by James Gavin
During a rehearsal break, she heard him playing a slow, stately tune at the piano. Entranced, she walked to the piano. “What’s that, Paul?”
“Oh, I wrote it, Miss Lee.”
“You wrote that? Can I write a lyric to it?” The music, she said, suggested a title to her: “I Gave It Everything I Had.”
The next day she came back with a finished set of words. They were the bittersweet backward glance of a woman whose life was just about over: “I gave it everything I had, my heart, my soul / But then, it wasn’t all that bad; I found my goal.”
Lee brought him another autobiographical lyric, “Mirrors and Marble,” inspired by the master bathroom in her home. The words told of a girl who grew up to find all the luxury she had ever craved. Now here she stood, “all alone in my mirrors and marble, holding out my hand, touching empty air.”
Seldom had she penned such candid songs. Before they left Detroit, she and Horner wrote others: “Mama,” a valentine to Selma Egstrom; the swaggering “That’s How I Learned to Sing the Blues.” Lee had found her new soul mate. For Horner, life had become “a Hollywood movie.” One day, as she rode her chairlift down from the second-story dressing room, Lee declared to him mysteriously: “We’re writing something that’s gonna keep us for the rest of our lives.”
* * *
LEE REVEALED HER PLAN to the New York Daily News. “I was down to nothing in my career because of a near-fatal disease,” she explained, “but I’ve now regained my full strength.” The reason: She was hard at work on an autobiographical musical. “It’s all true, based on a number of incidents and times in my life. I’ve written fifteen songs for the show and the lyrics. Now I’m working on the book and hope to have it finished in two months.”
And who would star? “I hope I’ll play me the first time around,” Lee said.
She envisioned a lavish spectacle with a giant cast, including younger actresses to play her in bygone years. It hadn’t occurred to her to try a one-woman format. But she took note of Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, the 1981 solo show that had made its sixty-three-year-old star the toast of Broadway. Horne was Hollywood’s first black goddess and a ferociously seductive cabaret star, but racism and crushing loss had marred her seemingly charmed life. Horne’s tale of struggle and ultimate triumph exhilarated audiences; it won her two Grammys and a Tony award along with living-legend stature. Lee wanted all that, too. After all, she told a friend, “my life would be much more interesting to an audience than Lena’s.”
What mattered to her the most, apart from an end to financial woe, was control. Lee’s show would enable her to do what Horne had done: to revise history, settle scores, and craft the persona she wanted the public to see—the one she yearned to believe was real.
In the meantime, Lee had piles of bills to pay and ever-shrinking funds. She had quietly sold some of her jewelry; in the meantime she looked ahead to a fifteen-million-dollar payoff for her purported near-death experience at the Waldorf. After five years of legal wrangling, a court date was finally close. Her lawyer, Jim Moser, pronounced the case a “life or death situation”; because of Lee’s alleged semi-paralysis, he had managed to move the proceedings to Los Angeles. “The trial will start any moment,” he informed Marilyn Beck. “We’re on beeper alert. The minute a courtroom becomes available, our case gets underway.” Deliberations, he explained, would last for four to six weeks and involve fifty to one hundred witnesses—including, Beck reported, “an economist and accountants who will estimate the singer’s loss of income at ten million dollars.”
Her physical disabilities were news to Horner. At the Birmingham Theatre, he recalled, Lee—momentarily forgetting her chairlift—had “run up the six steps” to his piano upon hearing him play the music for one of their eventual songs, “I Gave It Everything I Had.” Robert Richards had received a series of “very nasty” letters from Lee’s lawyer, pressuring him to testify about her injuries. He declined. “I really felt that I could only tell the truth. I knew I was supposed to say there was sand on the floor. There wasn’t any sand.” Lee, he maintained, had not fallen at all. But the singer’s friend and diehard fan Freeman Gunter did testify on her behalf—not about having seen her fall, but about the alleged sand. Asked how Lee could have possibly gone on to perform in such dire condition, he fired off a carefully prepared statement, saying that an artist of such supreme professionalism could hide any malady.
