by Bob Spitz
Gratefully, her brother and sister returned home together a few days later, Dort from New Hampshire where she was working in summer stock theater, John from an apprenticeship at Byron Weston Paper in Dalton. For father and son, it would be an uneasy reunion. Pop had always counted on John’s following in his footsteps—going to college at Princeton and, afterward, managing the family portfolio. The dyslexia, however, had kept him from meeting most challenges. In school, John kept flunking until he was in the same grade as Dort. Small wonder, then, that Princeton wouldn’t accept him. “Father was furious with Princeton because he donated quite a bit of money,” says a close relative, “plus he was the college’s representative, interviewing future students on the West Coast.” There had been talk of stashing John in Arkansas to run the family rice farms, but his girlfriend, Jo, whom he would soon marry, “put the kibosh on it.” Dalton, as she saw it, was the lesser of the evils. John was a gentle soul, whose disability was totally misunderstood, but the paper business might provide him with a trade. In any case, he was a failure in his father’s stony eyes; nothing he could do would satisfy the old man.
For the time being, however, they’d put their differences aside. The loss of Caro had given them both a serious jolt. “Father, more than anyone, was in terrible shape,” says Jo McWilliams. “He’d adored his wife; she kept him kindhearted, to a degree. What little warmth he had went out of him when Caro died.” There was an emptiness inside him he could not reconcile. His spirit had cracked. The funeral, a simple, private service in the parlor of the house, was about all he could withstand. Even there he looked frail, his shoulders sunken, thronged by his children—“all eighteen feet of them,” as Caro liked to remark—this once-strapping tower of a man, whose fearsome glare was blunted by sorrow.
His care, as it was, now fell entirely to Julia. Dort and John had lives back East; they would be leaving Pasadena soon after the funeral. Dort, however, had second thoughts. She was beginning her junior year at Bennington and offered to take a semester’s leave from college to help out at home. Julia wouldn’t hear of it. She knew her sister needed some distance from the family—to grow up independent of the family crucible, to put her own life together. There had always been some friction between Julia and Dort, the normal sisterly rivalry, but also petty jealousies. Distance had given them adequate breathing room. In fact, the farther apart they lived, the closer they managed to become. They’d gleaned a newfound enjoyment in each other’s company. Living under the same roof again might go toward fracturing that accord. Besides, Julia had never stopped angling for her father’s approval. The time alone with him would give her an opportunity to stake her claim anew.
Proximity or not, John McWilliams wouldn’t be an easy nut for her to crack. His rigid shell had only gotten harder over the years. Pigheaded, contrary, intolerant, demanding, uncooperative—all these invectives could aptly be used to describe him. Ultraconservative: “He was to the right of Attila the Hun,” Julia liked to say in later years. And it came at a time when she herself was leaning leftward. Politics—that is, Julia’s politics—set him off in a rumble of explosive outbursts. “He hated East Coast liberals,” says his granddaughter, Rachel, and now his daughter, of all people, had gone over to the enemy. One thing was certain: Julia’s Pop was a cantankerous old man. They had very little in common, even less that they could find to agree on.
The only thing they enjoyed together was a round or two of golf, which Julia played with her father as a form of therapy. In the weeks after Caro’s death they played well and often, trolling the fairways at the Midwick Country Club in the dry summer heat. Here John McWilliams felt at ease among his peers, the plutocrats, the retired millionaires, those “amiable old rogues.” He’d drifted into their orbit and courted their stars. But, almost exclusively, he kept his own counsel. His business was personal, sub rosa. There were no corporate entities, no boards of directors, no shareholders he answered to. It was a point of pride, in fact, that he answered to no one. Men who played by his rules knew the score. In the meantime, he’d created a parallel universe that, in many cases, rivaled their triumphs and wealth.
John McWilliams had become a quiet force in Pasadena. His private portfolio returned more than substantial dividends, embellished by shrewd but oh-so-sound, conservative, investments. His contacts extended across a vast and varied community. He sat on the boards of the Polytechnic School, the library, and the hospital. In 1934, out of recognition for his prominence, he was appointed president of both the local Board of Trade and the Chamber of Commerce, positions that gave him even greater municipal influence. The combination of his business acumen and near-obsessive restraint—along with his extremist views of politics—was a magnet for the kind of visionaries and power brokers with unshakable views of their own moral superiority.
