maybe I could look at it over the Internet, with a live Web cam….”

“Well, can you fly directly from Los Angeles to Ireland?” She kept looking imploringly from me to the chart and back again, as if hoping I would change my mind or the stars would change their meaning.

“No, we have to stop for fuel, why?”

She said, “Well, you’re eventually going to be safe, but you will have a terribly dangerous landing in Gander.”

“But we’re
going
to be safe?”

“Yes, but you’ll be very uncomfortable.” She was still scrutinizing my chart. “What did you say you were going to be doing in Ireland?”

“Looking at a house to buy, as a possible hotel.”

“Check the water in the well outside. And the pipes that leak inside the main house. Is it a very old house?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking that there’s something wrong with the plumbing in almost any house, so she was very likely to be right. “It’s an Irish manor house. It’s over two hundred years old.”

“Check the water,” she repeated. “There’s a problem.”

That was the end of the reading. I thanked her and she left.

After she was gone, I said to Ronnie, “Why would she be so specific? If those two predictions don’t happen, who will ever believe her again?”

A month later, I flew to Ireland, along with my dear friends Mort and Judy Lindsey. It was in the middle of the night when we were approaching our refueling stop, so my pilot, John, came on the intercom to wake us up. “Merv, we’re going to have a little bumpy landing here. There’s some rough weather in Gander.”

We began our descent and the turbulence was really bad. As we came in for the landing, just before the wheels touched the ground, John shoved the gears back up and we shot into the air again, right back into the turbulence.

I looked at Ronnie, whose face was white (as I’m sure mine was), and we both said, “Dana.” He carefully made his way up to the cockpit to investigate. The Lindseys and I gripped our armrests and held on.