by Nancy Bacon
He would use any excuse to get me over to his place in Hollywood for ‘stimulating conversation,’ he would tell me. However, I lived in the valley and had long since tired of the streets of Hollywood. One day he invited me over to help him decorate his new apartment. (He had just moved up two floors higher but in the same building.) He had purchased a large number of bookshelves and wanted me to show him how to put them up. (I’m famous for my carpentry.) We smoked some grass, drank some champagne, giggled a lot, put up the bookshelves (I did all the work while Allan sprawled on the thick carpet and regaled me with hilarious anecdotes of famous people).
He had the most interesting knick-knacks around his apartment and, of course, each one held a different memory for him, which he shared with me. He had a large glass block sitting in the middle of his kitchen table which was filled with everything imaginable; paper clip, credit card, condom, roach, champagne cork, etc. Whenever something he had represented a special event for him, he would drop it in the glass block. It was filled with Karo syrup and the objects would drift slowly like sand in an hour glass. It was fascinating to watch and even though I saw it at least a hundred times I was always able to find something new. Allan called it his scrap book.
Another treasure was a gigantic, tissue-paper moose head with antlers that touched the ceiling. It was painted in wild, bright splashes with a red bulb inside that lighted up the whole affair.
He was writing a novel about love, the lack of it, the need for it, the misuse of it, and each time I saw him he insisted on reading me the latest pages. It was really great and I regret that he did not live to finish it.
Allan’s demise was typical. He died from a lack of love. And he didn’t just sit around his apartment waiting for it to knock on his door. He went out seeking it. Unfortunately, it never answered his call. He told me of a very sad experience he had had at one of those ‘encounter groups’ where everyone gathers together and discusses their problems. Allan’s was simple: Why doesn’t anyone love me?
The doctor told them he wanted them to try an experiment. They were to stand in a circle, men in the center, women on the outside. The ladies would then circle the men and take the hand of the one they wanted to talk with that evening. Allan told me that it was the longest minute of his life. He stood there, eyes squeezed tight, hands held out, heart pounding as he heard the slow footsteps of the women walking past him—and past him, never stopping.
‘Nobody took my hand, Nancy,’ he said, pain and bafflement in his voice. ‘Nobody so much as touched me.’
Poor Allan, he just wanted a human encounter, but no one cared. I’m sorry that I did not love him physically, as he would have liked, but we were close friends. I would always invite him whenever I had a dinner party or a gathering of any kind. He would bounce through the door, jovial, beaming expectantly, then, an hour or so later, he would be slumped on the sofa, breathing heavily, eyes half-closed, wheezing as he gasped for breath even as he lit another cigarette or joint. He was killing himself as surely as if he had put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, but he didn’t seem to care. I was aware of the envy in his eyes when he saw some good-looking stud, sexy and slim, making out with some sexy and slim chick, and I wondered why he tortured himself that way. Maybe it would have been better if he didn’t hang around the so-called beautiful people; maybe it wouldn’t have hurt so much. But he wanted to come to every party I had, insisted, actually, so that I always invited him.
All my friends liked Allan and thought him to be an interesting and intelligent person. Whenever Allan came over the party would turn into group therapy with everyone airing their opinions. I once asked Allan when was the last time he had gotten laid and he broke everyone up by replying, ‘Laid? Christ, I haven’t even seen my cock in over a year!’
Allan died in I974. I was living at Lake Tahoe at the time and a friend of mine called and told mc Allan’s body had been discovered that morning. His death was recorded as a respiratory failure and obesity, but I knew it was a lack of love. I’m sorry I was not in Hollywood when he died. I would have stolen his watch or at least his moose head.
Allan once expressed a desire to be buried like our mutual friend, Osmo, had been. Osmo was a tall, good-looking, blond dope peddler, but not your run of the mill dope peddler. He was a bright, witty, charming and talented artist as well. He was a flamboyant character, shoulder-length blond hair and drooping white mustache, bright blue eyes, and always a million-dollar idea popping into his head. Osmo had a few enemies (as most dealers do) and one night one of these unsavory gentlemen set fire to Osmo’s house and he was killed.
