Leaving Home

by Anne Edwards

  “Shhhh-shocking! Not for children! SSSSexy!” he stuttered. “And new!”

  “What was your last film about, Mr. Stross?” I inquired, expecting to hear it was pornographic and filled with exposed bosoms and leather whips.

  “Pr-pr-prostitution on the London streets!” he replied in a raised, nasal, British voice.

  His reply struck me as funny. Prostitution on the London streets! That had been going on since Elizabeth I and certainly centuries preceding her reign. I thought—did anyone really know if Elizabeth I was a virgin queen? I tried to stifle the laughter gathering in me but could not. Maybe it was a nervous reaction, maybe disdain. But it was uncontrollable. Tears ran down my face.

  “Smmmmm-smmmmm-SMART ASS!” he shouted. “You have a better idea?”

  I have no clue where the following came from as it was not a subject that I knew anything about nor had I seen it covered in the press or mentioned on the radio or TV. But I snapped back, “Artificial insemination!”

  There was dead silence in the room. It was the only time I can recall seeing Mitchell Gertz, the ultimate talking-selling agent, struck dumb. Raymond Stross stared at me with his pink-rimmed eyes (booze or late night, I thought and later learned that Raymond, dear, dear Raymond, suffered terribly from allergies). Then, suddenly, he spoke.

  “I’ll buy it!” he said without a stutter and walked over to a desk in the corner of the elegant front room of his suite and pulled out a large, leather-bound checkbook. “What is the Writers Guild rate for an outline to a script?” he asked Mitchell.

  My agent had not yet grasped what was happening (nor had I) but quickly seized whatever opportunity was being offered. “Three thousand dollars,” he replied loud and clear. Raymond leaned over his checkbook, picked up a pen, began writing, and then, done, stepped in closer to Mitchell and handed him a check—a Cheshire smile on his face. “It’s drawn on an American bank, no wait, perfectly good,” he announced with no hint of hesitation on the second from last word.

  Now, in fact, the Guild minimum for an outline such as he was requesting was more like $750, at that time a fair price. However, I could not figure out what script this feisty Englishman was referring to.

  “What you want Anne to write is an outline for a story about a woman who has been artificially inseminated and . . .” Mitchell was fishing.

  “And it is up to Mi-mi-miss Smart Ass here to come up with a story and make it X-rated!”

  “How soon?” my agent inquired.

  “A fortnight.”

  We seemed to be in Shakespearean territory.

  “That would be two weeks?” Mitchell queried.

  “Two weeks.”

  Raymond shook both our hands and saw us to the door. Mitchell and I walked in silence to the elevator and stood there for a moment. “You’ll return the check to him, of course,” I finally managed. “I can’t write a story about sperm,” I added with some disgust.

  “You know, he’s right,” Mitchell declared. “You are a smart ass! Here you stand, held up by two crutches, two kids at home to support, HUAC hotly breathing down your neck, and your home about to be taken from you and you tell me to return”—he shook the check in my face—“three thousand dollars! You are not just a smart ass. You are crazy!”

  The elevator doors opened and we got in and rode mutely to the lobby where he sat me down in one of the hotel’s elegant, gold-leafed, green upholstered chairs (classified by some as California-French period ). “Look,” he began, now in a more kindly tone. “You don’t have to write the script, just the outline. That’s maybe fifteen, twenty pages including a little dialogue and some character development . . . nothing more.”

  “And if I can’t?” I protested.

  “You will.”

  He was right, of course. I swallowed my repugnance for the subject and, the following day took myself to the Beverly Hills Library. No books on artificial insemination. Then I went through the more recent newspaper files. To my surprise there was a report of a legal action filed in another state in which artificial insemination was the basis for a divorce and a child custody suit. The husband claimed that although he had approved of the use of artificial insemination, the sperm inserted in his wife’s uterus was not his and therefore he was not responsible for the child’s support.

