I Was Howard Hughes
Page 8
Lana I said.
Howard.
Let’s go to Reno tonight. We’ll eat dinner there.
Tonight? I don’t know.
We have to.
Well all right. Okay, I guess. But Howard, we have to talk. Things can’t continue like they have been.
Don’t worry, everything’s going to change. Definitely. But we need to get out of here. We need to get away.
I said I’d go she said.
I showered, dressed, and when I went downstairs Faith was still in the kitchen.
Sorry Little Baby. I checked in at the plant and they need me there. An emergency with the XF-11 [the experimental reconnaissance plane Hughes was soon to crash—ed.]. I’m sorry. We’ll have to go another time. This might take all night.
Okay.
Aren’t you upset?
Not really.
Well, that’s a nice attitude.
I left and picked up Lana at her place. Fifteen minutes later we were stuck in traffic on Wilshire. She kept asking When are we getting married? When are we setting a date? until finally I said As soon as you shut up which I guess means never.
Damn you she said and made to get out. I reached over and grabbed the door and held it so she couldn’t open it and she tore at my arm like a hellcat. Just my luck, that’s when traffic started to inch forward again. I didn’t move the car right away because she was fighting too hard and I would’ve wrecked even at a slow speed and I certainly wasn’t going to let her get out and then be running after her down Wilshire. She tried to bite my wrist but I jerked my arm away and accidentally clipped her, just lightly, an inconsequential glazing blow in the jaw with my elbow. Traffic was still moving slowly and people behind me started honking their horns. She grabbed her face with both hands and I took my foot off the brake and eased on the gas.
You broke my jaw she screamed.
If your jaw was broken you couldn’t talk.
Traffic stopped again.
Goddamit why’re you still living with that little bitch? she screamed.
Because you don’t just drop someone out of your life all at once, just like that, like they were a suit of clothes you’re tired of wearing or a goldfish you’re flushing down the toilet. People have emotions and those emotions have to be dealt with. There is a very, very fine line in human relationships, a tricky gray area.
I can’t take her being in your house she said. I can’t, not one more second.
You know you’re the only woman for me. You’re all I want. I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you. I want us to get married and leave all this glamour and glitz behind. You’ll still make movies, sure. You’ll be an even bigger star than you are now. And I’ll get rid of some of the pressures that are absolutely killing me. The pressures are so bad I can barely eat. For the last three days all I’ve had is pecans and milk. A human being can’t live on that forever. I thought if we went to Reno, away from the pressure, all the things that bother us, I could eat. We could have a nice dinner. And when we’re married, my mind will be on aviation and nothing but aviation except for you. We’ll be together the way a man and woman should be.
Howard do you mean that?
In the eyes of God Lana we’re already married.
I want to believe you. I wish I could.
We sat there with the heat coming in the windows and all the horns beeping and the noise of idling engines all around us. Then a goddamn fly came in and started buzzing around.
Well what if I wasn’t serious? I am serious, make no mistake about that. I’m dead serious. If you don’t marry me I don’t know what I’ll do. But I’m going to tell you something. I’ve been hearing stories that could seriously affect my level of seriousness in our situation.
She was rubbing her jaw. I watched her eyes. She knew exactly what I was talking about. I shifted into neutral so I could take my foot off the clutch. Ronald Colman I said.
What?
Don’t play innocent with me. I’m not one of these schoolboy dandies you’re used to. I’m not so easy to fool.
All right. What if I was seeing Ron? I’m not, mind you. But what if I was? You’re living with a 18-year-old for god sakes. And God knows what you do in New York and Miami and wherever else it is you go when you go off.
So it’s Ron I said.
Christ she said.
So you are familiar with him, I just want to establish that fact, get it on the table. Ron. Is it okay if I call him Ron too when I say something like fucking Ron is fucking the woman I love and want to spend the rest of my life with. Or should I go ahead and use Ronald in that situation?
What if I did have an innocent evening of some sort with Ron or anybody else. Wouldn’t I have that right? You’re living with Faith. What kind of pictures do you think that puts in my head night after night?
What’s with this damn traffic? Jesus! I slapped the dash and put the car back in gear. Come on! I said.
Answer me she said. How’d you think that makes me feel?
Look I just explained that situation but if you need to hear it twice, fine. Faith and I are breaking up but it’s got to happen slowly so I don’t leave her bruised and battered for life. You said it yourself. She’s eighteen. She’s a girl. I’ve made a mistake so I have to pay the price of staying with her longer than I want to, when all I want for the rest of my life is to be in your arms. But I’m trying to do the right thing by her. Don’t you want your husband to be a guy like that? A decent guy?
She rolled down her window and looked out it awhile at I guess the damn telephone pole sitting there.
Are you going to put her in anything? she said.
What’d you mean?
Give her a part.
When she’s ready, yes. That’s part of the plan. After I leave her completely and for good and am with you always, she’ll get plenty of parts to keep her busy. Her career will replace me. But if you’re against it, that’s it, I won’t do it.
No that’s fine. She turned from the window and looked at me, two tears running down her cheeks, one on each side. Fucking actresses. With them tears are a skill, period. But I played along. I smiled. I put my arm around her and asked How’s that jaw?
