Legends and Lipstick: My Scandalous Stories of Hollywood's Golden Era

by Nancy Bacon

  The next day we found out what had happened. Johnny’s mistress had met Anthony Quinn in Italy or Greece (we were never sure of the country) and had run off with him. Johnny got drunk and decided to kill himself. He cut his wrists and throat and sat moodily watching them bleed for a few minutes. When he saw that nothing much was happening he drank some rat poison and, as a final act, took all the sleeping medicine he had in his room. However, in Paris they did not sell sleeping potions in pill form; they were, instead, suppositories. But this hadn’t daunted our tragic Romeo—he stuffed twenty-five suppositories up his rump and waited for death to come. Can you believe it? He actually survived all this!

  Another of our neighbors got into a bit of a row during that gray, moody period in Paris. She was a Boston school teacher who had been saving all her life for a trip to Paris. She was thirty-eight and not bad-looking, but she wore proper suits and her shoes had sensible heels. We got to be friends and one day I suggested that if she wore a little makeup, got rid of her glasses, and bought some sexy French clothes she’d be a real knockout. She agreed immediately and we made her over. The result was fantastic! She looked like Ava Gardner and with her new wardrobe and makeup, she acquired a new personality. We would wave her off every evening as she went tripping into a taxi for another night on the town.

  About six o’clock one morning, Jim and I heard this terrific crash, followed by rapid, angry French. We peeked outside and saw our Boston schoolteacher standing helplessly by, clad only in a transparent French gown, as the management flung her trunk and suitcases from her upstairs window. Seems she had wandered into the Algerian section, had a few belts of the local grog, picked up six studs, and brought them home with her where they got into an all-night orgy! (Paris does strange things to people.)

  You can’t blame the management for kicking her and the boys out. Just a few days before, the Algerians had started a riot at a newspaper office on the Champs Elysees. They were tossing furniture out of the windows and trying to do as much damage as possible before the cops arrived. Jim and I were sitting at a sidewalk cafe, watching the action with interest (we were so close that a couple of pieces of broken furniture skidded across the sidewalk and landed at our feet), when the waiter appeared, apologized profusely, and removed our drinks from the table. We could have them back, he promised, when the riot was over. I guess people sometimes get caught up in these things and join in the action. The gendarmerie arrived, swinging their huge, leaded capes, and began flooring everyone within range. It was almost a work of art, the way they used those capes, and as I watched them knocking people to their knees, I was reminded how dangerous they could be. The hems of those flowing, heavy capes have lengths of lead in them, and when the cop swings it the result is like being slugged in the teeth with a blackjack. I saw one old woman go down where she lay in the gutter, shaking her fist at the gendarmerie and spitting broken teeth and insults from her bloodied mouth. They soon cleared the streets and sidewalk and, as promised, our drinks were promptly returned.

  Both Jim and I were drinking too much during that period and the constant rain and sunless skies pitched me into dark depression. It was the dreary let-down feeling of what to do now that Christmas and New Year’s was over. I was unhappy and homesick. I missed all my friends and the warm, sunny, familiar Hollywood Hills. I wrote my old pal, Griff, and he wired me the money for a ticket home.

  Tearfully, Jim and I prepared to part. It was useless, we both knew, to try to remain together. One very important reason was that he was still married and his wife was not overly fond of me. Also, over thirty years separated us in age. But the most important reason was his drinking problem. I was not yet twenty-one years old and I had been lover, friend, mother, pet, punching bag, and confidante for two years. I had traveled in a superfast crowd and had learned firsthand all the uglies of life. Needless to say, I was weary.

  My last night in Paris we dined at home, mostly champagne with just a touch of caviar to balance the booze and coat our stomachs. The more of the bubbly we consumed the sadder we became. With our arms wrapped about one another a la Our Gang, balancing our champagne glasses and gazing moodily out at the City of Lights, we tearfully remembered every outrageous act we had ever committed as well as every insane stunt we had pulled.