A couple of days later a friend of mine, Vincent St. James, called and invited me to Osmo’s funeral that afternoon at five o’clock in Malibu. I went with my daughter and two friends, Ron Bushore and Lee Silver, and I must confess to being a little startled at the scene. Just as Osmo had not been an ordinary person, his funeral was not an ordinary funeral.
There were perhaps fifty or sixty people milling about on the beach when we arrived, hippies, children, young people, a couple of squares right out of Podunk, an elderly couple that appeared to be in their seventies (they owned the house that Osmo had perished in) and many people that I had known for years. Cosmo, Osmo’s dearest friend, was stunned, red-eyed from weeping and shaking his head about the unfairness and violence of it all. We drank some wine together and swapped Osmo stories, then a young guy called everyone together and asked them to sit down, forming a large circle. At the head of the circle were two cases, one held Southern Comfort Bourbon and the other, Cold Duck Champagne—Osmo’s favorite drinks. The ‘preacher’ then proceeded to open a bottle of each, take a drink, then pass it to the person next to him who did the same. A joint was fired up, clipped to one of Osmo’s famous handmade roach clips and passed around the circle. Then a scoop of cocaine, using Osmo’s coke spoon. It was so bizarre and yet touching that I couldn’t help but notice the crowd. I saw the elderly couple, kind faces wrinkled with age, dim eyes lowered with sadness, as they drew jerkingly on the unfamiliar joint but determined to say goodbye to Osmo the way the rest of his friends were. A few girls were weeping softly, soundlessly, and if they didn’t see the joint when it came to them the person next to them would gently hold it to their lips for them. Others were angry. Cosmo gritted his teeth and cursed the creep who had killed him as well as the cops who had done nothing about it.
We must have sat on that damp sand for over an hour, speaking about our departed buddy as we proceeded to get higher and higher. The cases of booze were almost empty now; the grass had long since been smoked; the sun was sinking behind some craggy rocks and the evening wind was chilly. Staci whispered to Cosmo, ‘Where is Osmo? Can I see him?’
‘He was burned up, little one,’ Cosmo answered softly. ‘He’s cremated—all gone.’ Just then everyone pointed to the sky and said, ‘Look.’ Everyone stared up at the small private plane that was climbing slowly in the sky. As if on cue everyone stood up as the plane circled low over our heads and dropped several dozen white roses and carnations, the delicate petals shivering in the breeze as they sank into the ocean. The pilot swept low, so low that we could see his face, and headed out to sea where he deposited his last package—Osmo himself.
As his ashes scattered and flew on the wind, the sun sank behind a mountain, coloring the sky a blood red. Cosmo thrust one hand high in the air, fist clenched, tears streaming down his cheeks as he shouted huskily, ‘Goodbye, Osmo!’ And one by one every person there raised his arm in the air, face turned up to the sky, and shouted, ‘Goodbye, Osmo!’ The wind grew stronger and whipped hair and scarves across faces and chilled the tears on cheeks but no one made a move to leave until the plane was a mere speck in the far distance.
It was the most beautiful tribute paid to a friend that I had ever witnessed and I was terribly moved by it. Later, when I was telling Allan about it, he looked very wistful when he said, ‘What a marvelous thing-what a touching send-off. I would love to have a funeral lik
e that, to know that so many people loved you—Jesus!’
‘I wish I had balled him,’ I said. ‘That’s my one regret; that I never made love to Osmo.’
‘I think I’ve just come into possession of Osmo’s soul,’ Allan said seriously, looking wisely owl-like in his hornrims. ‘You can ball me and I’ll transfer the pleasure—’
‘Allan, you nut,’ I laughed, and our serious mood was broken.
i shoot down butch cassidy
In the fall of 1968 I had been assigned by the publicity department of 20th Century Fox to write a story on Paul Newman. The story was to accompany a set of photographs which were being shot on the location of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They gave me a pad of paper and a pen and put me on a plane for Mexico City.
