Leaving Home

by Anne Edwards

  Marion decided that I needed to meet some people my age (a euphemism for eligible men). One of her friends had a bachelor son who was a doctor (every mother’s dream for her daughter in those days). Ben was a heart-and-lung specialist with a successful practice. Obviously prompted by his mother (who had been prompted by my mother), he called and asked me out to dinner. He was a well-dressed man about thirty-two, a bit plump (“Hardly plump,” Marion had countered when I described him. “A bit adipose, perhaps”) with a small, trim mustache beneath a rather large nose. However, he took me to one of Miami’s best restaurants—so at least he was not a skinflint. My smoking became the central topic of conversation for the evening. Did I realize it could kill me? First, though, I would become addicted. In fact, I probably was already addicted. My heart and lungs would become diseased (if they already were not). I might have to live out my life reliant on an oxygen tank. He refused to let me smoke after dinner. “You have children. Do you want them to get a life-threatening disease as the result of your smoking?”

  I was not a heavy smoker. Maybe three or four cigarettes a day smoked during breaks in my writing, and one after dinner. “It’s your body, fine,” he said. “But you are poisoning the atmosphere every time you exhale.”

  I took great offense at his turning our evening into a lecture.

  “Look,” he finally said when driving me home. “You may not like me, but I want to see you break this habit.”

  “Why me? You hardly know me,” I asked.

  “It has to be done one by one until the cigarette companies are stopped. It’s my mission,” he asserted. Then he made me agree to accompany him the next morning to the clinic where he was on staff.

  He arrived at our door promptly at seven a.m. What I saw that day in the clinic was a wake-up call. Wearing a white doctor’s jacket, he had me walk beside him in a ward. There were patients unable to speak, a hole surgically made in their throats so that they could breathe, their speech sounding robotic. Yet some were inhaling from a lighted cigarette, the smoke entering and exiting through that hole. I never dated Ben again. I did, however, eventually stop smoking, that image of the people in the clinic unable to erase.

  Marion did not give up on her matchmaking. Another friend had a son who was a dentist (perhaps not as “select” as a heart-and-lung specialist, but guaranteed not to have as many emergency calls late at night and on weekends, she counseled). His name was Jerome and I was most resistant. “Just meet him, darling, for me.” She suggested I make an appointment for either myself or Cathy. Since Cathy’s teeth had not been checked for quite a while, I made an appointment for her.

  Jerome was youngish—in his thirties. Nothing special, but not unattractive. The office was not child friendly, leading me to believe that he did not have many children as patients. I stood by my daughter as she sat down warily in the dental chair. Jerome and I exchanged a few words. “I met your mother recently at our house,” he said. Aha! He still lived at home. “Beautiful woman.” Not too tactful. Then he turned to concentrate on his young patient.

  “Open wide—there’s a good girl.” He leaned in close with a small metal tool and a dental mirror to see better into her gaping mouth. He probed deeper, toward her back molars. ZAP! Cathy bit down hard. He let out a very unprofessional, “SHIT!” as he swiftly withdrew his hand the moment she opened her mouth again. There was blood oozing all the way down the starched white sleeve of his medical jacket.

  Forget Jerome.

  Miami did not offer a great deal of intellectual stimulation. But what it lacked, the nearing presidential election, covered on television, supplied. The race was between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, the latter an incomprehensible choice for any liberal. In my free time, I was glued to my parents’ small TV set watching the debates and the commentaries. Kennedy was young and inspirational, a war hero, married to the intelligent and most attractive, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. They were a couple who could proudly occupy the White House.

