I nodded, took the glass and drank not only one, but two and a half glasses of champagne. Then, with the firelight and sweet music filtering through the room, and his arms around me, I fell sound asleep.
I awoke to his kisses on my mouth, my breasts, my whole body. I was completely naked. He had undressed me and was now studying me. “Darling . . . you are beautiful,” he said as he inspected me, his fingertips gently caressing my lips. “Even when you’re asleep,” he added, smiling.
We’d been together before, but this night was extra special. We were engaged, and I was totally in love with this man and wanted so much to please him.
In our first years together, Paul, in his early forties, was as demanding and passionate as I. Strong and well built from years of weight lifting and working out with Nat Pendleton on the beach at Santa Monica, he had developed his body into that of an athlete, and was proud of it. But it was also his mind, his sensitivity, that aroused me. I could never say no to this man.
I tried to protest, but he coaxed me into his bed and we made love the old-fashioned way, making me forget all but the knowledge that we were one.
We slept curled up, spoon fashion. In the morning we had breakfast in his pajamas, he wearing the bottoms and me wearing the top. We ate shredded wheat and milk (all we could find in the kitchen). Then we walked around the entire terrace in the midday sun, showered, and went back to bed.
How I ever got out of that apartment the next day without being seen by the stodgy other residents, I’ll never know.
CHAPTER 11
NASSAU
Late one afternoon, in November 1935, I was in my apartment at the Algonquin when Jeannie knocked on the door and staggered in carrying two huge Saks Fifth Avenue boxes. “I’ve been with Paul for the past two hours!” she said, gasping for breath and dropping the boxes on the floor. “He wanted me to bring them to you at once.”
I looked at her. “What are they?”
“You’ll see,” she said. “Open them up.”
“Are you kidding me, Jeannie?”
“No. Come on, get some scissors . . . hurry.”
Out of those two boxes came one gorgeous mink coat and one long ermine stole. For a moment, I couldn’t believe my eyes . . . but there in the tissues was his card, Teddy . . . to keep you warm. Love, Paul, written in his boyish handwriting.
“He asked me to meet him to pick out a present for you,” Jeannie explained, “so I have been trying on fur coats all afternoon at Bonwit’s and Saks, and these were the prettiest of all. God, am I tired!” With that, she walked into the bedroom and threw herself on the bed.
“Jeannie,” I called out, “I can’t accept these. It’s not right. I’m not a kept woman. Anyway, my mother would die if I did, so take them back.”
“Not I,” came the tired voice of my good friend. “You take them back . . . or get Saks to call for them. I’m exhausted. Anyway, I think you should keep them . . . think of next winter.”
“Well, I hate to have to tell him.”
“Then don’t take them back . . . after all, you’re engaged.”
“It’s still not right. I can borrow his car, accept books, lunches, dinners, flowers, theater tickets, but I can’t accept fur coats . . .”
“Still, you go to bed with him, no?”
I looked at her. “That’s mean of you.”
“But it’s the truth.”
“Yes, it’s the truth, but I can’t help it. I love him.”
“Okay, Miss Proper Face, order me a stiff drink and I’ll return them to Saks.”
Before leaving for London, Paul had a grand piano put in the apartment so that Gene and I could practice. On his arrival in London, he immediately called on Madame Marchesi. Afterward he phoned me from the Dorchester and relayed their conversation in an excited voice. After listening to your recordings, Marchesi had said, “I can see your young lady has charm and taste in her selection of songs. She is knowledgeable about what she sings, but her whole voice needs to be smoothed out, so she can move unnoticeably from one register to the next. I cannot predict, however, if she is operatic material. Besides a voice, one needs dedication, perseverance, and character. However, there is that something there in the quality of her top register that I like, and if I like it, it’s good.”
“Then, will you take her as a student?” he asked.
“Yes, send her to me.”
And with that, my future was sealed! For a moment, I was silent, not really daring to believe what Paul had just told me. Then I heard him say, “Darling, did you hear me? Aren’t you excited that this woman, who is one of the greatest teachers in the world, has accepted you?”