The trial ended, and the parties awaited a judgment. Meanwhile, Lee forged ahead with her Broadway plans. The singer placed a call to her friends Marge and Irving Cowan, two tycoons whom she had known since the 1960s. The Cowans ran the Diplomat Resort and Country Clubs, a phenomenally lucrative beachside complex in Hollywood, Florida. At its heart was a lavish showroom, the Café Cristal. Irv, the Diplomat’s president, hadn’t skimped on the entertainment: Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Bob Hope, Diana Ross, Peggy Lee.
For Marge, whose father, the grocery-store magnate Samuel Friedlander, had built the Diplomat, luxury was a way of life. She and Irv reigned over South Florida society; their party-throwing, art collecting, racehorses, and VIP friends had made them frequent boldface names in the columns. But no one meant quite so much to Marge as her girlfriend Peggy Lee. The couple had attended Nicki Barbour’s wedding to Dick Foster; the next year Marge served as maid of honor for Lee’s marriage to Jack Del Rio. She raved about a party Lee had thrown for her and Irv in 1966, attended by Garland and Rock Hudson. Lee and the Cowans were so close, said Irv, that “our kids used to bathe with her in the tub.” But while Marge found her unreservedly dazzling, Irv was more skeptical. “Peggy had the ability to be as gracious as she wanted to be,” he said. “Or not.”
Now it was the spring of 1982, and Marge listened excitedly as Lee effused about her Broadway-bound musical. Marge couldn’t wait to hear the songs. The singer complied by unveiling them at a birthday party she threw for Irv at her home. Lee had invited a host of celebrities, among them Peter Allen, singing couple Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé, and Doris Duke. Also present was producer Allan Carr, who had spearheaded the number-one hit film of 1978, Grease. Lee hoped to lure him aboard.
She had everything planned. About halfway through the party, her friend Frank Ralston asked her to sing some songs from Peg. Horner took his place at the piano, and they began their minirecital. Guests responded with breathless effusions. Marge was particularly entranced. This show had to get to Broadway, and she convinced Irv that the two of them ought to pay for it. What’s more, they knew just the man to lead the way.
* * *
MARGE HAD ALREADY PLACED a call to another close friend, Zev Bufman, an Israeli-born theater owner and producing mogul. Columnist Liz Smith proclaimed him “the now-famous Zev Bufman of Broadway,” and indeed, Bufman was in the news a lot lately. He had just imported a smash British musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; it was his twenty-second Broadway show, and it ran for nineteen months. In South Florida, Bufman was a theatrical titan; he had acquired nearly every important house and used them to mount Broadway-caliber productions. His empire spread to New Orleans when he bought the city’s most important theater, the Saenger.
In the tabloids, Bufman’s main appeal centered around his alliance with the star to whom he was “connected at the hip,” as he himself put it. The year before, Bufman had convinced Elizabeth Taylor to make her Broadway debut in a revival of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes. Taylor had nothing to lose; her screen career had dwindled mostly to TV movies, even to a few appearances on the soap opera General Hospital. Bufman’s casting coup scored a million dollars in advance sales. In return, he had to shoulder the calamities of a star whose history of life-threatening illnesses, mishaps, and major operations dwarfed even Peggy Lee’s.
But Bufman loved playing in the big leagues, whether through cofounding the Miami Heat basketball team or by getting even more deeply involved with Taylor, his oft-rumored flame. (Both were married—she to the Republican senator John Warner, he to
his longtime wife Vilma.) They went on to form the short-lived Elizabeth Theatre Group, which aimed to bring classic dramas and big-name Hollywood stars to Broadway. Taylor costarred with ex-husband Richard Burton in Noël Coward’s Private Lives, but her frequent absences sank the show. Later, Bufman would help her check into the Betty Ford Center for drug and alcohol abuse.
Throughout the chaos, he remained poised, suave, and charming. An old-school impresario in the grand manner, Bufman looked like a man who meant business. Short, with graying curly hair, he wore impeccably tailored suits and traveled by limo. In his briefcase he carried one of the first mobile phones; he used it to wheel and deal in his lightly accented, refined speech. But Bufman was as calculating as any hard-boiled Broadway titan. Jon Wilner, whose Broadway ad agency handled many Bufman shows, recalled him as “one of the great producers I ever worked for. He was very dedicated. He made all the decisions, and he was very clever about raising the money. Unfortunately he had flop after flop, but that’s the luck of the draw.”
