by Kerri Maher
Grace was perched cross-legged on a round barstool at the Formosa, nursing a glass of white wine while Ray leaned sideways against the bar, scotch in hand, the silver buckle of his black leather belt millimeters from her knees.
“An arrangement?” Grace swallowed, her throat parched. “I must tell you, that makes me feel like a mere notch on your bedpost.” If only it also lessened her craving for him.
He leaned in closer, and his buckle pressed on her kneecap. “I love my wife, Grace. And our children, and the life we’ve made together. This is not an arrangement I call on often. Only when I feel it will be worth it.”
He was so close to her. He smelled of tobacco, peppermint, and a spicy cologne she couldn’t place. She hadn’t wanted anyone like this since Gable in Africa, and as with Gable, she was aware that this must be a passing fancy. It wouldn’t put her any closer to what Peggy had: the domestic life Grace wanted so much when she wasn’t wishing for a part on Broadway. But both theaters and brick houses with sprawling lawns seemed a million miles away from the Formosa and this man, whose physical proximity made her feel reckless with desire. She didn’t care about those things when Ray Milland was close to her, and so she brought him to her room at the mercifully discreet Chateau Marmont.
Sharing her bed with the leading man on the picture gave her a shiny secret to ponder in her quiet moments. Milland’s smooth, gentle hands were a revelation, obliterating her lingering nostalgia for Gene’s rougher touch. Though she was sure no one else knew about their trysts, she was equally sure that Hitch knew full well. Thankfully, he seemed as determined to keep her secret as she was.
“My God, he was sexy. I kept wishing he’d throw a glance my way, but he was all business,” Rita Gam said of Ray Milland as they sat on Rita’s little patio, eating summer tomatoes on toasted sourdough bread. It was a Sunday afternoon, and Ray was home with his wife and children. Grace and Rita had been introduced at a party earlier in the summer, and hit it off right away. Rita had costarred with Ray the previous year in The Thief.
Grace was extremely relieved to discover that Ray’s arrangement had not included Rita, whose persona on- and offscreen was more hot-blooded and brash than that of Grace Kelly. Though Grace sensed that Rita’s marriage to Sidney Lumet, a young director and intellectual on the scene, was not altogether happy, Grace also didn’t think she’d cheat on him.
“He is sexy,” Grace agreed, guarding her secret even with Rita. It wouldn’t do to have people knowing. She and Rita were new friends in any case. It always took a while before Grace knew if she could trust someone.
“Are you blushing?” asked Rita, eyes wide and voice playfully prying.
Oh no. It was just like her body to give her away in Ray Milland’s case. “Maybe,” Grace admitted, taking a sip of water for something to do.
“Well, if there’s anyone who can take care of herself, it’s you,” said Rita, getting up to pour herself another glass of cold white wine. She held out the bottle for Grace, who shook her head. “See? You hardly even drink.”
“I like to keep my wits about me,” Grace replied, “and wake up fresh in the morning.” She remembered Gene and how she’d drunk more with him for a while just to be social, then regretted it every morning. Even when she hadn’t been truly hungover, she’d felt fuzzy and sluggish.
“See? That’s what I mean,” said Rita. “Not many girls our age have made that connection. Look at poor Marilyn, and she’s older.”
“I don’t get the sense that wine is her problem,” said Grace. She’d met the famous blonde only twice, at parties, in particular a small gathering at Jay and Judy’s place in New York. She had a very sweet way about her, like she was a rescue kitten that needed constant stroking. She actually snuggled next to Judy on the couch, barefoot, while she had every man in the place listening with rapt attention as she told some story about Bette Davis from the set of All About Eve. What really struck Grace, though, was the way she apologized for everything, from how tired she felt to having to use the ladies’ room, to even her performance in How to Marry a Millionaire, which was supposed to come out later that year and had already garnered phenomenal buzz.