“Oh, yes, Paul, I am! Only, I just can’t believe it. Thank you from my heart for doing this.”
“Well, I knew I was right about your voice from the first night I heard you. So start planning. You have time. She can’t take you until January. I’m off to Switzerland on Sunday for meetings. I miss you, Teddy. Do you miss me?”
“Yes. You know I do.”
“Bye, darling.”
“Bye, Paul.”
The minute I hung up the receiver, my whole being was flooded with doubts. Could I really do it? Could I just drop everything I’d worked so hard to accomplish, go to another country . . . and study to become an opera singer? Suppose I failed . . . What would Paul think of me? He is so used to success. Would he still love me? And how long would it take? Maybe years! But . . . he believes in me! I must try . . . even if I fail. If I don’t try, how will I ever know if I can do it?
My furious conversation with myself was interrupted by a phone call from the manager of the British Colonial Hotel in Nassau. He was begging me to return for a two-week engagement—at twice what they had paid me before. Seems some singer had disappointed them and it was a real emergency. I needed time to think about Marchesi, and I needed the money. So I went.
CHAPTER 12
MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
After returning to New York, I resumed working with Gene Berton. Paul was once again in Europe. I hadn’t heard from him by phone for almost a week when he called from the pier of the French Line. “I’m here. Get ahold of Gene and meet me at the apartment at once.” There was something mischievous in his voice. In less than an hour, Gene and I excitedly arrived at Sutton Place.
Minutes later, Paul arrived. I flew into his arms. He greeted Gene, walked to the piano, took out a sheaf of notes, and said, “Darling, these describe Marchesi’s method. I took ten singing lessons from her, so that I could show you.”
I looked at Paul, shocked! I couldn’t believe that this very busy man actually had taken time out from his important business meetings to study with Marchesi, but he had.
“Now, Gene, play these chords and I’ll show Teddy how this first exercise goes.” Then Paul took a big breath and, as Gene struck the first chord, Paul sang “Aah” in a very deep, rich baritone . . . changing to “Eee” as the scale went up and returning to “Aah” as it descended to its original starting point.
He repeated the exercise several times, then hurried to show all of them to us. “Teddy, Marchesi says these exercises will strengthen your lower and middle registers, so that there will never be a noticeable break between them, nor between the middle and top. She also said, ‘Don’t ever force your voice.’ ” He took my hand, and I reached up and kissed him.
What a wonderful thing he’d done. What love . . . but now I really had to make a major decision. Probably the most serious decision of my life . . . not only to do with my career, but also with Paul. Again the questions raced through my mind: How long would the lessons with Marchesi take? Just what would be involved? Was I really ready to plunge into a lifetime study of serious music? Should I give up a career as a popular singer, which was now just opening up for me? Shouldn’t I just stay right here in New York and continue to live in a world I already knew . . . the well-worn track between Fifth Avenue and Broadway? And what about my friends and family, whom I so dearly loved? Could I
leave them? Could I give all this up to try a new medium of expression? And in a foreign country?
I once again thought of the words on that French handkerchief: “Qui ne risque rien, n’a rien.” Suddenly I was aroused by Paul’s deep, reassuring voice. “Well, Teddy, if you think you understand how to practice Marchesi’s method, you and Gene get busy. I’ll catch up on some telephoning.”
Our eyes met . . . My decision was made. I just knew I couldn’t disappoint him. From then on, with Gene at the piano, I began working every day. I realized immediately that these exercises were really helping. With the holidays approaching, I planned to see Mother, my sisters, and Ware, be with Paul and, after the new year, get ready to leave for London.
Then I found out I was pregnant.
The minute the doctor told me, I realized that I wanted that baby, and I wanted so badly to tell Paul about it. I told Jean and Betzi, but then I didn’t tell Paul . . . I couldn’t. When I saw him again after I’d been to the doctor, we met at Sutton Place, and sat on the couch before the marble fireplace. We were alone, and it was so good to be together again after my trip to Nassau and his time in Europe. I wished I could stop the clock, freeze time. I was a girl in love, in the arms of a man who said he was madly in love with me, and I wanted to stay that way forever.