  The evening was a comedy-tragedy, ending with us falling drunkenly into bed and attempting to make love. Hot candle wax dripped from the wall sconce that hung above the bed, splattering on our bare skin, and it sent us into waves of weepy laughter. We decided that we could not part; we were meant for each other and besides, who else would have us?

  The next afternoon we sailed from Le Havre aboard the S.S. United States, which heaved and rolled for five and a half days to its destination, New York. Jim behaved quite well on the ship; he only threatened to throw me overboard once and was only asked to leave the ship’s bar four times in the five-and-a-half days. It was dawn when we pulled into New York harbor—gray, misty, a yellowish haze shrouding the buildings—and I stood at the rail and watched the Statue of Liberty growing larger and larger. What a thrill to see billboards printed in English with familiar brand names and the roar and smell of that city! I had been away too long.

  The brevity of our reconciliation was exceeded only by its violence and insanity. Jim cut my wrists one drunken evening (I still have the scars) and left me to die in our posh hotel room while he then attended a dinner party at 21. Fortunately, in a moment of reason, he returned to my rescue and had me sewn up at the emergency hospital, where I quipped that the young intern would have made one hell of a fine tailor. That cute little remark got me a psychiatric examination at Bellevue. That was the most memorable violence.

  The most memorable insanity (and there were many) was when Jim had had a query turned down by a local and well-known magazine editor on the grounds that ‘he (Jim) was too fucking drunk to write his own obituary.’ Jim carefully planned his revenge. He bought a bag of prunes and a fifth of Scotch and sat down, grinning his satyr’s grin as he gleefully lapped up both fruit and booze. The next day, when the editor had gone out to lunch, Jim sneaked into his private office and pulled out the top drawer of the sleek, expensive mahogany desk. He climbed upon the desk, perched upon the edge, dropped his trousers, and relieved himself into the drawer. Replacing both the drawer and his trousers, he went whistling out of the building, his vengeance complete.

  I found Jim’s pranks hilarious and brilliant when they involved other people, but too often his barbs were aimed at me. I decided (for the hundredth time) that I had had it. I packed my bags and called TWA, vowing never to see him again.

  home again

  I had only been back in the states a couple of weeks when I ran into Vince Edwards at a local Beverly Hills gin mill. He tossed me boisterously into the air, kissing me on the way down, and we left immediately for his hilltop home.

  Vince had changed in those two years that had passed. He was cagey, wary of strangers, and anybody with a pencil and piece of paper sent the hair up on the back of his neck. His success, even though over ten years coming, was just as difficult to handle as the rock idol who makes it in less than a month. He was suddenly named as the latest lover of this aspiring starlet or that aging actress, and guys who needed a publicity break told national fan magazines that they had grown up with Vince in the Brooklyn streets. People who had not given him so much as a nod last year were suddenly inviting him to their most intimate dinner parties, and everywhere he went fifty thousand screaming teenyboppers ripped his clothes and gurgled for his blood. He was mobbed everywhere he went and the most outrageous stories were written about him in the current crop of trash publications.

  His gambling became the most talked-about item of gossip among underground Hollywood since Errol Flynn’s statutory rape charges and Bob Mitchum’s marijuana bust. He hadn’t a free moment. He did not know who were friends, enemies, or just parasites. He became as surly off-screen as on, and many a miffed lady journalist went smarting to her typewriter to tell
tire world that sexy, virile Vince was really just a rude, crude street kid who had let fame go to his head. This wasn’t true, of course. He spent agonizing hours with his analyst trying to find out who and why he was. He tried to grow and all he asked was to be allowed free space to grow in. He shook off the Hollywood bloodsuckers with a snarl and the back of his hairy paw, and everyone knew that you didn’t fuck with Vince Edwards unless you knew his mother’s maiden name.

  Therefore, he was delighted to see a familiar face and a friend who had loved him when he was nothing more than a trying-to-get-there actor. We talked for days about my European travels and the crazy Irishman I had gotten strung out on. Vince gave me some advice on what to do with my life and I, in turn, tried to understand what he was doing with his. After several dates where we were seen at Don the Beachcombers or the Cock and Bull, Vince grinned wryly at me and said, ‘You realize, of course, they’ll (the press) will have us secretly married and sneaking off to Tijuana for an abortion because my career comes before a family!’