  Physically I was doing well, walking with a minimum of discomfort and, best of all, an even gait and was able to handle the job at the Americana Hotel without much strain. Still, the money I was paid was not enough to refill my coffers so that we three could return to London—which I was determined to do, especially after my father returned from the road and an uneasiness settled like thunderclouds over the house again. I knew I had to find myself a writing assignment. I contacted Ted Ashley in New York, and he came through a few weeks later with an offer of two television segments of a series being shot in New York. Still skeptical about the credit, Ashley drew up the contract in another name. That was fine with me. By now, television was a means for survival. It was not what my heart and mind told me I should do for the rest of my life. Yet, neither did it prevent my writing short stories or a chapter or two of that novel that was still brewing in my head even if very little of it was being transferred to paper.

  As September approached, the children were enrolled in Miami schools, and I felt compelled by that (and finances) to leave them with my parents for the eight to ten weeks I would be in New York (coming down to Florida for weekends whenever possible). I was not happy about them living in the same house with my father for such an extended period, for it had never been helpful to me as a child. But, as it turned out, two weeks after he returned, he went right back out on the road again. Marion was thrilled with the prospect of having Michael and Cathy in her care, and I would be earning enough to send her funds and still stash some away. From what I could glean from my mother, my father was having “some problems” in Miami. There never had been a problem that my father could not run away from. He was an expert at it.

  Early autumn in New York can be a place of extraordinary beauty—and it was. The fairly low-priced Adams Hotel, where I had a small but comfortable room (and a closet with a hot plate and a minisize fridge), was on East Eighty-Sixth Street off Fifth Avenue and just a few steps from Central Park. The place had a rather clubby feel to it. Many visiting theater people and playwrights stayed there. Arthur Miller had a two-room accommodation on a higher floor while I was resident (I can’t remember what play he was working on—but he pretty much locked himself in and was seldom seen in the lobby). A few of my California friends now lived in Manhattan—writer Vera Caspary (probably best known for Laura), who had been one of my mentors in my Hollywood days; Greta Markson, my closest childhood friend, now an actress appearing on Broadway in a supporting role in a Joseph Cotten play; and, of course, the Rossens, who had moved from 1010 Fifth Avenue to a building on the corner of West Eighty-Sixth Street and Central Park West. I had seen Bob and Sue in London several times. Bob had gone through much emotional stress. His affair with Elise was over and had not ended well. Sue had been forgiving. But he was not in good health, due to diabetes and other complications.

  I was still reading for him. Two years earlier I had come across a softcover edition of a Walter Tevis novel, The Hustler, which had not been a best-seller and had been passed over by the studios. Before coming to Hollywood in the 1930s, Bob had written Corner Pocket, a play set in a pool hall about pool-hall hustlers. Never produced in New York, he had tried to get studio interest when he was under contract to Warner Bros. They found the setting—a dingy, smoke-filled lower East Side, 1930s pool hall—too seedy and the tough, beer-swilling characters not likeable enough. Corner Pocket remained Bob’s one lost, but favorite, work. Tevis’s novel, updated to the 1950s, had brilliantly managed to bring more action, better characters, and suspense. Bob took an option on the book and, with an excellent adaptation by Sidney Carroll, directed and produced the film. I am sure he was a close advisor on the screenplay. But Bob, like Sidney, believed that taking on all three top tasks on a movie was riding a slippery slope. The film was enjoying excellent reviews. It would play a major role, along with Body and Soul and All the King’s Men, in cementing Robert Rossen’s legacy as a filmmaker.

  The Rossens’ new apartment was on a direct route through Central Park to the A
dams. One night I joined them for a small dinner party that included Shelley Winters, Charlie Katz (a powerful left-wing lawyer), movie producer Bernard Smith and his stylish wife, Frances, and Norman Mailer, the controversial young novelist known as much for his macho public behavior as for his early World War II literary sensation The Naked and the Dead. Bob was interested in Norman’s satiric novel of Hollywood, Deer Park, published a few years earlier to dismal reviews. Despite the book’s muddled plot and mainly unsympathetic characters, the novel contained one major, interesting figure (at least to Bob)—an informer during the early years of the blacklist—through whom Bob might have thought he could channel some of his own emotions.

