Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me...

by Stevie Phillips

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Vegas

  I was a Vegas virgin (so to speak) when I visited in 1962. Back in the day, it wasn’t just a place to go for fun and gambling. It was, I felt, one of the most glamorous places in the world. Men wore tuxedos in the casino, and women the most lavish cocktail dresses adorned with magnificent jewels. I didn’t own lavish cocktail dresses or magnificent jewels, and I certainly didn’t have a guy with me who would wear a tuxedo to the casino, but I had a good body that men noticed, and I noticed myself starting to look back at them. I wasn’t yet ready to act on my impulses, but I was on the launching pad. Vegas was a loose place.

  It was also the site of one of Judy’s most terrible disasters—followed by a complete meltdown. What made it so awful? In my view it was unintended. Some might even call it an accident, but then maybe it was no accident, given the cause. As I counted out the days of what was to be a virtual imprisonment for me in this utopia, I wondered how many of these incidents there could be before she died? How many of these could Judy’s body, already weakened by drugs and liquor, withstand? Would the next one kill her?

  It happened as we were approaching the end of the second week of Judy’s monthlong engagement, sandwiched into her schedule in between the films she was starring in. We’d been together a couple of years now, and she was back in the big time after a successful concert tour, happy to be appearing at the Sahara, one of the grandest places on the strip. The four-week engagement (which could be extended by another two) was worth hundreds of thousands, and it took more than a few concerts for Judy to earn that much. After an exciting first week, we settled into a routine. The contract was for one sixty-five-minute show a night, which, with any good fortune, got under way at 10:00 p.m. She, however, would usually come off the stage closer to midnight, and then one of two scenarios would be set in motion.

  Scenario one: in which she showered and changed into nightclubbing mufti in preparation for the two of us going out on the town. I dreaded this one. Would that I could have gotten into it more, but I was always so exhausted. It wasn’t just a matter of physical exhaustion. I was strong like a bull. It was mental exhaustion—the exhaustion of having to be on your toes all the time, never being allowed to relax, always on the edge of the ledge, worried about what might fall or fail.

  On top of that I was not a party animal. Drinking was never my thing, and by three in the morning, I was usually dragging my ass, which was when we typically found ourselves, yet again, watching Frances Faye do her lounge act at the Thunderbird. Judy, however, was going strong and growing stronger pill by pill. I’m embarrassed to report that our third time there I fell asleep at the little cocktail table directly in front of the tiny stage where Miss Faye performed. Judy attempted to prod me awake; that is to say she gave me a well-deserved shove and in so doing pushed me onto the dance floor. I lay there, spread eagle in my customary fashion, apparently looking like I needed help from everyone present. And they all jumped in. I was carried into Miss Faye’s dressing room, where a group of women with a strong sexual preference for one another started pawing at me—in my interest, of course—which woke me up fast!

  Back to scenario one: It usually ended with breakfast at dawn in some diner on the strip, where Judy would chow down, usually on enough steak and eggs to satisfy a healthy truck driver. We were back at the Sahara by eight, and we’d both go to our rooms. Judy didn’t have to get up again until eight in the evening. I had to meet the captain in the dining room at 10:00 a.m. to go over the guest list for that night. Then it was time to deal with thank-you notes, wardrobe, send out invitations, make calls to New York, and so on.

  Scenario number two—my preferred ordeal—saw us retire immediately after the show to Judy’s suite, which in this case (and almost always) was the penthouse. The two-bedroom aerie at the Sahara was furnished in contemporary style; the backdrop a virtual symphony in white that framed the white upholstered pieces, all of which were done in rich-textured fabrics and nestled into wall-to-wall white carpet. It was movie-star glamorous. Very Hollywood.