At the Mexico City airport I was met by a studio car and driven to some out-of-the-way place that apparently did not have a name because I never heard anyone call it anything. But smack in the middle of all this nothing—somewhere between the sagebrush and the foothills of some mountains-was a castle, and that’s where the driver took me. When we got close I saw that it was a hotel (no town—just a hotel) called the Vista Hermosa, a monstrous rock and brick-faced establishment that had been built by Cortez to entertain his friends and torture his enemies.
The driver carried my bags into the lobby and left me there. I went to the desk, and on my way there, I noticed that the lobby was empty—except for one man who didn’t seem to have any other place to go. While I was filling out the registration card, this fellow ambled over, stood a foot away from me, leaned over my shoulder and watched what I was writing.
Then I saw that it was ole Cool Hand Luke himself. Not exactly what I expected. Not as muscular, not as tall. Slimmer, frailer, but, well, beautiful. Yeah, beautiful—and I didn’t mind him looking over my shoulder at all. Then reason took over and I remembered that I had been sent down there to work and that actors are as touchy as mink and have a tendency to tighten up on magazine writers, so I avoided his glances.
Besides, I was still wounded over Bobby’s death and if Newman reminded me a little of him, well, I did not want to pursue it. However, I could not help but notice that physically he looked very much like Bobby; the same build, almost. The shoulders were wide, the torso long and well developed, and the legs short, rather stumpy. They must shoot upward at him, I thought, to make his legs appear longer. I made a mental note to watch which camera angles they used with him.
Paul’s hair was thin and sandy-gray where Bobby’s had been thick and lush, but the blue eyes were as wary and calculating, and the smile seemed as tentative and shy and warm. No, no, not again. I would not covet someone who could never be mine. I turned swiftly away and made my way toward my assigned room.
It was five o’clock when we met formally (by the pool) with a lot of people around. Paul Newman and I shook hands and we both said polite things and traded quips like strangers do. I felt his eyes on me-they were so blue and he was so magnetic—I knew he wanted to say something personal. Instead, we both gazed at the primitive beauty of the sprawling Mexican landscape. Big bulks of rock, toned red, russet, and brown by the slanting sun, rose majestically in the far distance. The sky was still very blue, bleaching to burnished silver at the horizon where the haze of the evening married it to the soil.
I sneaked a look at Paul as he talked easily with the others. He appeared vulnerable and boyish in his tan Levi’s and moccasins sans socks. His ankles were slim. Then our eyes met and I found myself waiting, as he seemed to be, for the others to leave. And then they did leave and we were alone.
Paul put down his beer and ordered a Scotch, and I had a gin and tonic, and that happened quite a lot after that. I mean, he had another Scotch and I had another gin and tonic and it began to get dark and he said maybe we should have something to eat.
We went into the dining room, which was like a cavern spotted with wooden tables covered with red and white checkered oilcloth. We sat with some of the people from the picture crew, and word got out that I was a writer down there to do a story on Newman. He looked at me strangely for a moment—but only a moment, then his eyes softened. I think I was in love for a while.
After dinner everyone drifted away and we talked, and he got around to asking me if I was really down there to do a story on him. I said I was and he grinned and said, ‘How about that?’ and hit his thigh with his hand like they do in western movies and we both laughed. His eyes were very, very blue and he was deep and full of meaning for me now, and I couldn’t tell it at the time, but we were both pretty drunk. So when he suggested that we go down to the cellar and look at the dungeons where the Spaniards used to torture the enemy, I couldn’t think of a reason why not. And if I could have, I would have dismissed it from my mind.
The dungeons were dark and dank and tiny, and we decided to inspect all the passages. We crawled on our hands and knees, him leading and me following, down one skinny; passage after another until we were lost and in total darkness. But we didn’t care. We stopped and laughed a lot and I remember thinking it was crazy but wonderful—who wouldn’t give anything to be lost in a Mexican dungeon with Paul Newman. Then we saw a light up ahead, a narrow blade of white coming through a rock ceiling half-illuminating a cavern just ahead. It was a bit taller and larger than the others, and we went inside.