We were so happy the way we were . . . We were engaged and planned to get married in a year, but I didn’t want this to be the reason. There have always been stories of men forced to marry girls because they are pregnant; I had a sense that these marriages didn’t last. I didn’t want that to happen to us.
But that wasn’t the only reason. According to the rules I was brought up with, I had overstepped what was considered correct behavior. I had given myself to him before marriage. Oh yes, we were engaged, but we had not set a date. Now, finding myself pregnant and not married, I felt how large the gap was between being engaged and being married. “Rules must be followed,” I told myself, “or one has to take the consequences.”
I also believed that if I told him, I’d destroy our plans. Here was a brilliant, creative, vital man in the midst of building his oil empire. Because he’d been intrigued by my voice, he had encouraged me, had found me the teacher Marchesi, and had arranged for me to go study with her . . . and now here I was pregnant.
Two days after he’d arrived, Paul was to leave on the Super Chief for Los Angeles to see his mother. He phoned me early in the morning to say good-bye. That afternoon I asked Jean to go with me to a doctor’s office on the west side of Manhattan near Riverside Drive. I went through a procedure to terminate the pregnancy. It was horrible, and I still remember everything about it to this day, including the nurse and the room where it took place. The whole thing was wrong, frightening, and I don’t believe I ever got over it. Dr. Schwartz had told me I would feel nothing, which was a lie. Most of all, I remember my great sorrow at what I’d done, but I was young, and I was truly afraid it would wreck our relationship . . . What a fool.
Afterward, I took a taxi back to the hotel and went to bed. But I was awoken by a message from Paul, saying he had decided not to leave and would pick me up at eight o’clock that evening for dinner. I begged Jean to phone him and say I was ill, that I had a bad cold. (Paul hated bad colds. All his life he used to literally run from people who even started to sneeze.) But somehow or other, he told Jean it didn’t matter . . . he wanted to see me. I guess that’s when she broke down and told him what I’d done. In less than an hour he came charging into my apartment, dragging a doctor with him. He was so worried and frightened for me. “Why did you do this, Teddy? How could you? My God, you might have died! Doctor, is she all right?”
I looked up at him and started to cry. “I just couldn’t tell you, Paul. I mean, you would have had to marry me now.”
“What are you talking about? I’m going to marry you anyway.”
“Yes, but we can’t yet. You told me the other day that Ann’s lawyers were holding you up, saying your divorce papers would not be final till next year.”
“Darling, I’m sure Ann can handle this. She is already in love with Doug Wilson . . . and told me so when we had our meeting at the Plaza. She wants to marry him. Teddy, why didn’t you trust me?”
He was on his knees beside my bed, kissing me, right in front of the doctor. Finally, he left the room. The doctor took my temperature and asked a few questions. Going out the door, he turned and said, “You don’t need me, young lady. He does.”
Later, Paul ordered dinner to be sent up for us, then sat by my bed until I fell asleep. He finally left, but only because Jeannie reassured him that she would stay the night.
During the following week, Paul came to see me every day . . . sent flowers . . . brought books for me to study, to inspire me . . . operas . . . stories of famous singers. It made me smile to think of the many subjects he brought up in his effort to teach me. “No matter how much I try,” I said, “I’ll never catch up to you, Paul. You speak five languages fluently. You read Greek and Latin (my worst subject in school). You know so much about so many things. You’re like the Book of Knowledge, or some shooting star I long to follow . . . But I can’t, because, by the time I arrive at where you were a minute ago, you’ve gone on.”
This made him laugh. “Teddy, you speak like a child sometimes. I’m really not so far ahead of you. I’m just older. I’ve studied all my life, and I find it tragic when I think that no matter how much one studies, one can never know it all. Try as we might, there is just not enough time in any of our lives . . . and there’s so much to learn. Still, you and I have lots to talk about: art, music, books, plays . . . And we have each other. That’s the most exciting subject of all!”
At the end of the week, Paul left for the coast, and I began working again with Gene on the songs I planned to sing at One Fifth Avenue. I also went out to Greenwich and stood by my mother when she got her divorce from Dad.
