Walking with the Muses

by Pat Cleveland

  Praying to God to help me be brave and singing an old Stephen Foster song to quell my fears, I crawled back into another tunnel that I thought would be the one to lead me out. It wasn’t the right one, but luckily, I met up with another guide, who helped me. Pelito was nowhere to be seen, but when I got out into the blinding light of day—my God, what a relief!—there was Pelito, sitting casually on a rock. And then he got angry at me for singing, “Oh Susanna, don’t you cry for me” like a loud, boorish American. I understand that it may have been annoying, but I’d begun singing it because he’d left me alone underground and it helped me feel less afraid. With Pelito, I realized, my heart sinking, I was on my own. I had to learn to be strong. That was one of the lessons of our relationship. And to be fair, it was a useful one. I had never depended on a man before, and I don’t know what had possessed me to think I should start now, and with Pelito, of all people.

  We stayed only one night in Cairo—we didn’t have money for two—and the next day we made our way through insane Cairo traffic to the train station. The drivers in Cairo were unlike any I’d seen anywhere; it was as if they were trying to hit one another and any pedestrians they could. There were no rules or traffic lights, the roads were unpaved, and left turns were made from far-right lanes (insofar as there were lanes).

  At the station, pure chaos reigned, with live chickens pecking around underfoot, people with baskets instead of luggage, and the pervasive smells of body odor and rotting produce in the air. The few women we saw were dressed in burkas; Pelito had already decided that I should pretend to be a boy to avoid notice. It was easy to pass because I was so skinny and dressed in pants and a T-shirt, with my short hair tucked under a cap. As we headed for the train—I was limping from straining my back in the Pyramids, and my only concern was finding shade and a seat—I blended right in because of my skin tone. So did Pelito, except for his bright green eyes. We looked so much alike that we could have been brothers.

  The train was made of wood and resembled something out of the 1800s. We found a place on the wooden benches between the veiled women and the bearded men with faces so deeply wrinkled from the sun that they looked like road maps. The eyes of our fellow passengers were dark and smiling as the train started, and the heat and dust coming in through the open windows got even more intense. Pelito and his smaller, younger brother were on their way to Luxor.

  The rest of our time in Egypt was exhausting but rewarding. Whatever else there is to say about Pelito, he was an extraordinary photographer and he took great pictures of me, both as a woman (for 19 and other magazines) and as a boy, which was pretty much the way I dressed the whole time I was in Egypt. There is one of me in the Nile with a hippopotamus lurking nearby that I still marvel at. How did he ever get that shot?

  Things fell apart after we left Egypt and went to Greece for a few days of R&R. We were on the island of Mykonos when Pelito pulled his disappearing act again, this time for three days. Sick with worry, I had no idea where he was or if he was okay. Finally, someone in the town told me that she had seen him on Paradise Beach, one of the resort areas in another part of the island. I took a boat over to that region and went hunting for him, and lo and behold—there he was, lying on the beach naked, in a clinch with a new lover! That did it. I was so angry, I pulled him by the hair, then took a big rock and aimed it right at his head. (He was lucky I had poor aim and missed.) I left him there, got my stuff together in my rucksack, and took off.

  But there was a wee problem: I didn’t know where to go. I had signed over my apartment in Paris to another model because I’d been delusional enough to believe that Pelito and I were headed for happily ever after. I couldn’t face the thought of living in another hotel out of a suitcase. And then the thought came to me: Maybe I should go back to America. When I’d moved to Europe to find better professional opportunities, I’d vowed not to return to the States (to live, that is) until a black woman appeared on the cover of American Vogue. Well, that had just happened: The August 1974 issue had made history by featuring the face of Beverly Johnson, a stunningly beautiful African-American, on its cover. If I wanted to go back, there was nothing stopping me; I had nothing more to prove in terms of modeling. And if, as I hoped (but rarely articulated because it sounded so arrogant), to launch a performing career, then New York or Los Angeles was the place to be. I knew my agent, Zoli Rendessy, would put me up in his townhouse on the Upper East Side. Why not give it a try?

  Pondering my next step, I lugged my rucksack down the main street of Mykonos’s main town. A nice older Greek man, a poet named Anastasi, said hello and asked me to have a lemonade with him. I ended up staying with Anastasi at his gorgeous home in the country, in a totally chaste relationship (though he would have liked it to be otherwise), for several days of perfect serenity, until I was able to gather my wits about me and book a flight to New York. Anastasi kept asking me to stay a little longer, but at that point the prospect of living in a place that lacked indoor plumbing held zero appeal for me, even if it did have a wide-open, unobstructed view of the Aegean. I was ready for the asphalt jungle of New York City.

  chapter 44

  THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY

  The New York Post ran a picture of me with Richard Avedon at the opening of his photography exhibition in 1975. That was the night I met Warren Beatty (bottom center).

  The model who’s in a relationship with a rock star is almost a cliché. While I had nothing against rock musicians (hello, Mick!), my own preferences ran more toward Hollywood types. My modeling life often put me in close proximity to these men and—why be coy?—I took full advantage of opportunities that knocked.