Grace was so glad the Academy had broken her of the apologizing habit, and wondered if Marilyn had been taught the same essential lesson in the Actors Lab, where the other actress had taken classes. Perhaps she had been taught, but hadn’t been able to stop the compulsion. Or perhaps—and Grace sensed this was the most likely answer—all the apologizing won her the attention she needed; it was part of the act.
“I think Marilyn’s kind of lost,” added Grace.
Rita shrugged. She wasn’t a gossip, and this was one of the things Grace liked about her. Maybe she could confide in her about Ray Milland. But not tonight. Then Rita changed the subject: “So what do you think about Elizabeth’s party tonight?”
Grace sighed. Elizabeth Taylor’s party. It was a big deal to be invited. But this was one of the problems with Hollywood. There was always a party—or five. And because everyone had houses or stayed in hotels all over a rather sprawling geographical area, you had to really commit to going: you had to get all done up, hire a car (well, most people hired cars, but Grace drank so little, she could probably drive herself, but then there was the problem of getting parked in on a lawn with no one else sober enough to part the sea and let her out—she’d made this mistake more than once already), and then you were there. If you were bored, decorum dictated that you were stuck for at least a few hours. If the crowd you were with wanted to move on, you had the same car problem all over again, then the drive to get to the next location and the fear of what press monsters might be lying in wait to find out whom you were party hopping with. It was exhausting. And people wondered why she didn’t go out more. Nights in with a lover were far more enticing.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Grace said, fingering her stringy hair to ascertain how much work it would need before a party. A fair bit, unfortunately. “What about you?”
“I need the work, so I’ll be going,” said Rita. “And Sidney wants to go.”
So there was the truth. Grace wondered if Ray and his wife, Muriel, would be there, and if it would matter. Elizabeth Taylor’s place was probably massive. It was easy to get lost in an LA mansion. “I think I’ll sit this one out,” said Grace.
Rita shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said. Then she sighed. “I wish Sidney didn’t want to go.”
“He could go by himself,” Grace said.
Rita gave a he should look, with an eye roll to the heavens, then said, “Wait till you’re married, Grace. Then the capable man you thought you were marrying will turn into a little boy, expecting a mother as much as a wife.”
Grace went back to her hotel room and took a long bath, then sat up in bed with a novel. Pretty soon it was close to midnight, and she was yawning and switching off the light. Had she been at the party with Rita, she’d no doubt be deep in negotiations about whether to stay or go, which party was sizzling hottest that night. Hollywood could do without her. It would rage on, sending its euphoric laughter into the night, where it would echo between the golden hills to infinity.
* * *
I hoped to see you last night at Liz’s place,” Ray Milland growled in her ear at the table with coffee and Danish the following morning on the set.
Grace laughed, never more glad that she didn’t have after-party circles under her eyes. “I’m not a mind reader, Ray,” she said, setting a bear claw pastry on a paper plate. “And anyway, if you wanted to see me so badly, maybe it wouldn’t have been a good idea?”
“Muriel wasn’t there,” he replied to her implication.
“But other people might have seen us,” she hissed before walking away, now annoyed. Why couldn’t she just find a nice, unmarried man and not have to deal with all this subterfuge?
That day, they were shooting the scene right before the attempted murder, in whi
ch Ray’s character, Grace’s husband, called her in the middle of the night to rouse her from bed so that Anthony Dawson’s character, Charles Swann, could sneak up on her and murder her. Grace had read this scene many times, and some of the director’s notes were bothering her. She was glad she was well rested, because before shooting began, she screwed up her courage and approached Hitch to talk to him about it. Standing patiently while he finished talking to one of the cameramen, she felt rattled from her exchange with Ray and now nervous about waiting to offer a suggestion to Alfred Bloody Hitchcock. Strangely, she realized that she hadn’t even really decided she was going to make this suggestion until Ray had hassled her about the party. But for once, she’d had enough of these men not understanding things. And here was a detail in a movie she might actually be able to do something about. So she was going to forgo her usual silence and say something.