  Shelley Winters, recently divorced from the actor Anthony Franciosa, was more Raphaelesque than I remembered from her movies. Her frankness was a revelation. The evening was lively. Hollywood was skewered. Bob was in especially sharp form, throwing words like a veteran boxer’s precisely aimed left-hand jabs, his cool, blue eyes never missing a move of anyone within his sight range. His smile was more of an appraisal than an expression of pleasure, but it seemed clear he was, indeed, enjoying himself. Many people found Bob difficult to like. But, through the years, I had been drawn to a warm and magnetic side of him. He had a strong belief in family bonds, a sentiment which probably had weighed in against continuing his affair with Elise.

  Watching Bob at a gathering of like, bright people was always fascinating. He was expert at engaging them in controversial issues. He was not a man who could tell jokes or relate stories of his colorful past history. He spoke in a low, confidential manner that demanded attention, and doted on one-to-one confrontation. At times, a conversation with him was somewhat of a sparring match. A kindred spirit was evident between him and Norman. Both were keen wordsmiths, short, weighty, but vital, ego-driven, Jewish men with a pulsing need to prove themselves right and to come out on top in any debate or competition. Even Shelley—who could throw a pretty good verbal punch herself and whose voice was a sharp, ragged-edged knife—was no contender.

  Norman paid scant attention to me except for those moments when he thought he had shot a zinger—at which point he would glance slyly over to where I was seated across the table from him and raise a bushy eyebrow. After dinner, when I rose to leave, Bob said he would have the doorman hail me a taxi. Norman jumped to his feet. “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Crosstown. East Eighty-Sixth.”

  “I’ll take you,” he offered.

  Sue was quickly at my side. “Stay awhile longer,” she insisted with unusual urgency.

  “No, I should have an early night,” I declined. “I have a breakfast meeting.”

  She took me by the arm and steered me toward her bedroom. “You can’t go with Norman! You know, he knifed his wife!” she said, eyes wide, back stiff.

  That had been last year’s news. Adele, although seriously injured, had recovered and had not pressed charges. Norman had received a suspended sentence—no jail time. The Mailers were living apart and Adele was petitioning for divorce. She was his wife, his domestic partner, someone with whom Norman had a troubled history before what was surely a vicious and unforgivable attack. Still, I did not see him as a danger to me, a woman he hardly knew. I thanked Sue for her counsel and rejoined the group, where I accepted Norman’s offer. After all, we would only be alone during a five-minute ride through Central Park.

  The road was brightly lit on this warmish, autumn night. Norman asked me many questions. What was my relationship to the Rossens? I told him he was my children’s uncle through my ex-husband. How did I feel about his being an informer?

  “At first I was furious, disappointed. I wrote him a very nasty letter. He replied, ‘Sorry you feel that way, kid. Someday, maybe you’ll understand.’” I thought about it a moment before adding. “It’s complicated.”

  He let it go at that. “Rossen seemed primed to make toast of me,” he laughed. “I gave him the edge. He was buying dinner, after all.”

  “I think he admires you. I’d guess he’s even a bit fascinated by you—the young genius, the macho man, hell-bent for destruction.”

  “That your opinion?”

  “I have no opinion. We’ve just met. I’m seeing you through Bob’s eyes and sifting tabloid headlines. I know him pretty well and think he sees pieces of himself in you—say twenty years ago. He’s been writing that character for decades. All those John Garfield movies he made for Warners. His own film—Body and Soul—the moxie fighter who sells out for money and possible fame. He’s drawn to tough guys who fall and then become heroes. He would have loved to have gone to war and written a novel about it like The Naked and the Dead. He didn’t fight because of the diabetes and was 4-F’d and never wrote a novel because he was too much in awe of literary works to chance failing at it. Failure is not in Robert Rossen’s vocabulary.”