  In those heady days of the mid-to-late seventies, when I was single, newly returned from Europe, and living at Zoli’s townhouse on East Sixty-Second Street, I had what I called flings, which lasted anywhere from a few nights to a few months, with several of Tinseltown’s biggest stars. These included Ryan O’Neal, Michael Douglas, Helmut Berger, and Jack Nicholson (who was everything you can imagine and more).

  Here’s a gossipy tidbit: I was at a huge A-list party at an East Side townhouse, and Bob Rafelson—the director of Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens, both starring Jack—was in attendance, sitting sullenly in a corner. I went over to the piano and plunked out a few notes to Carly Simon’s hit “You’re So Vain” and began to sing. The next thing I knew, Carly Simon herself (who, unbeknownst to me, was at the party) scooted onto the piano bench next to me and said, “Can I play, too? I wrote this song.” Carly and I were singing together, having a ball, when she whispered, “The song’s about him.” She pointed to Rafelson. (Later, in her own memoir, published in 2015, Carly claimed the second verse was about Warren Beatty—an eminently songworthy fellow, as I would soon discover—but declined to say who inspired the other two verses. The guessing could go on forever, but I will say that whenever I hear the opening phrase, “You walked into the party . . . ,” the face of Bob Rafelson springs into my mind.) In any case, Carly aroused my curiosity, and I sidled up next to Rafelson to see what she’d found so enthralling. I wound up leaving with him that night.

  But there are movie stars and then there is Warren Beatty. In my universe, he was a constellation unto himself. Good grief, I’d had a crush on the man since I was eleven years old. (To this day, I’m incapable of not watching Splendor in the Grass in its entirety if I catch of glimpse of it when I’m channel-surfing.)

  In September 1975, my dear friend Richard Bernstein, a brilliant artist whose portraits of me appeared several times in Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, and I had both been invited to an opening of Avedon portraits at the Marlborough Gallery, so we decided to go together. I dressed up in my favorite summer non-color, white, and when Richard picked me up, he tucked a big white gardenia into the side of my chignon. He thought it gave me an exotic Dorothy Lamour/Billie Holiday kind of allure. I was partial to gardenias because they gave off such an intoxicating scent, especially at night.

  The exhibition
, which featured Avedon’s non-fashion work, was a very big deal because its presence at a Fifty-Seventh Street gallery signified the “arrival” of photography in general, and Avedon in particular, into the realm of fine art. It was one of those New York events that drew glitterati from every celebrity sphere: Gloria Vanderbilt and Lauren Hutton were there, and so were literary heavy hitters such as Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer.

  I noticed Warren Beatty as soon as he stepped off the elevator. And I suppose he noticed me, because Andy Warhol and both Richards (Avedon and Bernstein) were gathered around me, sniffing my gardenia. Although I wouldn’t have thought it possible, Warren was even more handsome in the flesh than on celluloid. The photographers and cameras had been trained on Andy, the Richards, and me until Warren walked in. That was when the flashbulbs really exploded. We were left in the dust as the paparazzi did an about-face and rushed en masse to swallow Warren up in their bright lights. But for a split second, he caught my eye, and an ineffable something passed between us.

  My insides were churning like mad, though I thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping my cool. Evidently not. Richard Bernstein and Andy Warhol noticed my agitation and guessed instantly what was up. “You must have him,” Andy stage-whispered when Avedon was pulled away to be photographed with some other boldface name who’d just arrived. “Get over there,” he hissed, nudging me in Warren’s general direction.

  I was tempted—I could feel my soul reaching through the crowd to be near the person I’d worshipped from afar nearly my whole life—but my nerve failed me. I couldn’t move. So I let it go. Richard and Andy seemed to know what was going through my mind, and I saw Andy take Richard’s arm and whisper something in his ear.

  The party went on in the background, but before we’d even had a chance to mingle, Richard took my arm and started to pull me toward the exit. “What are you doing?” I asked. “We just got here.”

  “We have to leave before he gets away.”

  “Who?”

  “You know who. Warren. He gave you the eye.”

  “What?” I said, faux-innocent. “Eye?”

  “Come on,” Richard said, hustling us toward the elevator. “He just left. This is your chance, if you hurry.”

  “Richard, I can’t run after a guy.”

  “You can because I’m going with you,” he said. “This is no time to be shy.”

  It took forever for the elevator to come and descend to the ground floor, so Richard was practically sprinting when we got to the street. I felt like a little sister tagging along behind her big brother as we rushed down the block toward Tiffany. When we got to the corner, there was a red light, and standing all alone in his white suit was none other than Warren Beatty.

  “Good evening,” he said. “Nice night. I saw you two at the opening. I wanted to say hello, but it was so crowded.”

  The traffic light turned green, but we just stood there, watching the empty street. Fifth Avenue and not a car in sight: What were the odds?

  “I was walking my friend Pat home, but I have to get back to the party,” Richard began. Evidently, he communicated with Warren in some kind of unspoken bro code, because the three of us crossed the street together, Richard said so long, and presto! There were two of us standing on the corner. As in Warren Beatty and . . . me. It was actual magic. Richard Bernstein was a magician.

