Alone Together: My Life With J. Paul Getty

by Theodora Getty Gaston

  Traveling from California to England was not a plane ride in those days. The Super Chief took me as far as Chicago, where I changed trains and boarded the 20th Century Limited to New York. In New York, I embarked on Paul’s favorite ship, the SS Normandie, bound for Southampton. Certainly travel had a glamour, an excitement not felt today. There was always the thrill of boarding, the quick search of the passenger list for friends, the invitation on the first night out to join the captain’s table for dinner, the movies, morning walks on the deck, the dancing, the parties, and the hours to catch up on one’s reading. But traveling alone, leaving the one you love, even though it would be for only a few months, seemed to take forever.

  As soon as I arrived in London, I phoned Paul to say “I miss you,” and that I’d taken a flat at Eresby House in Rutland Gate. I also wanted to catch him up on my social life. “I was invited to dine at the home of Baron Frédéric d’Erlanger, an old friend of Marchesi who lives in a magnificent house directly across the park from where I now live. He is a very elegant, older gentleman, also the composer of the ballet Les Cent Baisers. His brother, Baron Emile d’Erlanger, and his nephew, Baron Leo, were invited, too, so I was the only girl at the dinner table. It was a first for me, having a liveried manservant stand behind each chair while we dined. Then off we went to Covent Garden to hear Lotte Lehmann in the role of the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. She was sensational. Afterward we had supper at Quaglino’s—remember, you took me there last year? After dancing one dance with Leo, they drove me home promptly at midnight, in Baron Frédéric’s Rolls.”

  “Stop, Teddy dear,” Paul said, laughing. “You should have written all this to me. It’s extremely interesting, but, darling, just think of your telephone bill. Remember, Eresby House charges are added on top of the outside long distance charges.”

  “Well, Paul,” I said, realizing he was right, but terribly excited, “I just wanted you to know who I was going out with.”

  “I’m glad to know, darling, and I’ll never be jealous as long as you date men in their eighties. In the meantime, go to bed, young lady. Tomorrow, I’ll call you! Bye.”

  For the next month, I earnestly obeyed Marchesi and studied the roles she had given me. I sang the part of Cherubino from Le nozze di Figaro, remembering that Marchesi was adamant that Cherubino’s aria “Voi che sapete” must be sung as Mozart had written it. She reminded me that in Rossini’s époque, singers started slurring from one phrase to the next. “It is bad taste to do this with eighteenth-century songs,” she declared, then added, “When you are singing a beautiful high note, never push. Enjoy it. When singing Charlotte’s aria ‘Va! Laisse couler mes larmes’ from Massenet’s Werther, the singer must never be so emotional as to bring herself to tears. It is for your public to cry.”

  Much as I loved studying with Madame Marchesi, and much as I had learned from her and grown as a singer, for me there was still the problem of where she had placed my voice. She was sure I was a mezzo-soprano, not a soprano, which meant that the roles I most wanted to sing would always be out of reach.

  CHAPTER 16

  MADAME CAHIER

  After attending the Mozart Festival at Glyndebourne, the phone rang. It was Paul. “I want you to join me in Rome, to meet Madame Sarah Cahier. She is a famous contralto and now teaches. Marian Anderson recommends her. I want Cahier to hear you sing, and give us her opinion as to the correct placement of your voice. Oh, and be sure to let me know the train, the date, and the hour of your departure from London. I’ll meet you. Bye, sweetheart.”

  Within a fortnight, I left London with a promise to see Madame Marchesi when I returned. I notified Paul of the date and hour of my departure, the number of the train and of my compartment, and took off on the Simplon Express for Rome.

  As the train roared into the station at Milan and came to a screaming stop, I looked out the window at the crowd on the platform and looked into the faces of those boarding the train, and those waiting to wave farewell. Faces! Some happy, some sad—all of them faces of strangers to me. Suddenly I felt so alone—and just as suddenly, I looked into the face of a man I knew. The man I loved. Paul!

  Seconds later, he rushed into my compartment and in minutes (or so it seemed), the porter banged on the door and shouted, “Roma!”