When he finished with the cameraman, Hitch turned to face her and said, “Good morning, Grace. I trust you are well this morning? None the worse for wear?”
“If you’re referring to parties, Hitch, you’ll be glad to know I was in bed with a book most of last night.”
“Glad?” he said with a tut. “I’m most disappointed to hear it.”
“Hitch,” she said in mock horror, “you mean you’d rather have me gallivanting around Hollywood than getting a good night’s sleep to work on your picture?”
“Only because the image of you gallivanting pleases me, my dear,” he said with the wolfish—but somehow avuncular—grin.
Only Hitch.
“Well, you can imagine it all you like. Isn’t that the point of fantasy? That it need not ever happen?”
“Well said, Grace, well said.” Though it irritated her to admit, Hitch’s approval of her quips made her heart swell with pride. She liked winning his rarely given praise and occasionally his surprise that Grace Kelly could call on her upbringing and swear like a bricklayer. She knew she intrigued him, and that was deeply satisfying—she hoped it was enough to get him to respect her ideas as well.
“I wanted to talk to you about something in the script,” she said with as much confidence as she could muster.
“Yes?”
“It’s about this scene where the phone call wakes me up.”
“And?”
“Well, the script says I should get up and put on my robe.”
“Would you prefer to appear before the camera in your knickers?”
He was trying to unbalance her with flippancy, and she wasn’t about to let him. “Of course not.”
“I thought so. And I would never dream of putting a fellow Catholic, a lady, such as yourself, in that sort of compromising position.”
Somehow she doubted that, but she pressed her position. “But a lady like Margot wouldn’t be asleep in her underwear, either. Nor would she go to the bother of putting on a robe before picking up the phone in the other room. It’s the middle of the night. And remember, she assumes she’s alone in the apartment.”
“What are you suggesting?” he asked, a subtle note of impatience creeping in.
“That I wear a lovely and modest enough nightgown to bed, then get up from the bed and answer the phone wearing that.”
Hitch regarded her with his nose definitively raised in the air so that he could gaze downward at her ever so slightly—for in the flats she was wearing, she was nearly his height. She noticed that a few crew members were watching them carefully, and she wondered—too late, she realized—what had happened to other actors who attempted to improve upon Hitch’s direction. From the tension she sensed in the air, she guessed it hadn’t ended well. But he did appear to be considering what she’d said, so she added, “It’s just that the movie is going to be perfect under your direction, Hitch. I wouldn’t want any lady in any movie theater wondering why Margot bothered to put on her robe, because wondering would take them out of the story.”
Never lowering his nose, Hitch let a few beats pass, then said with timing that Sanford Meisner himself would have praised, “Well . . . I certainly wouldn’t want any of the ladies who have dragged their husbands and beaux away from the television to have reason to regret their choice. We shall see how the scene looks the way you suggest, Grace. And there is the timing to think of, you know. Let’s also see how long it takes you to get out of bed without fastening a robe.”
Then he turned on his heels and summoned a cameraman with two fingers.
Grace exhaled and felt her heart beat again.
She’d done it. And after shooting the scene and examining its aesthetics and pacing, Hitch never asked her to put on the robe. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so proud of herself. For the rest of the day, she felt as though she was walking on a cloud.
When she and Ray Milland were in bed together the next night, he said to her, “That was quite a coup you pulled off, you know. Hitch never listens to anyone. Either he really respects you, or he really wants to sleep with you.”
With her head still resting casually on his chest, she said, “I resent both the notion that respect and sexual relations are mutually exclusive and the notion that he would only listen to me if he wanted to sleep with me.”
“Easy now, tiger.”
“If you were a woman, you’d hear your words very differently.”
“Good thing I’m not, then,” he said. And then with that infuriating way he had, he pulled her up to kiss him long and deep. “And I for one,” he breathed, “have nothing but respect for you and a bottomless desire for sexual relations with you.”