A beneficiary of this largesse was J. G. Boswell, a neighbor of the McWilliamses in Pasadena and, later, Santa Barbara. Through his enormous landholdings and political clout, Boswell planned to build an agribusiness in the San Joaquin Valley the likes and size of which had no precedent. To do that, however, he needed water, a scarce commodity, and the ability to bypass local ordinances to get it. As it happened, John McWilliams was one of the principal investors in Boswell Farms. He knew his way around the labyrinthine departments that oversaw these resources and lent his muscle to the legal hurdles necessary to protect his business interests.
“My grandfather made sure Boswell got what he needed by diverting water into the Central Valley,” says Phila Cousins. They leveed and damned Tulare Lake, the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi, to the point of extinction. In its six-hundred-square-mile basin, Boswell grew cotton. “It was the whole Chinatown thing. He was part of the ultra-right-wing men’s club the Grove, all these high-powered guys behind closed doors, pulling strings about the water supply.”
Although largely ignorant of her father’s involvement in Boswell’s affairs, Julia continued to struggle with his notions of principles and politics. She couldn’t fathom his seeming hostility toward progress. He opposed the building of the Pasadena Freeway, opposed Social Security, women’s rights, racial equality, minimum wage, anything that smacked of social reform. Meanwhile, Julia had developed her own strong opinions, opinions that hardly resembled Pop’s dogma. Yet, it was impossible to discuss them without risking an emotional tirade. There were nights, during dinner, when her father stormed from the table rather than tolerate Julia’s point of view on a subject. There was no agreeing to disagree, no concept of mutual respect. It was Pop’s way or the highway—except that he opposed the highway.
Living alone with him, in their new arrangement, brought a fresh perspective on her father. “He is a strange but wonderful man,” Julia wrote, “and doesn’t have much of the light touch or the abandon that would make this easier.” It baffled her that anyone with such “wit and humor” could also be so downright disagreeable. Yet she was able to rationalize his curmudgeonly nature. “He does not have an abandon for life. He sees it well-planned and sober, and, I think, pretty unexciting.”
In any case, they would coexist peacefully. Julia would see to it that they did. It didn’t behoove her to disturb the gentle groove they’d established. Without the remotest possibility of a job, Julia spent much of the year at her father’s house on Hillside Road. Aside from golf and tennis, there wasn’t much for her in the way of responsibility. They had a live-in butler and a live-in cook, as well as a gardener, a laundress, and a seamstress who came in a couple of days a week. It was the perfect situation for an otherwise pampered young woman who had just lost her mother and was struggling with her identity. Work was not a priority, at least not for the time being. The Smith alumni office sent Julia two attractive job opportunities—at Harcourt, Brace in New York and at Reid Hall in Paris—but neither struck her fancy, or if they did, she lacked the initiative to respond. By the end of summer, Julia and her father’s life together had settled into a leisurely routine that neither had the energy
or the desire to interrupt.
Soon Julia felt the drag that comes with lingering idleness. Her dynamic spirit, bottled up for months, was stymied. To occupy her time, she took a part-time job writing a column for a start‑up magazine called Coast. She already had a breezy, if slapdash, writing style, acquired from her job turning out ad copy at Sloane’s, and she plied it lavishly in articles about fashionable apparel. “On this matter of ski wear,” she wrote in the January 1938 issue, “I should like to say with sepulchral firmness: Don’t dress yourself up like a bloody Alpine Christmas tree.” It wasn’t literary by any stretch of the imagination. But at least the column alleviated the boredom she felt without infringing on her leisure. “All I want to do is play golf, piano, and simmer, and see people, and summer and live right here,” she wrote in her diary. When push came to shove, Julia realized she was “really only a butterfly”—a social butterfly, no less.
