The Happy Years (1944-48)

by Cecil Beaton

  ANITA LOOS AND JOHN EMERSON

  Anita Loos and I were discussing the strange, life-long relationship of an eminent American dressmaker and his companion. Anita suggested that the basis of their link was one of mutual hatred. At meals they have nothing to talk about; the elder does not encourage the younger to speak in front of others, nor does he give him credit for any contribution to the designing-business which, in fact, should proclaim both names on the bill-heads.

  ‘It’s just like John and me,’ Anita continued in her quavery, high-pitched voice. ‘All these years I’ve been married to him, he’s hated me. He’s been so jealous of my success that he could hardly bear it. Admittedly he liked the money I made for him, but he would have preferred it to have been made anonymously. When my first chapters on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes caught on in the Bazaar so that the circulation went up ten times, and, for the first time, men began reading a woman’s magazine, John begged me not to have the series published in book form. The publishers were offering me wild sums, but John knew best, and said: “Everyone that’s going to read them has already done so.” When he, at last, realized I couldn’t give up the publisher’s fees, he brought in a slip of paper, nipped me on the chin and said: “Well, little bug, I want you to dedicate your book to me. I’ve written this out — just as it should be”, and he handed me the slip: “To John Emerson, without whose help and encouragement this book would never have been published.” When Blondes had the success that it did, John had a nervous breakdown. His health never really completely recovered.’

  Anita made a fortune which John invested. In 1928 most of it was lost in the stock market crash. Since then, by painful degrees, Anita has refilled the coffers in spite of the difficulties put in her way. John insisted on collaborating, but his contribution consisted solely of criticizing in the afternoon Anita’s morning work. ‘Well, bug, I’m sorry but this isn’t good enough. Your punctuation is appalling: it just won’t do!’ and John would relapse into a hoarse cough that left him speechless and breathless.

  Vast sums of Anita’s money were spent travelling across Europe in search of new doctors who could do some good to John’s throat. One after the other the doctors confided to Anita that they could find nothing wrong with the larynx. They considered that the illness was due to frustration and lack of personal success — so the search for other doctors went on. No matter where she was, Anita continued to work; she would start at five in the morning, and until noon she would be filling notebook after notebook with the latest long-hand re-write of new scripts, plays and novels. By signing film contracts that were like jail sentences — although her childhood was spent in Hollywood she now hated the place — once more she found herself in California chinning out endless scenarios. Many of these were such successes that again she accumulated a great deal of money which John again took control of. When Anita made her greatest success with a film for Jean Harlow, John became so wild with rage that he chased Anita with a knife. He was taken away to a sanatorium.

  It was later discovered that John had, without her knowing it, made Anita sign an annuity for his life. An old doctor friend was called in, told of what had happened, and asked for advice. He roared with laughter. General consternation! When his amusement subsided he explained: ‘John’ll get the best of the insurance company!’ It transpired that their financial gamble was worked out on the premise that John was now in such poor shape, and that he would not long survive. ‘I bet,’ roared the doctor, ‘that John lives another twenty years — just to spite the insurance guys.’

  This is just what is happening. Anita continued: ‘When John discovered that we had all found out the trick he’d played, he shook all over. He nearly went off his rocker, for, you see, he isn’t really a bad man. He’s a schizophrenic — a split personality — and the good man becomes appalled at the actions of the bad. John knew he had behaved in an underhand way, but he needed his independence: that was the only way he could get it.

  ‘As it has turned out, it’s all been for the best, as John’s been living on less than it would have cost me if I’d had to go on maintaining him. The insurance people are the losers.’

  The old doctor summed up: ‘I knew John at school. I’ve never in my life come across such unbounded ambition as he had. Alas, it’s never been fulfilled, and that’s why he hates everyone who has the place in the sun that he could never attain.’

  DINING AT THE PAVILION

  Last night dined with the Garson Kanins at the Pavilion. Margaret Case produced Terry Rattigan for them; this was a coup as Terry has scored a palpable hit with The Winslow Boy.