  I decided I could manage that. Courtroom scenes are great to write. But shocking? X-rated? When I got home the first thing I did was type a title on my Olivetti:

  A QUESTION OF ADULTERY

  At least adultery had the sniff of sex.

  I finished a story outline and character analysis plus a few short dialogue passages (maybe, all in all, twenty-five double-spaced pages) in the allotted two weeks, gave it to Mitchell and promptly put it out of my mind—except when I deposited the $2,700 check (discounted by my agent’s 10 percent) in the bank so that I could pay some of my medical bills and put something aside for a rental where we three could have a roof over our heads when the eviction notice came due. Ten days later, with little time to spare, Mitchell was on the telephone.

  “You want to fly or take the boat?” he asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Stross loved the outline, submitted it to MGM—where he has a three-picture coproduction deal—and they just gave him the go-ahead. Stross wants you to write the script, $18,000, payable in thirds over sixteen weeks, the first payment due upon signing. I’m coming right over for your John Hancock. Oh, and here’s the extra sugar: he wants you to write it in London. I told him about the kids and he has agreed to pay their passage as well as yours, a nanny in London for their care, and your housing for the term of your contract. Therefore, you can either fly the entire distance with a short stopover in New York, or fly to the East and then cross the Atlantic on a liner. Whatever you choose. He needs you there, however, in three weeks and I have agreed to that!”

  I opted for the fly/sail method. I had never previously flown, nor taken a sea voyage (unless the glass-bottom boat from Long Beach to Catalina counts) and, except for a day trip across the California-Mexico border, had never been out of the United States. There had been plenty of travel in my life, back and forth across the country—to Connecticut, Texas, and Oregon—but always by train or automobile. I was, however, more apprehensive about developing my story into a viable screenplay (especially one now agreed to be reset in England) than about my means of transportation to Great Britain. Therefore, I felt the four days on the boat would give me a chance to rework the central characters of my script.

  Everyone dressed properly for plane travel in the 1950s, it still being viewed as an important occasion. Several friends came to see us off. I wore a bright blue suit (with skirt, not pants), a gardenia corsage pinned to the lapel of my jacket, a wide-brimmed black straw hat that I thought very glamorous, and spanking-clean, white cotton gloves. The children were dressed in their Sunday best, hair spit-perfect, shoes spotless. We departed from Burbank Airport by TWA (the irony being that Chasen’s was now the airline’s official caterer). It seems to me there was only one class—what we now know as first class. A rather wide aisle divided two long rows of two seats each. There was a steel staircase close to the cockpit that led to the “Sky Lounge” where drinks were served. Our chairs reclined into a kind of chair-bed and there was a heavy curtain that unfolded for privacy.

  Michael was seated directly across the aisle from Cathy (my pet name for Catherine) and me. Next to him, at the window seat—to my absolute thrill and amazement—was the great, and notorious, New Yorker and Algonquin Round Table writer Dorothy Parker, who also wrote screenplays and was well known for her sharp wit. (It was Parker who famously quipped when first reviewing a stage performance of Katharine Hepburn’s, “She ran the gamut from A to B!”) It struck me that Miss Parker might not consider a child a welcome traveling companion. However, the plane was full and I thought it better that I not trade seats and remained close to Cathy, who at almost three, I believed needed closer supervision. I assured Miss Pa
rker that my son, four years his sister’s senior, was very bright and I was sure would not be a problem.

  They seemed an amiable if curious pair. As we prepared for takeoff, Michael turned and said something in a confidential manner to Miss Parker. She laughed in a truly amused manner and then leaned across him and asked me in a voice with gravel in it, “Are you absolutely sure he is not a dwarf?”