  Madame Cahier lived in an apartment on the second floor of a palazzo owned by Prince Massimo on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele. A gracious, rather small and slender lady in her late sixties, with graying, reddish-brown hair, she met us at the head of the marble steps.

  “Paul Getty, what a pleasure,” she said, as he took her outstretched hand. Looking at me, she smiled and said, “So you are Teddy . . . come in.”

  We followed her into the immense drawing room, and within minutes were seated and served tall tumblers of cool lemonade by a young Italian girl no older than fourteen, dressed in white, who noiselessly made her way in and out of the large room, her bare feet almost dancing across the marble floor. She made me wish I were barefoot. I then presented Madame Cahier with a gift, a kit she had asked me to bring her from Harrods in London, which was supposed to stop a person from smoking cigarettes.

  It wasn’t long before we learned Cahier was an American, born Sarah Walker in Nashville, Tennessee. Having married Charles Cahier, a Swede, I immediately nicknamed her Madame Notebook, the English translation of the French word cahier. She had studied with the great tenor Jean de Reszke in Berlin, and had sung leading roles in Dresden, Munich, Paris, Berlin, and Copenhagen, as well as at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She told us she would be in Rome only for a few more months, as her desire to return to America was overwhelming, now that war seemed imminent.

  “But, my dear Teddy, let me hear you sing now. You have come a long way for my opinion, and we are wasting precious time speaking of a war you and I can do so little about. Our business is to bring beautiful music to the world . . . so let us do a few exercises first to warm up the voice. We’ll be ready for a song or aria when my accompanist Hans arrives.”

  Hans Hasl, a delightful and very handsome young Viennese who played the piano beautifully, arrived a few minutes later. I sang an early Italian song, then the aria “Bel raggio lusinghier” from Rossini’s opera Semiramide, which had originally been written for the contralto voice.

  Paul and Madame Cahier sat at the far end of the room, facing the piano. When I finished singing, Cahier rushed over to me, took my hands in hers, and said, “Brava, Teddy, that was beautifully done. I’m astonished that you have the ability to sing the fioritura passages with such agility. This is a wonderful tribute to Marchesi. She has given you a fine foundation. Your voice is ‘even’ from the lowest notes to the top, but I cannot understand why she has classified you as a mezzo-soprano. Although your lower notes are rich and warm, I find your top register thrilling. Perhaps at this point in your development she did not want you to force the top, but I definitely think you are a soprano.”

  In seconds Paul moved to the piano. “That’s just what I’ve always said about Teddy’s voice. A mezzo-soprano doesn’t have the thrilling high notes that she has, and that’s why I have always been convinced she is a soprano in the making.”

  Cahier smiled a knowing smile. “Paul, you obviously sense a voice as well as you sense oil! If you both agree, I will work with Teddy until I leave for America, agreed?”

  “Agreed!” we answered.

  She then showed us through her apartment and said, “In the meantime, unless you prefer to stay in a hotel, Teddy, you may stay here with me in the other wing. Would you like to see it?”

  My private quarters were exquisite. The bedroom was two stories high. My bed was an enormous, ornate piece of furniture covered in luscious white velvet, and the headboard, gilded pipes of what was once part of a church organ with two gilded cherubs holding white velvet drapes from ceiling to floor, which, of course, was of white marble. The bathroom, fit for a princess, boasted an enormous tub. Over it, at one end, knelt a lovely nude Venus statue, holding an a
labaster jar from which poured the water. At the end of the hall, French doors opened onto a very private terrace with a little fountain, a round table, several chairs, an umbrella, and an inviting chaise longue. It was soon to become my perfect, quiet, open-air study hall. Below was the Piazza Navona, where ancient Romans had once held their chariot races.

  An ancient fountain with a deep well stood in the center of the courtyard and doubled as our refrigerator, where two young little Italian girls, Silvia and Maria, kept our milk and butter cooling there from the heat. They lived below, with the portiera—the gatekeeper, or concierge. I was fortunate that the girls were very talkative when serving me breakfast each morning. Since they didn’t speak English, their conversations helped my Italian tremendously. I found it absolutely fascinating to have to ring a bell for the portiera to let me onto the grounds of the Palazzo Massimo after a certain hour. She’d have to open a little door within a door, right in the middle of the huge bronze main door facing the street. It was kept open all day, but meticulously closed and bolted after nightfall. It gave me the strangest feeling of living in the Middle Ages.