  The ecstatically married Kanins (she is the redoubtable actress, Ruth Gordon) make a splendid team — both so bright, quick and humorous, they seem to spark off each other. In conversation they know how to dispense with all unnecessary impedimenta, driving right to the point, sticking to it, and brooking no interruptions.

  Talk consisted mainly of the various techniques writers employ in doing their work. The Kanins start at eight in the morning (Ruth, in an aside: ‘This, for an actress of many years’ standing, is still quite an effort!’), and their creative work is done with the first flush of energy. After lunch the retouching and polishing of former days’ efforts. They are like a couple of athletes; their training is rigorous. When on a job they do not allow themselves one drink; even a whisky and soda the night before calls for its dividend of energy the next day, they say.

  Terry is by nature rather lazy, and much prefers to giggle away an evening in a haze of small talk and a little whisky. But tonight he was challenged; he was on his mettle to talk, and talk well. It was fascinating to hear him, like a business man, assess his talent. Construction is of the greatest interest to him and even the New Statesman admits he knows all about the well-knit play. He studies Ibsen, Shaw and Pinero for the way in which they create their effects, but he said he had learnt most from Shakespeare.

  Terry is attuned to work only after long preliminaries and skirmishes. At eleven o’clock in the morning he starts, fully dressed, lying on a bed with his papers and sharpened pencils carefully adjusted around him. He retouches and buffs his play as he goes along, sometimes crossing out a line dozens of times before he feels he has the right one. But this decision then becomes final; he does not alter it afterwards. However, his most creative hours are nocturnal.

  The intensity of expression on Ruth’s face as she listens is so great that one can almost see the energy and dynamic force which drives her. It is typical of her and her husband that they both have much work in hand while there are five plays ready for production: Garson with a couple of film scripts and a play, Ruth with three plays. They know the hazards of the entertainment world.

  Neither of them are now in the first flush of youth, but they are completely contemporary in their outlook — bored by nostalgic revivals in the theatre; it is the immediate future that absorbs and stimulates them. Their huge success is fully enjoyed by both. They are living at a fantastic rate; their extravagances (according to their great friend, Anita Loos — but then Anita has learnt to be on the careful side) are such that if both of them have a successful play running each year for the next six years they will still be behindhand with their taxes.

  Their leanings politically are towards the left, but they live like royalty. They do not care to see films in the company of ‘all those crowds’ and prefer to wait until someone arranges for them to be shown in a private preview room. They have their own chauffeur (a rarity in New York), their meals at the most expensive restaurant. Ruth buys whole hog from Mainbocher, likewise the most expensive dressmaker. Garson showers her with presents so that she resembles a little Burmese idol, studded with bulbous jewellery. They consider money is of no use, unless spent.

  I hated the hands of the clock for revolving so quickly. The bill for tonight’s ‘boiled dinner’, followed by a Bombe Pavilion (an icecream with hot prunes, pineapple, nuts, etc., etc.), with the best wines available and liqueurs, must have made inroads in
to many a Kanin dividend.

  REUNION WITH GARBO

  Friday, March 15th 1946

  Because of the continued tug-boat strike the Mayor has officially ‘closed the city’. With the shortage of fuel there is only a small quota for heating or lighting large meeting-places: banks, offices, theatres, cinemas and bars are therefore shut. New York has become a village.

  The most gregarious of people are the worst hit if they are suddenly faced with the reality of relying upon their own company: they do not relish the unaccustomed opportunity of remaining at home with a book. By six o’clock the solitude becomes unbearable: SOSs are sent to anyone who will come around to share the fast-diminishing supply of drink.

  However, the meeting at Margaret Case’s on this bitter antarctic evening had been specifically arranged — a day or two in advance — in order to bring about my first reunion with Garbo.