It wasn’t long thereafter that Paul called me from California. “Have you heard?” he asked. “Has anyone called you about your dad?”
“What is it, Paul?” I said.
“I heard it over the radio, on the six o’clock news. The police found your dad. He killed himself . . . hung himself at his hotel, right across from the Algonquin. I’m so sorry, Teddy, so sorry for your mother and sisters.”
“Oh my God . . .”
“And, darling, you didn’t know this, but he had borrowed money from me. Do you think that might have contributed to his doing this?”
“What are you talking about?”
Apparently, Frank had been at the Vineyard on one occasion when Paul and I had visited Mother. After that, he’d phoned Paul, gone to see him at his apartment, and asked him for a loan of a thousand dollars.
I knew nothing about any of it. “Paul, I’m sure what he did had nothing to do with borrowing money from you. He’s tried to kill himself several times before—including one time in the barn at Wild Acres. Mother had to climb up a ladder and cut him down. He was half dead, but he survived. That was bad enough. What was worse was that Bobby and Nancy saw everything. Frank must have been terribly unhappy about himself. Once the Depression hit, he wasn’t ever really able to make a living. And he just couldn’t stop drinking. And when he drank, well . . . Oh, dear. I must call Mother at once.”
“Is there anything I can do, Teddy?”
“Thank you, but no, Paul. There’s nothing you can do.”
CHAPTER 13
MARCHESI, 1938
On Thanksgiving Day 1937, Paul invited Mother, my sisters, and Ware to lunch with us at the Cotillion Room in the Pierre Hotel. We were amazed to find ourselves the only people being served in this magnificent room. Our table was right in front of one of the huge windows overlooking Fifth Avenue. My sisters kept getting up and standing at the window, their faces pressed against the glass, thrilled to be able to watch the Macy’s Parade go by at such close range.
During lunch, Paul surprised us by saying he had just bought the hotel, but that wasn�
��t his only announcement. He said that because Ware had done such a great job handling publicity for the Museum of Natural History, he had invited him to become head of public relations for the Pierre. Ware was happy to accept.
The Pierre was—and still is—an elegant hotel that stood forty-two stories high on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 61st Street, overlooking Central Park. Having fallen into bankruptcy with the Depression, its suites were half empty, there were no patrons in the Cotillion Room, and it had a bar no one could find. Even in its run-down condition, as soon as Paul saw it, he realized its potential. He also realized that it was a bargain. Built in 1930 for $15 million, Paul paid $2.5 million for it.
The changes he made after he took ownership turned the Pierre into one of the smartest hotels in the city, on a par with the Plaza, the Sherry-Netherland, and the Ritz. At Ware’s suggestion, a new door was installed on the corner of Fifth and 61st, making the bar accessible from the sidewalk. Soon everyone who was anyone became regulars of the Cafe Pierre. The once-deserted Cotillion Room became the most sought-after spot in the city for dinner dances, coming-out parties, and charity galas. Suddenly, reservations became hard to come by, as Hollywood stars and the cream of society from around the world flocked to the hotel. At last, the Pierre came into its own.
Around Christmastime, Mother gave an engagement party for Paul and me at her home in Greenwich. She was planning to take my sisters out to the coast for the rest of the winter, and wanted to do this for me before she left. I suppose it was kind of old-fashioned, considering we didn’t expect to be married for a year, but Mother thought it the right thing to do. All of our closest friends, among them boys I’d dated in my childhood, came to meet Paul, “the mystery man” from California.
Among the guests was Bill Gaston. Originally, he was a friend of Betzi and Fred, then Betzi had introduced him to Jean. Now Jeannie was mad for him. Bill was everything she’d dreamed of in a man. He lived on an island in Maine in the summer, and in an apartment overlooking the East River in the winter, and roamed the world in between. He was handsome, rugged, intelligent, charming, and a rebel, like Jean. We were all happy that she was so in love, even though we weren’t too sure about Bill. A Harvard man from a good family, he’d already been married twice. Both of his exes were actresses. He had a bit of a reputation for playing the field, and I didn’t want Jeannie to get hurt.
Alone Together: My Life With J. Paul Getty Page 7