  Paul took a suite at the Hotel Excelsior on the Via Veneto. We spent each day together, after my lessons with Cahier. We walked through Rome, rode through it, danced through it, wined and dined in it. We shopped, visited the Vatican, stood in awe before the Apollo Belvedere, and strained our necks in the Sistine Chapel under Michelangelo’s magnificent ceiling. We drove a little rented car down the Appian Way, stopping for fettuccine and wine at the tiny restaurant opposite the entrance to the catacombs. We then followed a flickering candle in the hand of our priestly guide, and made our way through the musty tunnels, where the early Christians hid. Whenever we came upon the skeleton of some martyr, I’d reach for Paul’s hand.

  To me, one of Paul’s most attractive qualities was his delight and ability to surprise people. One day, as I walked into his suite at the Excelsior, he calmly announced, “We are about to be carved in marble by Pier Gabriele Vangelli, a great sculptor whom I have just met.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Right now,” he replied.

  “Where?”

  “In here,” he said. “In the bedroom. It has the best light.”

  We walked into the bedroom to find it had been already transformed into a sculptor’s studio. Sunlight from the open window shone on a huge chunk of gray clay resting on a movable tripod. The floor was covered with a tarp, and a vigorous man, undoubtedly Vangelli, dashed back and forth, muttering to himself as he watered down the clay and began molding it with his artistic hands.

  “Darling, may I present Signor Vangelli,” Paul said.

  With that, Vangelli excitedly took my hand in his wet one and kissed it. “Mademoiselle Teddy, I will capture your rare beauty for eternity.” Then in his broken English he said, “Donta move,” and slowly he walked around me as if to memorize every detail of my bone structure. Turning to Paul, he pointed to my face and with passion cried, “Il naso è perfetto. You are a fine patrician beauty, I will capture it.”

  This made me laugh, but I managed to say “Grazie, signore.” After two weeks of us posing, he finished the first models of us in clay, the likenesses remarkable. Next he made plaster casts of our heads. Finally, we chose the Carrara marble out of which Vangelli would chisel his final work.

  A month later, standing in an unheated, undecorated, shedlike workshop on a plank floor worn by time and usage, rain beating down on the skylight roof, Vangelli, with a great sweeping gesture, removed the canvas coverings from his completed work . . . and we stared at our faces in marble.

  They were striking. “Paul, your likeness is fantastic,” I said.

  “Well, yours is magnificent,” he replied. “Vangelli, you’ve truly captured her beauty.” Laughingly he turned to the sculptor and added, “Il naso è perfetto.”

  More than seventy-four years later, Paul’s marble bust can be seen just inside the entrance to the Getty Museum in Brentwood, California, while mine sits on the floor of my living room—where I left it after the last earthquake—next to my piano in my home in Venice, California.

  Dolly Mills de Mastrogianni, wife of a famous music critic in Argentina, came to hear me sing one afternoon. Being part of the social and musical circles of Rome and knowing Cahier was leaving for California, she insisted that I sing for Maestro Julio Moreschi. “Your voice is beautiful and he will continue to prepare your repertoire and roles for the opera.” Cahier agreed and, when she left, I moved to the Ambasciatori Hotel, across from the Excelsior and the American Embassy on the Via Veneto, then dashed over to No. 11 Lungotevere Anguillara in Trastevere to the studio of Julio Moreschi, which was next door to the house in which “The Immortal Dante” had lived.

  Julio Moreschi was the son of one of the last great singers of the nineteenth century, a male soprano. He had sung as a member of the Cappella Sistina, and was a man devoted to pasta, the art of singing, and his love of people. Short in stature, with a sweet face and a huge smile, he greeted me at his doorway, dark-rimmed glasses hiding the gleam within his eyes. After hearing me sing, he pronounced me a soprano.