Bufman had grown up idolizing Peggy Lee. “She was a dream to me,” he said. “I thought, one of these days I’m gonna meet this lady.” It finally happened in 1981, when Irv and Marge invited him to hear her at the Diplomat. That night, Lee had sung two Peg songs. He loved them. Later, when the Cowans urged him to produce her on Broadway, Bufman didn’t hesitate.
From the first business meeting, they charmed each other completely. Lee saw him as her new savior, and in the early months of their relationship, both felt like they were walking on air. “Everyone told me Peggy would be difficult to deal with,” said the producer to Bob Thomas of the Associated Press. “In fact, she has been an absolute dream.”
Bufman, of course, knew how to romance his leading ladies, and he understood Lee’s need to feel her seductive sway over men. He dispensed lingering glances, hugs, and flirtatious notes. Lee wanted more, and one of his telegrams convinced her he would provide it: “I KISS YOUR LIPS KISS YOUR EYES AND KISS THAT FABULOUS MIND OF YOURS. TOGETHER WE WILL MAKE PEG BROADWAY’S MOST INCREDIBLE HIT.”
With him and the Cowans on board, a more formal backers’ audition was planned, again at Lee’s home, for a few potential investors. Lee opted to turn the event into a dinner party. “If you had dinner you couldn’t say anything bad,” explained Horner. “It would be ungracious!”
With his wife, Vilma, out of town, Bufman called Lee and asked if he might “bring a friend” who also lived in Bel Air. Lee asked who. “Elizabeth Taylor,” he said. He thought this might add to the night’s glamour, which in turn might loosen purse strings. Lee hesitated. She knew that Taylor overshadowed almost any woman. She agreed only reluctantly.
The pressure to shine had grown that much heavier. Lee hired Bruce Vanderhoff to provide his poshest catering, courtesy of his fashionable Le Restaurant. He seldom did hair anymore, but Lee asked him to give her a special coiffure—one that would help her eclipse even Movieland’s foremost beauty. Vanderhoff suspected hidden motives. “Do you know what was really behind that whole evening? Peggy had her talons out to snatch Zev.”
As the doorbell started ringing, Lee stood in the foyer alongside the grand staircase, wearing “something long and diaphanous,” as Horner recalled. The dozen or so guests included Danny Thomas, her costar in The Jazz Singer, who had made a mint as a TV star and producer; Michael Smuin, codirector of the San Francisco Ballet; and playwright William Luce, Bufman’s choice of collaborator for Lee’s show.
But from the moment she swept through the front door, all eyes turned to Taylor. She arrived on Bufman’s arm, dressed in flowing violet to match her famous eyes. Waiters hovered nearby to answer her every whim; awestruck guests hung on her words. Lee kept glancing over in annoyance, realizing she was no longer the star of her own show.
She had planned to hold court at the dinner table with ebullient talk of Peg, but Taylor casually took over. The actress delighted everyone with stories about the filming of The Night of the Iguana, during which she had begun her extramarital affair with the also-married Richard Burton. As Taylor spoke, she waved a hand adorned with the famous 33.19-carat, square-cut diamond ring that Burton had given her. Somebody asked about it. “It was off her finger in a flash,” said Luce. Taylor giggled and said, “Let’s pass it around!” The hefty ring moved from guest to guest. When it reached Lee, said Luce, “she grimly passed it on without looking at it.” Taylor noticed. “Here, Peggy,” she said, “why don’t you wear this for luck?” Answered Lee with faux concern: “Oh, no, I might break it!”
After dessert, everyone adjourned to the peach-painted living room and its sea of matching chairs. Lee settled onto a chaise in between two speakers; Horner sat at the baby grand. After a spoken introduction, Lee began her first number. Previously the songs had invoked gushing praise from friends and fans; now she looked uneasily into a roomful of stern, critical faces. “These were business people,” said Horner. “They were thinking in terms of putting money into this.” One song led to the next, earning only polite applause. All the while, Lee noticed people’s eyes darting over to Taylor to monitor her reactions.