Over the next year or so, she developed a solid social circle, assembled from among the other butterflies her age and status who flitted from country club to country club, living the good life at high speed. “Julia ran with a fun upper-crust crowd,” recalls Jo Duff, a lifelong friend. “There were three or four groups, at least, whose members were interchangeable. They were all wealthy, very attractive, and they threw a lot of parties.” The women were native Pasadenans—Gay Bradley, Mamie Valentine, Betty Washburn, and Katy Gates—childhood friends who had known Julia forever. They gave the local men the cold shoulder, for the most part, in favor of a “group of boys who came out from St. Paul’s in New York, happy-go-lucky guys, who played fantastic jokes on each other.” And every one of them belonged to the Valley Hunt Club, that bastion of prah-puh Pasadena society, which prided itself on having rejected John Roosevelt because he was FDR’s son. Of course, he wouldn’t have fared better at the Annandale Country Club, where Julia played golf on a regular basis. There, a Good Samaritan had stuck signs in the lockers of suspected Democrats that said: communist: resign! Then, again, “anybody who was anybody belonged to the Midwick,” says another friend, which drew its clique equally from the Pasadena and the L.A. blue books. Darryl Zanuck was a member, as were Will Rogers and Walt Disney and the Chandlers, who published the Los Angeles Times. With several pals trailing her long strides, Julia would blow into Midwick’s colonial-style clubhouse, a citadel of privilege, most afternoons, where they drank martinis, one after another, in a banquette overlooking the manicured polo fields.
Julia liked the high-toned surroundings. And she seemed comfortable around the captains of industry, who enjoyed riding to hounds, and the steam they generated. “I want lots of people around, who are stimulating and with whom I feel intoxicated and clever and charming and a part,” she spelled out in demonstrative, wiggy fashion. It was a typical Julia manifesto: clear, practical, demanding, and for the most part unobtainable. Like the job at Sloane’s, country-club life offered Julia a chance to bide her time in a nonthreatening milieu, somewhere she could avoid the anxieties of her stagnant situation, away from more ambitious friends who were making something of themselves. But it wouldn’t provide the lifestyle she craved—a fascinating job, intellectual excitement, an alluring, articulate lover, the whole package. For all Julia’s vows to have it all, she had insulated herself from the outside world.
At least money wasn’t an issue. Julia wasn’t a material girl. Her father saw to it that she had “an allowance,” whatever she needed, and by the end of 1938, there was an inheritance from her mother, as well, and quite a large one, at that. “Somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000,” says Phila Cousins, “and a lot of stock, all in IBM.” Suddenly, Julia had money to burn, the kind of money that Pasadenans understood. Not that she flashed it around or even spent it in an ostentatious way. She didn’t do anything of the sort, but it gave her the wherewithal to play with that rich go-go crowd.
At her father’s house in San Malo, one of the few places where Julia felt relaxed, she entertained a steady stream of guests—a handful of regulars as well as a changing cast of young bons vivants who horsed around on the beach during the day and did some serious carousing once the sun went down. One frequent visitor was Harrison Chandler, a Stanford grad she knew from the Midwick Country Club, whose father ran the most influential newspaper in California. Chandler lacked everything Julia was looking for in a man: wit, intensity, eloquence, and vivacity, although he could hold his own among the gilded country-club set. She thought he was “nice,” but “somewhat stiff,” not a glowing review. His pedigree, however, was impeccable—within limits. “He was not considered by the other members of the Chandler clan to be particularly bright,” says Chandler family chronicler Dennis McDougal. “In any case, he was never in serious contention to take the reins of the company.” Still, he had gravitas—and, above all, “he was crazy about Julia.”
The suggestion that Chandler and Julia had anything that resembled a serious relationship would be stretching the truth. He was always around, part of the gang, and openly attentive to her. Very attentive. Friends could tell that Julia had caught his eye. A notable interest soon turned to outright infatuation. At social events, Chandler made sure they were paired up. “It was easy to think of them as a couple,” recalls Katie Nevins. “He followed her around like a puppy, so solicitous it was almost comical.” And so persistent that Julia often felt the need to put some distance between them. She avoided certain functions where he was sure to turn up, and she refused his offer of a job at the Los Angeles Times. In her no-nonsense way, Julia sought to avoid anything that might seem like commitment on her part.