  Soon after this, Paul, Vangelli, Moreschi, and I had dinner at Alfredo’s. The great maestro of the restaurant, Alfredo di Lelio himself, stood before us in his chef’s hat and starched white apron, and in his hand was the large fork needed to mix the pasta. Then, in tune with his musicians, Alfredo performed his magic and we feasted on his work of art, “fettuccine Alfredo.” After Vangelli left, Paul turned to Moreschi, whose white napkin was still tied about his neck, his hand on the last of the wine in his glass, and asked, “Quanto tempo chivolle?” (“How much time will she need?”)

  Taking his napkin from his neck and applying it to his mouth, Moreschi answered, “Non piu di tre mese” (“No more than three months”). Then in French he went on, “I believe we can get her into an opera here to start her off. If she makes her debut in Italy, even in a small opera company to begin with, it would be good for her.” Between the two of them, they made the decision that I should study at least for three more months, do some concerts, and maybe an opera. When I was ready, Moreschi could arrange it. An hour later, we left Alfredo’s, Moreschi singing “Core ’ngrato” like no one since Caruso.

  CHAPTER 17

  MARRIED IN ROME

  It was late August when Jeannie telephoned that she was in Rome to meet her new husband, who was due to arrive in a few days. I was amazed it wasn’t Bill Gaston.

  That evening Paul invited her to dine with us on the terrace of my hotel . . . the Ambasciatori. Seated next to us was Count Ciano, Mussolini’s Foreign Minister (and son-in-law), and Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s Foreign Minister. The presence of von Ribbentrop in Rome, amid other intimations of war, imposed a pall over every one of the otherwise carefree diners. Even our conversation took on a quieter tone and Paul noticeably hurried us through dinner. We left quickly. On the way to the elevator, he leaned over to kiss me good night and whispered, “Teddy, darling, be prepared to leave Rome. There are rumors of an all-out war and, if anything happens in the next few days, I want you out of Italy. Jean, too. She has a car, drive to Switzerland and I’ll join you at the Victoria-Jungfrau in Interlaken. I have two meetings here tomorrow afternoon that are very important. I’ll take the train tomorrow night.”

  Very early the next morning, the phone rang. It was Paul, he said, “Go.”

  We left immediately in Jean’s Fiat and drove to Villa d’Este in Lake Como. At sunrise the next morning, we took off for Switzerland. We drove over Monte Rosa, the Rhone Glacier, and the Furka Pass, up and down those narrow mountain roads. At nightfall a heavy fog set in, and, at 7,500 feet, one cylinder in the car went “poof.” The lights went dim, and I had to get out and walk slowly in front of the car with our flashlight, leading the way for Jean to drive the precarious roads. It was scary, and at moments I couldn’t see the road at all.

  Fortunately, after a few miles the headlights of the car came back on.
I jumped in and we continued on to Interlaken, thankful that the little Fiat had gotten us over the mountains and out of Italy before all private cars were confiscated. Even the Swiss guards at the border were amazed to see two American girls at such a late hour. Arriving at the hotel in Interlaken, we found that Paul had reserved a beautiful suite for us facing the Jungfrau. Jeannie and I each had a mug of hot, delicious Swiss chocolate, then climbed into our beds and fell sound asleep.

  The following day, Paul arrived and was I glad to see him. He was pretty happy to see me, too. When I told him of our trip across the Alps, especially the part when I had to walk in front of the car with the flashlight, he said, “Teddy, you could have been killed. Those roads are icy and difficult, even in daylight. One wrong turn and you . . .”

  “I know,” I said, interrupting him, “but I thought you wanted us to keep going and not stop till we arrived at Interlaken, and that’s what we did.”

  “And we made it,” Jeannie added.

  “Yes, you did, thank God,” was all Paul could say.

  Later, when we were alone, he took me in his arms and said, “Darling, please, be more careful. I don’t want to lose you, and I almost did.”

  At dinner that night, Jean contacted her husband and left the next day to meet him. So there I was, alone in our big suite. Outside there was a full moon shining down on the snowcapped mountains. I opened the door to the terrace and stepped out. What a world greeted me . . . so clean . . . so fresh . . . so icy cold. I looked up into the heavens, took a huge breath, filled my lungs, and wanted to shout “Hallelujah.” Instead, I took a shower, wrapped my fur coat around me, and tiptoed barefoot down the hallway of the hotel to Paul’s room.