  Ten years had passed since our first meeting in Hollywood. On that extraordinary evening, having quaffed large quantities of Bellinis (orange juice laced with champagne), we had improvised wild dances, done impersonations, acted charades, and altogether behaved as if we had known each other for ever. We had been like two elemental creatures, loving and laughing with none of the usual barriers of shyness or modesty that strangers must overcome. But when, eventually, dawn broke over Beverly Hills and Garbo drove away in her ramshackle ‘old bus’, she gave no indication that she would allow me to continue this so violent and intimate a friendship. In fact she refused my suggestion that I should eat a spinach lunch with her later that day at the studio. So the following afternoon I left Hollywood. I did not write to her — for I knew that was how she would have preferred it. I would certainly have received no reply.

  Then with the war Hollywood lost its European film market and, since Garbo had never been considered a commercial proposition in America, the MGM studio allowed her career to grind to a halt.

  During the years of war I never discovered Garbo’s whereabouts, yet the spell that she had worked upon me had never been cast off. Each snippet of news about her intrigued me, and any little snapshot that appeared in a newspaper corroborated my belief that she was the most mysterious and alluring phenomenon in the wide world. Would I ever be fortunate enough to meet, for a second time, this most elusive of creatures?

  I hadn’t been at the Plaza more than a few days when Margaret Case informed me that Garbo was in the city. Although Garbo was no longer on the screen her myth was as alive as ever, and her secretiveness as tantalizing to the public. Yet, it was said, on occasions she did abandon her hermit life to go out into the world of café society — in fact, to the most unsuitable places where she met those very people who would be most willing to exploit her and disregard her dislike of publicity. Her constant companion on these occasions was known as ‘the little man’. Recently ‘the little man’ had discovered a delicatessen that imported caviar straight from Russia, so Garbo and her companion had invited themselves to the houses of mutual friends to drink vodka, bringing with them a pot of ‘the real thing’.

  Few people have done more good turns for me in my lifetime than my old friend Margaret Case who had been one of the first to welcome me as a stranger during my initial trip to New York. By enticing ‘the little man’ to bring Garbo back into my existence she was performing one more — probably the greatest — coup on my behalf.

  When I came through the hallway of Margaret’s apartment three people were sitting around a small circular table set with glasses and plates. At the sight of Garbo I felt knocked back — as if suddenly someone had opened a furnace door onto me: I had almost to gasp for the next breath. The warmth of her regard, her radiance, her smile, robbed me of equilibrium: I held onto the back of a chair. Garbo made no definite sign of recognition but seemed to glean amusement from the mere sight of me. She took it for granted that once again I had immediately fallen in love with her. She was kindness itself, and I was flattered beyond belief to be the object of her attentions as she spread a piece of caviar on a biscuit and offered it to me pronouncing the word ‘kahr-vee-yeyarr’ with histrionic flamboyance. Margaret and ‘the little man’ sat talking quietly in the middle-distance while I gazed at the apparition in front of me as it laughed and jabbered and waved in a frontal attack upon me.

  She had changed in appearance since our first meeting. Then she had been like a large apricot in the fullness of its perfection: she was rounded, of a smooth surface. Now the apricot quality had given place to vellum. Her eyes were still like an eagle’s — blue-mauve and brilliant, the lids the colour of a mushroom — but there were a few delicate lines at the corners. The face having become thinner, the nose appeared spikier which made the modelling of its tip and the nostrils more sensitive. The hair, that had appeared golden in the Californian sun, was now an uncompromising, but beautiful, cinder-mouse. I noticed that the bold, workmanlike hands were a little weatherbeaten, and her ankles and legs had the uneven, somewhat scrawny look of a waif’s or of certain poor, older people: they were at odds with the grandeur of her aura but made her seem terribly vulnerable. No shadow of the conventional New York woman of fashion hovered near her: the hat could have belonged to a tinker engraved by Callot, and her shirt was that of a highwayman. In her all-grey greys she looked like a Mantegna. Although she exuded no impression of luxury one knew her to be a person of the most sifted quality.