But that didn’t rule out a passable interest in Harrison Chandler. He was nice, as she’d already noted, and presentable and polite. God knows, he was assured of success and as good a catch as they came. Her father strongly approved of him; he made no secret of that. John was personally friendly with several of the Chandlers and embraced their widely known political bias. Unfalteringly, he encouraged Julia to give Harrison a chance. The more she did, however, the more indifferent she felt. He lacked spirit, that essential je ne sais quoi. It wouldn’t hurt her to enjoy Harrison’s company once in a while. But she doubted that he would ever have her heart.
FOR THE LONGEST time, Julia feared that no one special would claim her heart. Her height, it seemed, scared off eligible men. Why else were most of her friends either engaged or married, when she had it all over them in so many ways? Men were intimidated by big women, she concluded, and at six-three she gave them a handful to deal with. Dort, at six-five, grappled with the same issue, even worse. “She felt like she was a freak,” according to her daughter, Phila. “It dealt a huge blow to her confidence. People often mistook her for a man because she was so tall and wore pants a lot.” That had happened to Julia, as well, and it hurt her more than she was willing to admit. It confused her, damaged her self-esteem. But Caro’s death, along with some serious introspection, had helped guide her toward a fresh new outlook. Months spent alone had taught her the value of acceptance and contentment. She was no longer tormented by her appearance, no longer blamed it for her funk. Julia had learned to grow more comfortable with herself, especially where her height was concerned. “Thank heaven I am getting over that fear and contempt of single maidenhood,” she wrote in a diary entry. “I am quite content to be the way I am—and feel quite superior to many a wedded mouse. By god—I can do what I want!” There were many things associated with marriage she could easily live without, although, she admitted, “sex is nice.”
So, she decided, was a more challenging job. And after months and months of coasting at Coast, she was finally ready to tackle one.
On the recommendation of A. W. Forester, her old boss at W. & J. Sloane, Julia applied for a position in their West Coast offices, where most of the company’s administrative services had been relocated. The job was a good opportunity in a business she was already familiar with, even if it meant a rush-hour drive over the hills to L.A. It would be a good change of pace for her. The routine at home
had grown deadly dull; she’d become antsy, eager. And by September 1939, Julia was working at Sloane’s again, this time at their Beverly Hills store, with a clientele whose tastes she knew and understood. It was a large step up from her New York responsibilities—managing the company’s PR and advertising departments—accompanied by a huge increase in salary to $200 a month, twice what she’d made before.
But almost from the start, Julia was in over her head.
Her duties were considerable—and complicated. Not only was she required to plan a local advertising campaign, but also to execute it, which meant hiring the layout artists, the typographers, writing the copy, and coordinating the whole shebang with the media. What’s more, she was expected to oversee the window and floor displays throughout the store. There was no orientation process, no gradual transition into the job. It was assumed that Julia already knew the ropes. She may have given Sloane’s top brass that impression during her interview or perhaps she assumed her New York experience would cover most bases. Alas, she was flying by the seat of her pants.
And she knew it, too. “One needs a much more detailed knowledge of business, buying, markets, and more experience in advertising than I had had for so much responsibility,” Julia conceded in a future evaluation. Still, it excited her to take on the challenge. It spoke to the determined part of her that believed she could do anything. And for a while she managed to bluff her way through the maze of advertising details. She came to grips with “the mechanics of the office and the business personnel.” It was all sailing along smoothly, if somewhat serendipitously. But regardless of Julia’s guile and luck, sooner or later her lack of experience was bound to catch up with her.
That moment came in the spring of 1940, in the middle of an annual promotion that Sloane’s was running. Julia had prepared ad copy for a furniture sale that would run in a series of newspapers. At the bottom was a paragraph of fine print defining the terms of the sale. It was pretty standard stuff, a routine she’d handled at least a half-dozen times. Julia approved the layout and had it sent out to be typeset. In the meantime, headquarters made a change or two in the wording, which eventually crossed her desk. It was a fairly straightforward matter. The typographer could reset the ad without much delay. But Julia, in her infinite wisdom, decided the changes were too insignificant to bother with—no one would notice them anyway—and placed the ads without the changes.