  When we reached the Adams, he pulled up in front and turned off the motor. For about a half hour we continued our conversation. He asked if I had read Deer Park. When I said that I had, he wanted to know what I thought. I was honest, but not unduly harsh in my criticism, which centered on what I thought was an unsatisfactory plot and flawed characters. He immediately changed subjects and asked what I was presently writing. When told, he inquired, “Why?” in a disdainful manner.

  “I have two children who grow hungry three times a day and require a roof over their heads,” I explained.

  “What do you really want to write?”

  “A novel. I’ve started several. Lately, I’ve thought it should be about Hollywood and those of us who found ourselves in Europe after the blacklist went into effect.” This had actually been occupying my thoughts all the time I was in Florida.

  “Any time you have something on paper, I’d be glad to read it.”

  “I’ve never been too crazy about that idea—having a work read before I feel I have given it my all. Readers, no matter how well intentioned, at an early stage can often sway you into rewriting and then you are in danger of losing the original impetus of the story.”

  He slammed his hand hard against the steering wheel. “I think that’s what happened to Deer Park!” he exclaimed. He went into some detail as to how he had insisted the early manuscript (which had been rejected by his editor) be read by an outside reader and when that opinion proved negative, passed it on to someone else. The novel had been rejected multiple times before finding a publisher. He was quite emotional about this whole episode. Accepting harsh criticism was obviously not one of Norman Mailer’s better character traits.

  He asked if I would have dinner with him the next night. I agreed.

  “Eight, okay?”

  “Fine.”

  There were three messages from Sue. “Thank God, you’re all right!” she said when I rang back. “But my advice for you is not to see Norman again,” was spoken as an order. Sue could be both abrasive and self-righteous at times. She had been raised in a tough New York neighborhood where a girl had to fight for respect and independence. It had been a struggle to secure an education, and she had achieved it and, before she married Bob, succeeded to get a job as one of the first editors on the newly formed Literary Guild Book Club.

  Sue had believed in Bob’s talent as an unproduced playwright and supported him during their early years of marriage. His success had not mellowed her, but she had been a concerned friend to me, her advice—although often unsolicited—always offered with good intention.

  The next evening I dressed and was ready by eight. When a half hour passed and no Norman, I figured that he had changed his mind. I was about to settle in for the evening when the telephone rang. “There is a very drunk man asking to see you, Miss Edwards,” the front desk clerk said sotto voce. “Very drunk. What shall I do?”

  “Tell him I’ll be right down,” I responded in a bit of a panic. The last thing I wanted was a scene in the lobby of the hotel.

  Norman was standing stage center in the small entryway. He was well dressed, but his thick head of da
rk, curly hair was in disarray and he was unsteady on his feet. I quick-stepped to his side, took a strong grasp of his arm, and walked with him out the front door to the street. The question was, what should I do next? He had come in a car and I thought it a bad idea for him to get back in it and drive—with or without me.

  “There’s a seafood restaurant around the corner on Madison called the Captain’s Table. We can go there,” I said in an authoritative voice and, holding on to him in a tight grasp, headed him in that direction. We were given a table close to the front of the restaurant (which turned out to be a good thing). When we were seated I took a hard look at Norman. His remarkable blue eyes were bleary but he appeared somewhat more sober, perhaps due to the short walk in the evening air. He ordered lobster dinners and drinks and talked in a constant stream. I can no longer recall what he actually said as it seemed to have no relevance to me, to him, or the evening. His voice began to rise. The maître d’ nervously hovered around our table.

  Finally, our dinner plates—each holding a large, glaringly red, boiled lobster, giant claws rubber banded as though to keep the monster from rising from hell and jumping up to attack—were placed before us. I glanced up to thank the waiter. The man’s expression suddenly changed from servility to one of shocked horror. I looked back toward Norman. He had collapsed facedown on his plate, melted butter sputtering and splattering onto the table. The maître d’ immediately reappeared. My first thought was that Norman had suffered a heart attack, and I asked the man to call the paramedics. “I don’t think so, madam,” he whispered to me. “The gentleman has simply had too much to drink and has passed out.”