  ‘Just tell them I loved you before you grew all that chest hair,’ I replied, and we laughed all the way to the bedroom.

  Vince and I remained close friends through the years, even though we didn’t see each other as often. When he flipped for the sexy Kathy Kersh, I was the first to know that he planned to marry her. And when the marriage ended in divorce a year later, it was my shoulder he cried on. Every afternoon for almost two weeks he stopped by my house and talked about Kathy. She had hurt him badly. His ego was in pretty sorry shape. When she walked out on him for Burt Ward, the ‘Robin’ of the old Batman series, Vince was furious and bewildered.

  ‘It’s not the greatest compliment in the world,’ Vince told me, ‘knowing that my old lady prefers that puny punk to me. But what really hurts is knowing that a couple of kids will be raising my daughter.’ (He and Kathy had had a baby whom Vince simply adored.)

  In the end, my old buddy took the divorce in style and consoled himself with tribes of eager starlets and panting groupies who visited his bachelor adobe nightly. He still played the ponies regularly, just like in the old days, but instead of placing five-dollar bets and maybe losing twenty bucks a day, he now laid down a staggering fifty or sixty thousand dollars in just one afternoon! But he could afford it. He had been wise enough to get a piece of the Ben Casey action rather than just an actor’s salary.

  As everyone knows, once you’ve been out of the Hollywood scene for more than ten minutes, your name is totally forgotten and no one will admit to remembering your face. I had been away for some time, so it was a lucky break for me to be reintroduced on the hairy arm of the currently reigning sex symbol. One evening Vince and I attended a sneak preview at The Academy Theater and ran into Hugh O’Brian, with the ever-present gorgeous lady draped upon his arm. It had been four years since I’d last seen him.

  a handkerchief for liz

  Elizabeth Taylor. What can one say about Elizabeth that hasn’t already been said? That she was as kind as she was extravagant; as soft-hearted as she was infamous? Volumes have been written about her. Her every move has been dutifully recorded by her adoring fans and turned into screaming headlines, from the harsh accusations, ‘Home-wrecker!’ to the tear-jerking proclamation, ‘Courageous Liz Faces Death!’ Her every thought and feeling has been blown up into gigantic proportions, almost dwarfing the woman herself. She was the target of the most outlandish accusations and predictions of anyone in show business back then.

  I talked to Richard Hanley (Elizabeth’s long-lime secretary) one day about his famous boss and what she was really like. I had, of course, talked with her on many occasions myself over the years, but I wanted a really intimate viewpoint: the viewpoint of someone who had lived closely with her and knew her when she was frightened and unhappy. I was doing an article on Elizabeth and asked Dick a few questions about life with Liz.

  ‘I’ll never forget the first time I ever saw Elizabeth,’ Richard Hanley smiled fondly. ‘It was back in ’43 or ’44—somewhere around that time. I was working at MGM at the time, for Louis Mayer.’ Dick shook his head and smiled as he recalled that day so long ago. He had been sitting at his desk, occupying himself with letters and memos, when he heard loud noises coming from behind the elaborate door leading to the most inner sanctum of MGM. He was, to put it mildly, used to the racket. On the other side of the door, Louis B. Mayer, the greatest mogul Hollywood has ever known, was ‘straightening out’ an actress—something he was celebrated for.

  In this straightening out process he used many devices. He had been known to fall to his knees and weep before a stubborn actor who did not fear him, to make a point. He often roared in rage and threatened to destroy them in the business. And there are reports that he did exactly that, in collusion with other film tycoons, on more than one occasion. He was known to have physically assaulted others, for he was a burly, powerful man and had floored actors and agents when it seemed the thing to do, or when his verbal intimidation technique wasn’t working.