  After Judy changed into a nightgown, we would sit on the couch in front of the glass coffee table and play gin rummy until she felt tired. Getting tired was a manufactured state brought on by the cocktail of pills she continued to take for about an hour. Reds, greens, yellows, purples, blues, and whites, bicolored capsules too, were all washed down with her wine. During that hour she often took twenty or thirty pills, believing that it would take that many to counteract the many pills she had taken earlier to get her up for the performance. In spite of wanting to sleep, she always seemed to be fighting it, fighting to make the day last longer. Her eyes could be at half-mast, and still she would order me to deal another hand. However, in scenario two, usually by 4:00 a.m., she would bid me goodnight, and I would go to my room a few floors below and collapse, most times fully clothed.

  The night of the disaster—a scenario-two night—started off in the usual way with me growing terrified that it would soon be dawn, with Judy fighting sleep but finally laying down her cards just before the light crept in around the edges of the drawn drapes. Her tiresome goodnight was always the same: “I think I can get some sleep now”—my cue to leave. But on this night when she got up and took a step in the direction of her bedroom, one step was all she could manage. She went down like a stone, her face hitting the knife-edge of the rectangular steel-and-glass coffee table, which sliced through her skin so quickly I could do nothing but stare in disbelief. The corner of the table first caught her upper lip dead center, then went slantwise through one nostril, grazed the side of her right eye, finally exiting after making a long gash in her forehead. She fell facedown, and blood immediately started to pool around her head onto the white carpet. I bent over her in panic to see if she was breathing, way too scared to move her or even to touch her. Nevertheless I tried to take her pulse. I was so scared I could feel nothing. I had no idea if she was dead or alive.

  Steadying myself, and with a calm voice so as not to stir concern in the hotel operator, I asked to be connected with Stan Irwin, the entertainment director of the Sahara. I followed Judy’s instructions never to give out any information on the phone, as she was certain all operators sold dirt on her at a good price. When I had Stan on the line, I told him that Judy wished to see him immediately. A business meeting at that hour might have seemed peculiar anywhere other than Las Vegas, where life proceeds apace at 4:00 a.m. and nothing is strange. Stan, a kind and attentive man, heard the urgency in my voice and was there within minutes, dressed to perfection, because it was he who prowled the casino until the last lounge act wrapped.

  I can conjure him up even now, in a wonderful tailored gray silk suit that complemented his head of salt-and-pepper hair with perfectly barbered silver sideburns. During his many years in Las Vegas he had developed a kid-glove approach to talent, including troubled talent. He was intuitive in a way that gave one confidence that he had more than likely handled some hairy scenes, could be counted on in a clutch, and knew far more than he was telling. But I doubt he’d seen anything like this. When I opened the door to him, he wore a worried look that matched mine. He instinctively knew something was terribly wrong in spite of my feigned calm. I may have gone into some kind of functioning shock, for the hand Stan Irwin took into his in that moment at the door was like an icicle. A look that conveyed the horror of this event passed between us, and when he saw her it became chillingly real.

  However, he remained as calm as I was, but less frightened. He found her pulse, and he assured me she was alive. My God, I was relieved! He didn’t have to ask how it happened. The pill collection on the coffee table only confirmed what he already knew. He turned the unconscious Judy over, applied some wet towels I supplied as compresses to the wounds, stopped the bleeding, and called a doctor, and together we sat waiting for him to arrive.

  We talked about how wonderful the audiences had been, but it was no more than aimless chatter meant to cover what was really on his mind. W
ho was going to step in for Judy? Who would bring in that kind of business? What about the thousands of reservations, and so on? The doctor was there in twenty minutes, and after treating Judy with whatever magic he had in his little black bag, assured us both that the cuts were superficial and would heal well in time. He suggested that I stay the night because Judy would be uncomfortable when she awoke. “Awoke?” I couldn’t believe it. She’s not unconscious? “No,” he said, “she’s sleeping.”

  The men carried Judy to her bed, and the doctor said he would stop by again next day to check on her. His suggestion that I stay with her was not a suggestion at all. It was an order. When I momentarily balked—and I did, telling both him and Stan that I needed to sleep—the doctor said he could get a nurse the next day to replace me, but he thought she should not be alone, just in case. In case of what? I worried. But I knew he was right and also knew it would be pointless to tell him that I’d been up with her for countless nights on end. He was brusque and wouldn’t have cared. He pointed to the second bedroom and told me to lie down there. “She’ll sleep for the next five or six hours at least,” he assured me. “By the time she wakes up, I’ll have a nurse here.” Then the doctor and Stan talked privately for a few minutes while my mind ranged over a minefield of feelings—all of them bad.