  Once in the air, the plane became a bit rocky. There were no jets or real stabilizers at the time. Caught in an air current, planes could suddenly and sharply dip. This occurred shortly after takeoff, and Michael, who was often carsick, turned putrid green. Before I could unstrap him, he had pivoted his head toward the window and vomited right into Dorothy Parker’s expensively suited lap. The steward and stewardess came on the run, extricated Michael and Miss Parker, leaving my son for my attention as they rushed her off. I did not see the doyen of saber wit again until we landed something like nine hours later. She had spent the rest of the flight in the Sky Lounge, obviously imbibing, and could barely navigate the stairs on her descent, having to be held up by the two aides to make it off the plane.

  We arrived at Idlewild Airport, New York (now Kennedy), at about eight that evening. A travel agent, hired by the production company, met we three at the gate and escorted us and our baggage to a waiting car which took us to Hoboken where the Dutch liner Nieuw [New] Amsterdam was docked. Departure time was 11:00 p.m. We had two first-class connecting cabins. Michael had been given a small model of a cruise ship as a going-away present and Cathy a lot of coloring books and crayons (her favorite pastime), so I suggested that Michael take Cathy into the adjoining room—the door kept open between the two—and entertain his sister while I got us somewhat organized before we were at sea. Since we were all still on California time, I promised we would go up on deck to watch the ship pull out of port. About a half hour passed when I heard a woman shrieking in the hallway—“We’re sinking! We’re sinking!” I knew this was madness because we were still docked, but I hurried into the other cabin to grab my children just in case.

  They were standing side by side, Michael clenching Cathy’s hand. Water was flooding out from the open bathroom door of the cabin and, as the ship was slightly atilt, streaming across the cabin’s short hallway and out the opened door into the exterior corridor. They had put the plug in the bathtub, turned on the taps, tossed the toy boat in, and then became distracted by some other idea. Bathtubs on the ship did not have escape drains. You put in the plug and then followed the warning that it was to be filled only to one-third capacity. The crew were all very kind about the incident and the cabin and the corridor were cleared of water and fairly well dried by the time of our departure.

  I remember feeling a great swell of emotion as the ship’s horns blasted and I felt the forward motion of the boat as it moved out into the open sea, the light of day having given way to night, the starry skies and the flickering lights of the buildings along the shore looking a bit like fairy dust. I had been given a reprieve but I still had no clear picture of what our future would be. Sixteen weeks can pass pretty fast—then what? Still, for now, I was determined to enjoy the time and the exceptional experience that I had been granted.

  The Nieuw Amsterdam had been converted to a troop ship during the war and then repatriated a year and a half after the war’s end, a backbreaking task that had overtaken all the grand oceangoing vessels postwar. We were traveling in great luxury as all the reclaimed liners were competing in service, perks, and comfort for their share of the traffic—Great Britain’s Cunard White Star ships, the Queen Mary, Mauretania, Caronia, and Aquitania; France’s Île de France and the Liberté; and the United States’ President Coolidge (downed in the South Pacific), among others. Our ship had reemerged (along with her sister ship, the Rotterdam) into passenger service in all her prewar finery, her two funnels stripped of their drab gray paint were replaced with Holland America’s bright yellow hallmark (later the yellow would become a more subdued, but not drab, gray). All her original furniture, paintings, and appointments, which had been stored in San Francisco throughout the war, had been restored and returned to their rightful places on board the ship. The Nieuw Amsterdam was not the largest liner in transatlantic service, but she was called “the darling of the Netherlands.” I fell in love with her and the grandness of ocean liners from that very first night.

  When we returned from seeing the boat set sail on its ocean crossing, there was a note under my door informing me that arrangements had been made for the children, as of the following day, to eat all their meals in the children’s dining room at special hours and that there would be staff to supervise them. I was to dine at the captain’s table in the first-class dining room (it seemed that women traveling without a companion were mostly so honored). There followed a list of the hours meals were served and a dress code. Several of the evenings would require formal wear.