  “I can walk you home,” Warren said, all smiles.

  I couldn’t look him directly in the eye, but I managed to say to his vest, “Sure, walk with me.”

  It was one of those dreamy late-summer nights when New York is a perfect version of itself. The air was warm, the moon full, and the pink-colored streetlights suffused the whole scene with a rosy glow as the two of us strolled along in the breeze, both dressed head to toe in white, as if we’d planned it.

  With each step, things between us began to feel more and more natural, though I still couldn’t believe that my lifelong crush was escorting me home. At least I’d regained my capacity to speak. When we arrived at Oasis Zoli (my nickname for Zoli’s townhouse, because that’s what it was for me), it was lit up inside, radiating warmth and New York sophistication. I felt like the female lead in the most romantic movie ever made.

  Warren took my hand and kissed my fingertips, then looked with his starry eyes directly into my face. I could have fainted on the spot, but I held my composure. “I’d like to see you again, if you don’t mind,” he said.

  Mind? Would I mind a chariot descending from the sky and lifting me up to heaven?

  “When may I call you?”

  I started to give him my number, but neither of us had anything to write it on. He said it didn’t matter, that he would memorize it. So I recited it to him, and he repeated it back three times with his eyes closed. It was the sweetest thing to watch.

  “I know where you live now,” he said, giving me a naughty wink. “If I can’t remember, I’ll just show up here, looking for you.”

  Looking for me? Oh, Warren, I thought, you have no idea how long it’s been the other way around. I unlocked the front door, and when I turned to say goodbye, he gave me a quick kiss on the lips. I closed the door and leaned against it, not wanting the moment to end. Did that just happen? I kept asking myself.

  The next morning when I went down to the agency, everyone in the booking office was buzzing. “Pat! Someone very important left a message for you and sent these flowers!”

  A dozen red roses sat on the counter. The attached note said, “Please call me. Warren.”

  And so our romance began. We’d get together every time he came to New York City, and I would cherish every moment. He was funny, considerate, and astonishingly sensual. He’d always send a car to pick me up and another to drop me off. But whenever he asked me to fly out to California, I’d decline. I was well aware of his reputation as a womanizer, and I didn’t want to chase him. There were so many women, and that was intimidating to me. I didn’t feel comfortable casting my lot with that whole Hollywood scene. Ultimately, what could I, Pat Cleveland, give Warren Beatty? He was such a gentle soul and had so much faith in me, but on some level, I felt I wasn’t rich enough or smart enough for him. I didn’t speak foreign languages; I had no talents that made me truly special. I was just young, and obviously, youth doesn’t last forever.

  To process it emotionally, I compartmentalized, putting my affair with Warren in a lovely little box, grabbing the moments that I could—and they were marvelous—but not expecting a whole lot. It was like handling the yellow diamond at Tiffany. It’s behind glass, but you can touch it, try it on, be the proud owner for an enchanted moment or two. And then you have to put it back behind the glass so someone else can get a chance. We drifted along this way for years, fitting each other in between our work and our other relationships, romantic and otherwise.

  That said, Warren always wanted more from me (or at least he claimed to), perhaps because the strict boundaries I erected around our affair presented a challenge to him. In early 1978, just after I’d married my first husband, Martin (more on that later), I stopped answering Warren’s phone messages. I was a wife now, and I took my vows seriously. Then I decided that I at least owed Warren an explanation. With the noblest of intentions, I went over to his place the next time he came to town. I steeled myself for the moment of truth, but I had forgotten one vital fact: Warren could charm me from here to eternity. And that was exactly what he did. He was irresistible, as usual, and I succumbed. We had sex—great sex—with him still blissfully ignorant of my altered marital status. Warren just seemed to melt that day and was more ardent than I’d ever seen him. The guilt was killing me, so I finally blurted out the truth. “I got married,” I said.

  “What?” he said. “Why did you do that? You were supposed to marry me.”

  He crossed the room, dropped into a chair, and assumed the posture of Rodin’s famous Thinker statue. It was almost comical, but I could see that he was upset and trying to figure out what to say next. He looked up and said bl
untly, “Don’t stay with him. Divorce him and marry me!”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t do a thing like that.” Was it true? I wondered. Here was a man I’d idolized since I was eleven years old, saying words I’d always dreamed of hearing. And I was refusing? Had I lost my marbles? Maybe. But I also knew in my heart that Warren would end up hurting me. There would be other girls like me—many, many other girls—and I wouldn’t know how to cope. I couldn’t leave Martin for him (though I sensed even then that Martin and I were not destined for the long haul).

  Walking away from Warren that day was one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do. Still, we weren’t quite finished with each other. We continued to speak on the phone now and then, and I got together with him a few times when I was “between marriages,” as the euphemism goes. The final time we saw each other was in late 1981. He called me when I was sick in bed with hepatitis A, which is the least serious variety in that it’s contracted through eating or drinking something contaminated with the virus (in my case, I’m convinced, it was airplane food) and the patient usually makes a full recovery, which I did. At the time, however, I felt like I was about to die. My skin had a weird yellow hue, and I was feverish and weak as a kitten.