  Generally I didn’t engage in a lot of self-pity, but on this night I found a wellspring of it and I jumped right in. I felt sorry for myself because I was so whipped. I had reached the end. I was tired of being constantly tired, of enduring her innumerable nightly overdoses. I had suffered her endless 3:00 a.m. phone calls for almost three years now (as had my husband), and in the process I had become hardened and judgmental. I held Judy responsible for tonight and for what she had done to herself. The well-known, well-publicized turbulent history that had brought her to this most terrible collapse was right on the money. I hated her for it and felt sorry for her at the same time. I worried about what would have happened had I not been there, and fretted that I couldn’t stop her from swallowing a drugstore even when I was. I worried that I would be blamed if I allowed something to happen to her.

  Judy’s prescription-pill intake was terrifying. Somehow it was different than burning herself or cutting herself. How? Well, she only did those things when someone was around. If there is such a thing as a controlled burn, then that was what she did. It may sound stupid, but it’s the way I rationalized it then. Of course anything anywhere can go dreadfully wrong. I realized that, but as long as I was there to put out the fire, or stop the bleeding, or call the doctor, it would all be okay. But pills, somehow, were different. She took them when we were together and when she was alone. She took so many. How much was too much? I didn’t know. Never mind putting drugs together. I didn’t think then about whether Ritalin went with Seconal. Who knew? I only worried about the number, and I worried about that a lot. I warned her about the danger of her consumption time after time. How simple-minded of me. How innocent. How naive. How stupid I must have sounded to her. She would tell me to “put it where the sun don’t shine”—and she did, more than once. And now this! I didn’t know if I was more relieved or angry she hadn’t killed herself this time, as I looked at the huge stain left on the carpet.

  I glanced at her in the bedroom. It was horrifying. I didn’t want to be there. Well, that’s not entirely true. Someone had to be there. Better the someone be me. Deep down I was grateful that I was the only someone around. I would not fail. If I couldn’t stand on my two legs because of exhaustion, if I had to crawl, then I would do it. I would not lose my job. This seed in me called ambition would push through whatever frozen earth it found itself in. So, finally, at four in the morning, I decided I was more worried I would lose my job than I was worried about Judy Garland’s welfare. I was frightened for her, she did engage my sympathy, but those feelings lost the battle raging in my head. Worrying about losing my job had won once more. I was not going to let that happen. No matter what went down, I would not be a quitter. I would stay the night. I was out to prove myself invaluable. I intended to succeed. I just needed to sleep.

  *

  Without asking anyone’s permission—nor did he need any—the doctor swept all the open drug vials from the coffee table into his little black bag and assured Stan and me that everything would be fine. I knew it definitely would not be. I tried telling the good doctor that Judy would be out of her mind when she awoke if the pills weren’t where she left them. I was direct, even confrontational. I told him I spoke from hard experience. I told him I was the one who “knew” her. Of course this annoyed him. He refused to take me seriously for even a minute. Who was I, after all? Some young dumb little assistant from New York who thought she knew everything. I saw myself in his eyes: stupid, thoughtless, and arrogant. His scowl conveyed it all. He fastened me with a disapproving look that reminded me of a stern Norman Rockwell country doctor straight out of a Saturday Evening Post cover. Someone in the portrait was questioning the doctor’s judgment. Who is this young whippersnapper? the picture seemed to ask.

  He would not allow an inexperienced nonentity of an assistant talk him out of confiscating the drugs that had caused such an awful accident, an accident that had come within inches of blinding or almost killing the great Judy Garland. But then, he did not seem in the least impressed with the fact that he was treating Judy, and I could see that he was dealing with her as he would any other patient. I reasoned that he must have been Stan’s go-to guy for all star problems, and his been-there, done-this manner made me understand that this Judy could have had any other last name and his response would have been exactly the same. He was unlike the doctors, listed alphabetically in major cities, in my little black book whom I could call upon for late dates.