A little sore.
You’ll live Gator-gooey.
We were in the old Chevy so we weren’t too noticeable but the people in the car next to us on my side, a family, were staring and pointing but I bet they didn’t even recognize Lana. Without the high-priced makeup and hair artists she looks about the same as any mildly attractive counter girl.
There had been a wreck up ahead, a large truck had overturned. But we finally made it to Culver City and after landing in Reno I called Faith from the airfield and told her that for certain I would be working all night, the engineers had botched my instructions for the wing stress test beyond all recognition. I told her I would bring her a surprise when I came home. What? she asked. I told her that was the surprise. Then she picked up where she left off about the incident with Ava. She couldn’t even shut up for one little supposed call from work. I told her there was nothing I could do about it now. Then she wanted to know how serious I was about renewing my pledge to marry her. Setting a date would prove it to her. I told her whatever date she wanted as long as we waited until fall. Fall was when I’d have my affairs in order, the HK-1 and XF-11 straightened out and on schedule, and then I could give her the attention she deserved.
I don’t know why I keep putting myself through this hell. You ask actresses to marry you, you agree to marry them and they feel they have you in their talons like a powerful condor has a titmouse and as soon as that moment of saying yes, I’ll marry you happens they drop you, the titmouse, out of their powerful talons and you fall and are crushed but you refuse to marry these actresses and they stay on your back causing more irritation than some kind of goddamn Chinese water torture or a monkey picking constantly at your skin. These women always have to be in the limelight and have the crowds looking at them and aahing and oohing about they are so bea
utiful or have played such a good part. Actresses look great but they make me sick. Lying is what they do best, except for screwing anyone they think has any kind of decision making power at a studio. That’s the number one talent. It would not surprise me one bit to walk in one day and find Ava Gardner screwing the guy who decides what kinds of doughnuts will be on the set for the crew each morning and as they were in the act she’d be looking over the guy’s shoulder for the guy who makes decisions about coffee. I’d like to find a decent beautiful nonactress girl and settle down.
For dinner I had steak, mashed potatoes, peas. I forgot to bring my little rake, so I had to separate the too large peas from the correct size ones by hand.
No matter what else is said in the history books a hundred years from now this is the true story of the last day I ever had to be around Ava Gardner or talk to her.
Lana Turner, from a transcript recorded for a UCLA-sponsored oral history of Hollywood’s “Golden Age”
Howard Hughes was another one I felt like I just had to marry. I didn’t, of course, even though on a trip to Reno one time we set a date and Howard presented me with a diamond I was almost afraid to wear it was so big. But then the morning of the day we’re supposed to marry I’ve already had my hair done and I’m actually putting on my wedding makeup and the telephone rings and it’s not Howard, no, it’s one of his henchmen telling me the wedding had to be postponed because Howard had to fly to Washington unexpectedly, he’d been summoned there on a matter of grave national concern. What was it I wanted to know but he wouldn’t say. I didn’t talk to Howard for weeks after that. I called every day. I called and called and called but Howard was like that, he’d disappear like a dollar bill you just spent.
Make Them Feel Special
After his breakup with Faith Domergue, Hughes was afraid he would never find a woman to settle down with, so, after he bought RKO Studios, he scoured magazines for pictures of beauty-contest winners, festival queens, bit players he found attractive, and then sent aides to sign them up for RKO. He had literally dozens of women under contract. As the following memo indicates, he kept close tabs on all of them, but he also supplied them with beautiful apartments and wardrobes and any kind of appropriate lesson, singing, acting or dancing. He would arrange private screenings of the movies he wanted them to watch for their good as actresses. A few of them won parts in movies, but most didn’t. Hughes often had affairs with the women, hoping the relationships would turn into something more, but none of them ever did.
