Stories From Candyland (3 page)

Fortunately, I did not die. Morgan was my stuffed animal and best friend, and I remember being worried that my mom might not take as good care of him as I did.

Anyway, looking back, I see that my writing, spelling, and punctuation could have used some help, but my business acumen was clearly in place.

My mother and I never talked about it, and I hadn’t thought about that will for years until Aaron mentioned it years after we got married.

I couldn’t imagine how he could know the story of my will, even though, by that time, he was working on
The Mod Squad
and had produced detective shows such as
Honey West
and
Burke’s Law
. He’d uncovered the evidence just as easily as his TV characters did.

With a flourish as suave as Amos Burke’s, he showed me that my mother had given him my will. He handed me my note, attached to a letter, written in her beautiful handwriting on Beverly Hillcrest Hotel stationery, which read:

My Darling Aaron,

    Please take good care of this for me, as I’d die if it ever got lost. It’s one of my fondest memories of Candy—before she married you and got smart & learned to spell.

I love you,

“Mom”

It was nice to hear that my mother thought I’d “got smart,” but I never did learn to spell very well. Aaron, of course, was a great speller.

I’ve been fortunate to have people looking out for me. Now I’m enjoying starting to realize what is actually right for me.

I’ve sure had an interesting time living my
Stories from Candyland
. I’m glad you’re coming along to read them.

Stories from
Candyland

Chapter 1
My Rock for the Ages

I
loved Fridays. Instead of taking the school bus home, I’d go in the opposite direction and run to the big newsstand where all my favorite movie magazines were sold. I could barely contain myself until I’d seen the black truck full of afternoon newspapers and weekly magazines approach, heard the thud of the heavy stacks of magazines hitting the sidewalk.

I was always hungry on Fridays because I had long ago
decided that my money was better spent on magazines than on another elementary school lunch. Nevertheless, I had the strength to move aside the magazines about cars and food and sports until the movie star covers appeared.

One special Friday I ran into my house hugging two full-color, star-studded magazines of celebrity secrets to my chest. I found my mother in the kitchen and announced, “Mom, I might be late for dinner. I have a lot of reading to do.”

“Candy, you’re never going to have any money if you spend it all on those movie star magazines.”

That’s what my mother told me constantly. This was the same mother who had named me “Carole Gene,” after Carole Lombard, a movie star my mother loved when she read about her years earlier in the same movie star magazines.

Carole Lombard was an okay star, and no one called me “Carole” anyway. I was Candy, and I was in love with Rock Hudson. I knew it from a young age, when the twenty cents that copies of
Photoplay
and
Modern Screen
cost far exceeded my allowance. Thank goodness for birthdays, holidays, and teeth falling out, which were all good for a few more cents.

Rock’s photo was on the cover of the February 1957 issue of
Photoplay
. “Rock Hudson’s Life Story,” the headline promised. I devoured every word. I discounted the photos of Rock with his wife. In the August 1954 issue of
Modern Screen
, the cover had asked the question “Is Rock Hudson Afraid of Marriage?” If he was afraid in 1954, why was he married? Hmm. Maybe the marriage wouldn’t last. One of
my friends’ parents were getting divorced, and Rock and his wife didn’t have kids.

I found out that his name was originally Roy Scherer. I didn’t know anyone named Rock or Roy, but that would change someday. I knew he would be mine in just a few years, as soon as I grew up. One day I discovered there was even a food named for the two of us, a clear sign we were meant to be together. I found a recipe for rock candy, and learned how to make it in different colors. Rock and I would eat it every night for dessert to celebrate our love.

I learned that Rock might be afraid of marriage around the time I saw the ad for his new movie,
Magnificent Obsession
. I had no idea what the title meant, but I read and reread the words in the ad: “This was the moment unashamed . . . when this man and this woman felt the first ecstasy of their Magnificent Obsession.” No clue. Good photo, though. My parents wouldn’t let me see the movie. Now I own it on DVD.