  With all I had to think about before I left, the dress code for dining had not been a priority. I had not packed (nor purchased) any such items. There was a shop aboard where a selection could have been found. But then, how could I wear such a garment in London when I would either be working or taking care of the kids? Back home, I had not worn an evening gown since my high school prom! No gown for me. Therefore, I ate my daytime meals in the grand dining room and the evening ones, listed as “formal,” in my cabin. I recall that a ship’s officer took Michael on a tour of the radio room and other areas of interest to young boys. I worked on notes for my script in a comfortable deck chair or in my cabin. I did not feel too steady walking around the boat’s slanting decks on my sticks.

  On the sunny morning of our fifth day we docked in Southampton. A travel agent met us at the dock to help collect our baggage and to settle us in the boat train that would take us to London—a short journey of about two hours. Vendors came by the aisles with baskets of sandwiches and drinks. The moving view outside the train’s windows was a magnificent slide show of all the great British landscape paintings I had ever seen. I loved the crooked houses and small villages we passed, the Gothic churches with their sky-piercing spires. Sheep grazed on hillsides. And many, many people rode bicycles along paths and through narrow lanes. This was a country I was sure I was going to like.

  When we arrived in London, a porter helped me with my hand baggage and the children as we stepped onto the platform.

  “Miss Edwards!” a male voice shouted.

  “Yes, here,” I replied, expecting another travel agent.

  Suddenly, there were several flashes of light. I dropped my sticks and held the children close to me before I realized that a band of photographers were taking pictures of us but why, I did not know. By late afternoon, we had settled into our hotel suite at the Cumberland Hotel on Marble Arch, an elephantine establishment that—although grand—looked as though it had been mummified for the last four decades without making a single change to its pre–World War I decor. There was a newspaper on a table (along with some messages). Within, was a featured photograph of me and the kids . . . under which was printed:

  “MISS Anne Edwards has arrived in London from Hollywood with her two children to write the screenplay of her story, A Question of Adultery about artificial insemination, soon to be a Raymond Stross production.”

  No doubting the implication. MISS Anne Edwards—two children—artificial insemination. “Oh, Lord!” I thought. “What have I got us into?”

  Never did it cross my mind that London would be our home on and off for nearly twenty years. Wherever I had lived within the borders of the United States, my ties had always been to country, not four walls. America was my world. When I stepped onto English soil the first time, I did so, perhaps not as a tourist, but as a working writer—an American writer, at that. Home seemed behind me—across the vast sea I had just traversed. Yet, really, what had I left? An unfulfilled career, an incomplete and troubled life. I know I thought about it, because I wrote in my journal, “What on earth am I going to do when this gig is
up?” And then added in parentheses: “(Will there ever be a man—and SEX—in my future?).”

  For now it would have to be just one foot in front of the other.

  • 2 •

  An American in a Queen’s Land

  Raymond met us for lunch in the restaurant of the Cumberland Hotel where we were to stay until our new home was ready for occupancy. He was dressed, sans chains, in a business suit, shirt, and tie. However, his thinning hair was still combed, Brutus fashion, across his forehead. There were, I now realized, two Raymonds. Hollywood had only temporarily shed him of inhibitions carefully inculcated by exacting parents and Britain’s rigid public schools. I had advised him that I would have to bring the children with me to lunch and he had graciously accepted their inclusion. As we entered the massive room with its dark-wood-paneled walls, white starched linen, and rather starchy-looking diners as well, I silently prayed Cathy and Michael would remember their manners. They did. Still, I had overlooked Michael’s knack of feeling free to express himself.

  An explanation might be necessary here. My son has a very high IQ. This was ascertained when he was three, and preschools refused to enroll him, citing his ability to read at a highly advanced level, adding that his vocabulary was extensive. The same thing occurred when he was set to enter first grade. The principal insisted that it would be better if he went directly into second grade. “Children who are too advanced become bored when the work in no way challenges them,” he told me, adding, “The fact that they seem to know all the answers is disturbing to the other youngsters.” I did not approve, mainly because I felt that being physically younger (and smaller) than his classmates could be a problem for him. I never discouraged him from reading what he wanted to read—books on my shelves, the daily newspaper—and enjoyed our conversations about them.