  She did the honours of the occasion in what one imagines was the theatrical style of Bernhardt: every gesture was bold and big. Conversing in a somewhat ‘heightened’ social manner, the content of her phrases was less important than her presence and charm which made the small gathering into a gala. She conveyed innate sweetness and delicacy of feeling as the topics changed from circus clowns to the Paris Flea Market and undergarments. She confided how much she disliked being restricted by her clothes in any way, even by garters or brassiere. When she used the word ‘brassiere’ she put her hands up to her mouth in shocked surprise at what she had said. Her voice was caressing while evoking a heartbreaking pathos. Her laugh was mellow and kindly. More caviar — more vodka. General conversation and congeniality. The companion was in good humour, making jokes and telling funny stories.

  Almost imperceptibly Garbo let drop the fact that she remembered our first charming meeting. She remarked with a smile: ‘I didn’t wear lipstick when you knew me before.’ I noticed now that her mouth was slightly too generously daubed with carmine, but the effect was charming — as if a child had been at the jam jar. With her smile so incredibly spontaneous and ever-changing expressions running across her eyes, her head thrown back to look at one from under lowered lids, it was clear that nature had endowed her. She had all the arts of enticement.

  Abruptly, after she had smoked five Old Golds, it was time to leave. Panic struck me. Perhaps this was the end. Or would another lapse of ten years pass before we again met? We had had no opportunity to speak to one another in private. In desperation, and on an inspiration of the second, I implored her to come out onto the roof-garden and look at the extraordinary effect — like sticks of Elizabethan jewellery — of the lit-up skyscraper-buildings around us.

  The sudden cold outside went through the body like a succession of knives, but I was determined that she should remain there until I struck a chord of intimacy. She talked — talked — talked — gabbled ever harder — like an excited child — in order to cover her embarrassment at the things I was blurting out to her while discovering the knobbles of her spine and smelling the new-mown-hay freshness of her cheeks, ear and hair. Before joining the others, panic-stricken and frozen, she promised me that she would telephone me.

  MORE MEETINGS

  April, 1946

  Several days elapsed without her calling. I was not permitted to telephone her, so nothing to do but wait in patience and hope. I was beginning to think she would never make the initial move. One afternoon, when least expected, she inquired without explaining who it was on the telephone: ‘What are you doing?’ I gulped: ‘Not a thin
g in the world.’ Of course anything I was doing, or should have been doing, was shelved forthwith — for a miracle was about to happen and she was coming to see me right away.

  She arrived, somewhat out of breath, dressed entirely in darkest blue, looking pale but even more incandescent than before. A crowd of bobbysox autograph-hunters had run after her on her way to my hotel, and they were cruel and ruthless and they upset her so much. But now she would enjoy a cigarette — calmly. We sat side by side on a long red sofa. She had not telephoned before because she had been ill: she had caught cold — doubtless by going onto that roof-top. I felt great guilt. But she explained she is an easy victim of colds, and it was foolish of her to be tempted out into the icy night winds. ‘But if you had not come out on the roof with me you wouldn’t be here this afternoon.’ She smoked more Old Golds and drank a cup of tea remarking that cows’ milk tastes so much better if it is not pasteurized, and when she pronounced a biscuit to be ‘deliciosa’ I remarked: ‘Then this is a festival’, to which she chirped: ‘Is zat so?’ She talked with the excited vivacity of a child just home for the holidays, and did not look around her at my room, or show surprise or curiosity at what might be considered its somewhat startling decoration. But she did compliment me on keeping the rooms at a reasonable temperature: in fact, the steam heat was never turned on. ‘Ah, fresh air!’ then saluting, she cried: ‘British Empire!’ This was funny and somehow made sense, and I suppose I was flattered by, even in a fantasy, personifying the Empire.[18] Garbo employed many ‘service’ terms and, in reply to my question as to where she lived most of the year, said: ‘Oh, I follow the Fleet.’ She elaborated: ‘I don’t quite know what that means, but I often say things like that, that only signify if you scratch beneath the surface.’ But I discovered quickly that it displeased her to be asked any direct question, and she would invariably answer with some evasion.