Hughes, from a memo to an aide dated June 19, 1947, and titled ’Instructions For Handling Women Under Contract To RKO”
1. When any of our drivers from the Romaine Street office or any of our other locations, Culver City or the office at Goldwyn-Mayer or anyplace else we’ve set up shop, permanent or temporary, such as a temporary command post we might set up at an elegant hotel in New York or Miami or Vancouver, these drivers, including Frank, Johnny, any of the crew of Mormons currently employed, or anyone we might employ in the future, when these drivers are transporting our girls under contract from point A to point B, say from the hairdresser to an acting lesson, and they encounter any small obstacle in the road such as a dead animal or a landscaping tool that was poorly secured and fell off the back of a truck, or one of these so-called “speed bumps” that are showing up in parking lots everywhere now, or trash of any sort that might make the vehicle jerk even the most infinitesimal bit, one-thousandth of one-thousandth of an inch, then the driver is to slow the car down to exactly 2 miles per hour—I repeat, no more than 2 miles per hour—so that the girl, sitting in the backseat, will not have to undergo the violent jarring of her breasts and the possible damage to the delicate muscles that support them that going over the obstacle at a higher speed might cause. I want these instructions followed to the letter. I want these drivers monitored in some way. Possibly random tailings of the cars carrying these girls would work—a monitoring system is something you and I need to put our heads together on, Charlie. But we need to do it right away. If the girls ask questions of the drivers such as, Why are we slowing down so often? you are to instruct the drivers to tell them some lie about the nature of automobiles, their suspension systems, or maybe just something about difficulties we’re having with the particular car they are in—anything like that should work because most of the girls won’t know anything about cars. But under absolutely no circumstances are the girls to be told the car is slowing to protect their breasts. One, I don’t want the drivers engaging in conversations with the girls about breasts. The better sort of girl will be embarrassed, the worst sort will see it as an invitation. There is absolutely no reason for the drivers to ever, ever say the word breasts [italics mine— ed.] inside these automobiles. Another advantage of this policy is that it precludes the girl arguing with the driver about the policy itself or becoming offended by it and causing trouble in some other way. She might say something about the relative strength of her brassiere or some other such shit and because they are attractive girls, before we know it these goddamned drivers are jumping these cars over obstacles like they’re motorcycle daredevils. Forget it. We’ve got to stick to our guns. Please know, Charlie, that this isn’t just some personal quirk I’m indulging. The American public is crazy about breasts. You know it and I know it. Look at our success with Jane Russell and The Outlaw [italics mine— ed.] and I think you’ll see why this policy has to be implemented right now, today, as soon as you finish reading this memo. If we ever expect to have even the slightest hope of getting a return out of our investment in these girls, and getting this studio out of the god awful morass it’s in right now, which would certainly help with all the other financial woes that are plaguing us right now, you’ll implement this policy with all due haste.
2. For the same reason stated in point one, the girls, whenever possible, are to be prevented from diving off diving boards or platforms of any sort and under absolutely no circumstances are they to be allowed to jump off the sides of boats of any kind. Maybe they are at a Sunday sailing party and they have a few drinks. This is acceptable. But then the boat anchors and they want to jump off the side of the boat into the water to swim and roughhouse with the other guests. This is not acceptable. At this point, if you see such a situation developing, you are to find a quick excuse and whisk the girl away from the side of the boat.
3. The girls are to be discouraged from eating ice cream. However, if they insist, they are to have no more than one ice cream cone a day. That is the absolute, final limit. If they want more, tell them stories about young actresses we’ve had under contract who didn’t make the grade because of excess weight. If they ask for names, tell them you don’t remember and that fact itself demonstrates the extent of their failure. However, once the Rubicon has been crossed and the girl is determined to have ice cream, push french vanilla as the flavor of choice. It does the least damage.
4. No pork. If they want meat with breakfast, suggest a minute steak. If they want a pork chop for dinner, suggest lamb. If that doesn’t work, start raising hell about something else. And they should never even be in the vicinity of a plate, fork, knife, or spoon that has ever been touched by a hot dog or any of this canned bulk sausage.
5. If any of these girls get impatient for a meeting with Mr. Hughes, tell them Mr. Hughes is impatient for a meeting with them, too, you heard him talk about it just the other day, but that vital government work—something about the H-bomb and the Communists, something like that, something that’s on everybody’s mind and in the news and that throws Mr. Hughes in the best possible light— is keeping him tied up.
6. To whatever extent humanly possible, make sure that as few girls as possible know about the existence of other girls like themselves, under contract to us and receiving the same grooming. Make them feel special.
Marriage
On January 12, 1957, Howard Hughes ended the long romantic journey we’ve witnessed so far by marrying actress Jean Peters in a secret ceremony at Tonopah, Nevada,
which was now— almost thirty years after his visit there with Billie Dove— a half-deserted silver-mining town in an area used for underground atomic testing; on January 6, he had begged actress Kathryn Grayson to marry him and had been refused; and a week before that, on New Year’s Eve, 1956, he carried out the elaborate plans dictated in the following memo.
Hughes memo to Chanson O’Reilly, Hughes’s head of security from 1951 to 1911. The memo is dated December 3, 1956, and titled “New Year’s Eve Plans”
1. Miss Peters will be seated in the main dining room. At her table will be violets and the German wine that is her favorite. Miss Hayward will be at the top notch table in the Polo Lounge, no champagne, and when our man seats her he is to present her with gardenias and the ruby ring you obtained last week for this purpose. Miss Schubert will be in a bungalow in the tropical garden section of the grounds. She’s to have Dom Perignon and yellow roses.
2. The order of accompaniment will be Peters, Hayward, Schubert. I will spend fifteen to twenty minutes with each woman, then one of our men will rush in with an urgent matter that requires my attention. I will make apologies, kiss the date, then rush away. This cycle will repeat itself until the evening is finished.
3. When the evening is finished, each woman will expect to be with me. I haven’t decided who I’m going to be with or how I’m going to escape from the other two. There’ll be a memo on this subject later.
4. This operation will require twenty men stationed at various points throughout the hotel and its grounds. Their duty will be to intercept any woman who strays from her area toward a danger zone where I am engaged with a different woman. Thursday we will determine the best places to station the men.
5. Following is the list of excuses to be used by the men assigned to call me away from the tables. Make sure each man has a carbon of these. They must be used in the order they appear.
a) There’s been a fire of some sort at the tool company, Mr. Hughes. Houston’s on the phone.