As Lee and Horner began a ballad, Taylor reached into her purse for a cigarette. Bufman grabbed his lighter and held it out for her. Lee glared their way, and coughed lightly to get their attention. She didn’t. At that point, said Luce, “Peggy went ballistic. She slammed down the mike, with a resulting blast from the speakers. We all jumped.” Lee lurched to her feet, hissing: “I can’t sing when someone is blowing smoke in my face!” She stormed off. Bufman leapt up and chased after her. All eyes returned to an incredulous Taylor, as tense murmurs filled the room. Finally Lee returned. Clearly rattled, she began her next song. But her confidence had crashed, and even through the microphone she was barely audible.
The program closed to a mild ovation. Danny Thomas piped through the silence with an offer to invest in the show. He named a painfully low amount. “At the door,” recalled Luce, “people thanked Peggy with encouraging comments, plus insincere praise spoken out of pity. I could see she was trying to hold back the tears. For a backers’ audition, it was a disaster.”
Neither the Cowans nor Zev Bufman were discouraged. “I knew there was a show there,” Bufman said. “I sensed some things that worried me, but I figured, we can fix those. I’ve worked with leading ladies all my life. She’ll listen to reason. It’s Peggy Lee.”
But Lee was incensed at Bufman for bringing Taylor, and she never forgave him. She still needed him, of course, even if both Smuin and Taylor wanted nothing more to do with her. “I’m not gonna be involved with that woman!” said Taylor to Bufman. Later, when the Elizabeth Theatre Group’s planned production of Inherit the Wind, set to star Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, fell through, Bufman announced that Peg would take its place. Taylor had her publicist fire off a curt rebuttal, saying that neither she nor her company were in any way connected with Lee.
The Cowans remained committed to the show—she a bit more than he, said Irv. “Marge and Zev sucked me into it,” he recalled with a laugh. “At the time, it seemed like not a very bad idea. She was Peggy Lee.” They handed Bufman seven figures to bring her to Broadway. From there, the couple brought in two more deep-pocketed sources: Georgia Frontiere, who owned the Los Angeles Rams; and Hugh Culverhouse, owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Irv and Marge were delighted. “This was their fun,” said Jon Wilner. “They didn’t get their money by investing in things like this. This was playtime. They could tell their friends, their dentist, ‘Oh, we’re producing a Broadway show with Peggy Lee! It’s gonna be a big hit!’ ”
Everyone’s point of comparison was Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music. But whereas Horne’s show told the epic tale of a woman who had mirrored and influenced decades of social history, Lee’s story was essentially all about her. Its theme was the hardscrabble rise and hard times of a splendid and uniquely American singer and songwriter—a pre-feminist achiever who had weathered the shifting tides of popular fancy.
Lee had one thing Horne lacked: hit records, if bygone ones. And the score for Peg held promise. Furthermore, the timing seemed right: Horne’s renaissance, along with that of the fifty-one-year-old Lauren Bacall in the recent hit musical Woman of the Year, had made Lee’s endeavor seem a good gamble. “Faded stars are big hits on Broadway,” explained Wilner.
In August of 1982, Bufman threw a press conference and luncheon at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s Polo Lounge, a fabled celebrity hangout. While reporters and photographers gathered to await Lee, Bufman pumped them up. The score of Peg, he told them, revealed “a side of Peggy no one has seen before—so private, so womanly, so intimate, so open.”
He brought on Lee, who sailed into view in a black chiffon pajama suit and wide-brimmed hat. The ovation that greeted her, and the lightning storm of flashbulbs, boded a bright future for Peg. “This is one of the happiest days of my life!” she exclaimed. “It’ll be my Broadway debut, and I’m training for it like an athlete.” She sang three songs, accompanied by Horner. Afterward, she flitted through the crowd, posing for pictures and luxuriating in the attention. To Bufman, the supposedly injured star seemed “like a rock.”
Word of her impending Broadway turn surprised Earl F. Riley, the judge in her Waldorf case. He had yet to render a decision on the suit of a woman who, in the words of her lawyer Jim Moser, had “needed support” at a recent public event to get through one song. Asked about the announcement of Peg, Moser said: “We hoped to have a verdict before then.”