We stood amid the spider webs and dirt and it seemed very natural that he should take me into his arms and kiss me. I was willing, eager, and we stood for a long time in that dusty barren cave, me with my head tilted toward him, his mouth on my mouth, and he seemed to be quietly feeding from me and I from him—and I forgot who he was. And he let me go and said something about the stairs and led me to them and took my hand and guided me to a doorway that opened into the lobby. The lobby was filled with people and I tried to pull my hand away, but he held it tight and didn’t seem to mind at all that everyone was staring at us.
It was late and he walked me to the block where our quarters were, through lush gardens, along pebbled walks, and we stopped in front of a building that turned out to be his suite. The moon was in the right place, sky-blue pink it was, not its normal green, but blue like his eyes. We stood with our arms around each other and the moon cast along shadow and it showed him towering above me. Then he chuckled and said something I think the French say, which is like an invitation, like ‘Chez moi?’ which loosely means, ‘My place or yours?’ and I thought about the morning and said mine. I didn’t want some assistant director finding me in Paul’s bed at six in the morning.
We sat like new strangers in my sitting room for a few minutes, nervous, like children, and then he kissed me and after a while he did something he really didn’t have to do. He fell to his knees and clutched me tightly around the waist, his head pressed hard against my breasts, and he whispered, ‘Please.’ Like a small boy asking for a dime. He didn’t have to say it because I had made up my mind a long time ago. Maybe by the pool, maybe at dinner, or in the dungeons. I took him by the hand and led him up the narrow stone stairway that led to my bedroom. He was a most tender and gentle lover and even though the last thing he said to me before he fell asleep was not exactly romantic, it was indicative of his fear, his big hang-up. He took a deep breath and said, ‘Whew! It’s heart attack time, baby!’
I had planned on staying a few days, getting my notes and returning to Hollywood. The few days stretched into a week and more. I guess I will always remember them. He was always honest with me. Not to a fault, though. He never mentioned his wife. But I felt he knew this was not just a casual thing with either of us. I suppose I was in love with him. I suppose he was in love with me. And the little things he did blinded me to the big things.
The things that rammed home later and hurt and made me unhappy.
Like the morning after the first night. He awakened me by throwing a handful of pebbles at my window, and we went to the hotel dining room for breakfast. We sat with some of the picture executives sharing a secret that we reminded each other of n
ow and then by quick, tender glances. Then we drove to the new location in Taxco.
Whoever rationed out the rooms wasn’t very clever. Paul was put in one of the two hotels the company had taken over and I was moved into another on the other side of town. He phoned me in a small panic after he had checked in. ‘What are they trying to do to us?’ he said.
‘Us?’ I said.
He waited a long time before he answered. ‘Yeah,’ he said eventually. ‘How about that?’
We were together every night. And every day on the set we were like children. Wherever I sat, he moved my chair to the closest position he could find to where he was working. And between takes he let me know he liked me in little-boy ways. Like sneaking up behind me and dropping pebbles down the back of my shirt. Or putting his can of beer (he always had a can of beer in his hand when he wasn’t in front of the cameras) on the arm of my chair so that it would fall off and spill when I moved. All sorts of silly, sweet, kid games. I enjoyed these little things as much as he did, because they said something we couldn’t say out loud. Sure, I was aware that I was involved with a married man. I knew all about his ‘happy marriage’ and the fable about Hollywood’s most well-adjusted couple. But if he had been all that happy at home he certainly wouldn’t have made such a play for me!
We only mentioned his wife once, as I recall. It was when the conversation got around to astrology and I guessed his sign to be Aquarius. He was delighted that I was able to do that. Then I told him Joanne was Pisces and he was amazed. (Thereafter, he would bring people over to me on the set and ask me to guess their sun sign. He was always delighted and proud when I guessed correctly.) When I told him I was a Leo, he flipped. Leo and Aquarius together are like milk and honey. Pisces and Aquarius are like a hungry eagle and a lost rabbit. I thought for a minute he was going to say ‘I made a mistake’—but he didn’t—he just frowned.