Screen Album
magazine wrote in the summer of 1956, “Tall, handsome, in demand as an escort, Rock Hudson played, and committed himself to no one. I’ll marry when I’m 30 said he—and who, in his position, would have rushed? The world can be fun for a man with no ties, and a pocketful of green money.” Wait, Rock. Wait until you’re closer to forty, so I have time to grow up. I’m growing as fast as I can. I’m not sure why you’re married now, but don’t get married again until you’re forty and ready for me. Okay?

The stories sent me on a roller-coaster fantasy life. My copy
of the “Big Spring Issue—Who Loves Who in Hollywood!” of
Motion Picture
magazine in 1956 named the couples who were most in love: Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, Liz Taylor and Michael Wilding, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, and (sigh) Rock Hudson and Phyllis Gates. Something was fishy. I had recently seen photos of “Rock and Liz in Texas” in
Silver Screen
. He didn’t look like he was thinking of anyone named Phyllis, and there didn’t seem to be a Michael on
her
mind.

Then again, maybe his marriage wouldn’t last.
Motion Picture
described the wedding day: “He was dressed in a brown suit and he looked wonderful, so handsome. Phyllis, warm, friendly, curly-haired, did him the honor as his wife.” I knew that’s what a wife should do. I didn’t like that magazine because it wrote about Rock’s wife, and I vowed not to buy it again, even though it was cheaper than the others, at fifteen cents.

Stop the presses. My
Photoplay
in May 1957 was all about the “Todd-Taylor Marriage.” More hope. Maybe Mr. Wilding would take the honorable Mrs. Gates Hudson away from my Rock. There was hope again.

My collection of Rock Hudson stories and photos grew. I had seen
Pillow Talk
about twelve times (I had a bigger allowance), as I kept growing closer to Rock’s age. I knew I had it made in 1962 when
Motion Picture
(“first and best” and twenty-five cents) wrote about Rock’s “reflections.” He was so deep and dreamy.

Asked what he admired about Jackie Kennedy, Rock said,
“I think she has beautiful hairdos.” Guess what! I had a Jackie Kennedy hairdo, although my hair was blond and fine. Oh, Rock! The writer asked what he liked most about Doris Day. “I like her humor, her sunniness.” Rock, people tell me I look like Doris Day, and I have a good sense of humor. Perfect! But my mother insisted there was no such word as
sunniness
.

By the middle 1960s, I was ready to get together with Rock. Yes, I’d dated a lot of boys at school, gotten married at seventeen and divorced at nineteen, and dated again, but I would have dropped everything now that I was old enough to marry Rock Hudson. Sometimes, when I was out to dinner or in a Beverly Hills department store, people would say, “Rock Hudson was here just last week.” Bad timing for me, but I was still optimistic.

In 1966 I started dating a man named Aaron Spelling. He made me nervous because he had quite a reputation as a playboy. Even though I was twenty, I knew I was no match for a sophisticated and worldly playboy. I agreed to a date, we enjoyed ourselves, and I accepted a second date. I liked him a lot, even though his playboy image, social ease, and maturity scared me.

“Candy,” Aaron’s voice crackled from the massive car phone that took up half his front seat, “I’ve been invited to a party for Grace Kelly on Saturday night. We can go there on our date.”

A party for Grace Kelly? Oh my. Grace Kelly was the most beautiful, most elegant woman alive. I think that if she had been a star when I was born, my mother might have named me “Grace Gene.”

I was so excited that I missed Aaron’s next sentence: “The party is at Rock Hudson’s house in Hollywood. Candy, do you want to go to Rock’s for Grace Kelly’s party?”

“What rocks?” I said.

“I told you. The party is at Rock Hudson’s house.”

The world stopped. Everything started spinning. I was afraid my heart was going to fly right out of my chest. I was going to Rock Hudson’s house!

The next four days seemed to take four years. I shopped for clothes I couldn’t afford, and looked through every fashion magazine over and over to find the right hairstyle and makeup look for the evening. I also called all the people who had ever made fun of me for having a magnificent obsession with Rock Hudson. Carole Gene Marer was going to Rock Hudson’s house.

By the time Aaron picked me up in his black Cadillac Eldorado Brougham, I was giddy. I’m a very shy person and don’t talk much, but Aaron couldn’t shut me up. In retrospect, I think I sounded like Alvin and his chipmunk friends, chatting incessantly.