  Now what remained was to finish up the business at hand. There was always that. Business. Judy Garland wasn’t just a person: She was a franchise, first and foremost! Stan called David Begelman, and they quickly agreed that Stan would indeed have to find some big star to step in for Judy until she could perform again. A proper press release about vocal strain would be prepared. The public would be assured that with a little rest, Judy would be fine. She would then give the Sahara an additional two weeks by doing a 2:30 a.m. show every night. Two thirty in the morning? Omigod! Perfect for Las Vegas, and easy for those who slept all day. I dreaded it, but I said nothing. I sat on the couch, numbed, and waited for Stan to end the call. When the arrangement was completed, Stan was about to go back to work. I could see he felt sorry for me. Still, he found a way to suggest that I do something about the stain on the carpet before he was out the door. “We wouldn’t want the maids to see that,” he said.

  So the main event of the night is now over, and I am once more dealing with Judy’s blood, this time trying to disguise the stain, to make it look more like coffee was spilled. That is the best I can hope for; there is no way of getting the complete bloodstain out of the carpet. I am feeling bitterly sorry for myself. I am crying and asking myself, Why? Why am I doing this? Why do I care what the maids think? Suddenly I am sobbing hysterically, my tears falling on the carpet and mixing with the rest of the bloody mess. ‘Is this only about ambition? What is wrong with my life? Who matters to me more? Me? Judy? I am cold and angry and sad.

  At sunrise I passed out in the second bedroom and couldn’t have been asleep more than an hour when Judy was standing at the foot of my bed pulling on my leg to awaken me. Regardless of the sunshine streaming in, Judy had turned on all the lights lest I miss something. “Look at me!” she screamed. And I had to. Dare I use the cliché “It was worse than your worst nightmare”? She was a ghoul. The Phantom unmasked does not come close. She was the Elephant Man, a total grotesque. Her lips were the most awful part, huge and discolored. One whole side of her swollen face was blue and green. “Let me call for some ice packs,” I said. “The doctor said you should use them constantly until he can get back here.”

  “Fuck the ice packs. Where’s my medicine? I need my pills, and I want them
right now! Where the fuck did you hide them?”

  “Me?! No! Not me. I swear it. The doctor took them. He didn’t want you to hurt yourself again.”

  “Then call the fucking doctor, and get him back here right now. And I want my own doctor flown out here by this afternoon.” It wasn’t yet 8:00 a.m., and I didn’t have a clue about how to reach this doctor at his home. He wasn’t listed. I awakened Stan and begged him to make the call, but an hour passed and nothing happened. Judy was going berserk. She demanded I call all the area hospitals. I did so and got nothing. At nine I was able to reach the doctor’s office and was told he was on rounds, the receptionist assuring me he would call as soon as he returned. It was a formulaic response, and no call came. Judy made me phone all the hospitals again. She was pacing, she was screaming, she was crying—and none of it was about the way she looked. It was only about her drugs.

  By noon I had called the doctor’s office at least a half-dozen times, now understanding that I was intentionally being put off by his staff. I was frantic, and the women I spoke with could surely hear the desperation in my voice; they did their best to calm me, but there was no way they could have imagined what I was going through, nor was there a way I could attempt to explain it to them. In their lives they surely had never felt as threatened as I did at that moment.

  Finally they got a dose of it. Judy came out of her bedroom and was hovering over me, screaming in my ear, screaming into the phone. At one point she grabbed the phone and yelled out every obscenity she’d ever heard, probably many more than those on the other end had ever heard. In addition to using “fuck” every other word, “cunt” and “cooze” were two of her favorites, and I doubt the doctor’s receptionist had ever been called either. Whoever was listening remained calm and acted as if they had heard it all before, for when Judy handed the phone back to me, the woman on the other end didn’t seem rattled at all. But then, what could they do? I could only imagine the doctor not responding because he had not yet found a nurse.