She thought now was as good a time as any to stay silent and enjoy herself.
Chapter 14
As Grace had assumed from the start, the affair with Ray Milland was specific to the time and place. His desires were not as bottomless as he’d proclaimed, which suited Grace fine, if she was being honest. As summer drew to a close and she knew she’d be returning to New York and an audition for the part of Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac, the stress of hiding her comings and goings with her married costar in Hollywood was beginning to wear on her. She let him break it to her gently over champagne and oysters—Muriel has been so good to me and the children. . . . I’ve had the most marvelous time working on this picture with you—because she enjoyed watching this debonair gentleman get uncomfortable. She put him out of his misery with generous understanding, and their last night together was memorable enough to make her regret it was their last.
In the sultry late-summer weeks, as she was preparing for the Cyrano audition and doing a few TV dramas, she went to a party and met Oleg Cassini, a fashion designer whose dresses she’d admired in Vogue. With his slim mustache and wavy hair swept back from his tan face, he looked something like a gambling playboy, the sort who’d be cast as a race-car-driving distraction from the heroine’s true love with Tom, Dick, or Harry. Add to that his easy laugh, dreamy Continental accent—originally Russian, but after Oleg had lived so long in the fashion capitals of the West, it had softened into something more pan-European—and wicked sense of humor, and he was the opposite of Ray Milland, who now seemed stuffy in comparison. And although he was sixteen years older than Grace, he was six years younger than Ray, which made him seem positively boyish by comparison.
She was getting used to older men. Because she had been cast with them so often, it felt natural to have romantic feelings for them, much more so than for men her own age, who seemed rather juvenile. Moody, intellectual Marlon Brando was a special case, as he seemed much older than his years. But young men like that very nice and quite talented Paul Newman, whom she’d met on the sets of a few television dramas? No, thank you. When other girls—girls only a few years younger than she was now, who lived at places like the Barbizon—talked about their dates with these young actors, they twittered about pizza and Chinese food eaten out of cartons on floors that needed sweeping. None of that sounded appealing to Grace. She preferred a
n established man.
Over tea at the Plaza, her old friend Maree Frisby mentioned to her none too casually that she’d read in Reader’s Digest that some girls who went for older men might have unnatural feelings about their fathers.
“My penchant for older men isn’t . . . oedipal, Maree,” Grace replied. “I hardly have an Electra complex.”
“Oh, I’m not suggesting you have any feelings like that for your father,” said Maree. “But your dad’s always been, well, a big deal in your life. Someone you feel like you need to impress.”
“I don’t see what you’re getting at,” said Grace, her skin prickling with irritation and also the uncomfortable recollection of how much Hitch’s praise pleased her—though the director had never been her lover, his appreciation was in some ways more potent than Ray Milland’s because of his stature. Had either of them been her age, Grace knew their approval wouldn’t have meant nearly as much.
But to Maree, she protested, “Well, my father would not be impressed by Oleg. He’d hate his ‘European ways.’” Grace put two-fingered rabbit ears around the last two words and dropped her voice an octave to mock her father. “To say nothing of Oleg’s two divorces.”
Maree giggled. “It’s nothing, Grace. Just something I read that I thought you’d find interesting. Don’t worry about it. If you’re happy, I’m happy.”
“I’m happy,” Grace said, and she was happier still to discover that she meant it. Her life felt full of possibility again, and she sensed that something exciting was just around the corner. Still, the conversation with her friend made her hold back from Oleg and resist his advances. Even when he began sending her flowers, Grace said no to dinner with him, though she thoroughly enjoyed his lavish attempts at getting her attention. Her apartment looked like a florist shop! As Asmir’s had been years ago, Oleg’s flowers were not standard issue. He sent a fuchsia orchid with an almost obscene green center, birds-of-paradise, rare cherry blossom branches flown up from South America.