  On this day, however, there were two females on the carpet. A grown woman (known as a stage mother in the trade) and a child actress, age twelve, terrified and not understanding, named Elizabeth Taylor.

  Because there were only the three of them in the office and the harangue was filtered through the heavy door, no real record of the substance of the tirade exists. But the secretary, Richard Hanley, knew it well.

  Mayer, florid, sweaty, his mouth filled with street language, was jumping up and down in a more or less feigned anger (they say he could rush the blood to his face, simulating apoplexy at will) and shouting at the woman and child that they would damn well do the picture he wanted them to do, when he wanted them to do it, or the child would never work again. And it is in that office that she may have acquired such an ambition. Mayer pushed his face in close, within inches, of Mrs. Taylor’s, and spouted one or two expletives and clenched his fists as though he intended to floor her. With a scream of fear, the child, Elizabeth, turned and ran to the door, snatching at the weighty knob and tugging, wanting to get out of there. She was gorgeous even then and tears streamed down her cheeks, sobs almost strangling her as she got the door open and raced into the outer office, leaving her mother alone with the big bad man.

  As Elizabeth charged from the room, Hanley looked up from his work. As she raced by him, he reached out and took her in his arms.

  The little girl was frightened for a moment, then Hanley smiled at her. His eyes were kind. ‘Don’t be frightened,’ he said. ‘All this business is really just nonsense. It isn’t real life. He won’t hurt your mother.’

  Then he picked the sobbing child up and sat her on his lap. He took out his handkerchief and dried her eyes, then handed the hanky to her. ‘Blow,’ he said. Elizabeth did. She smiled at him. ‘That’s better,’ Hanley said and as she started to give the handkerchief back to him, he said, ‘Keep it. You may not be through crying yet.’ And without realizing it, he had made a prophecy.

  When she was settled, the hanky now a ball in her tiny fist, Hanley kissed her on the cheek. ‘Whenever anyone gives you any trouble or frightens you on this lot,’ he said, ‘you come and see me. I’ll look after you.’

  Years passed. Many years, as Hollywood standards are, and the frightened child had become one of the most important stars in filmdom. Stature was the name of the game and she had it. At the box office, in the newspapers and magazines, even in the fickle hearts of movie-goers—some of them because of her extraordinary beauty, many of them because she had become a superb actress.

  But things had taken a turn for the worse with Hanley. The tycoon, Mayer, had been deposed of his seat of power and one day Hanley, who had been with him for some twenty-odd years, was suddenly handed his walking papers. He was stunned, hurt, and worried about the future. Mayer didn’t have many friends and his close employees were not particularly liked either. Richard Hanley found himself facing an uncertain future.

  Then he got a telephone call. It was Elizabeth
Taylor, asking him to drop around to her house at his convenience, as she would like to talk to him.

  He did.

  Richard sat across from Elizabeth in her splendid living room feeling almost as though he should have a hat in his hands in the presence of such eminence. But she was warm and even a little shy. ‘Dick,’ she said, ‘I heard about what happened. I don’t know what your plans are, but I want to make you an offer. Come to work for me, as my secretary. I will pay you more than Mayer did—what you are really worth—and you will have a job with me as long as you want to work.’ The violet eyes sparkled and she added, ‘And I won’t abandon you.’

  Hanley was stunned. From despair, he was facing heaven. He managed to stutter one word. ‘Why?’

  Elizabeth smiled and got to her feet and left the room, returning a moment later with something in her hand. She sat reside him on the sofa and put the object in his hand. He stared at it. It was a handkerchief. He admitted to being choked-up at what was happening. ‘It’s the one you gave me quite a few years ago,’ she said. ‘I’ve always kept it.’ Hanley picked up the handkerchief, not knowing what to say. Elizabeth smiled. ‘Blow,’ she said.

  Richard Hanley was Elizabeth’s secretary for the rest of his life. When he started getting on in years and was ill much of the time, Elizabeth flatly refused to replace him. Instead, she supplied him with two secretaries to help carry the load so that he might function as she knew he wanted to.