Leaving Home

by Anne Edwards

  While I was correcting the final galleys of The Survivors for publication, the book sold to the Literary Guild Book Club as an Alternate Selection and to Dell Publishing for a future paperback edition. It was early summer and I planned to remain for three months. Michael joined us in New York for school break and we three were a family again. I moved from the Croydon to a sub-leased, twelfth-floor apartment on East Eighty-Third Street. It was not really a penthouse, but the kitchen opened onto a rooftop terrace that was perfect for the dogs to bask in the sun. My marital situation was in limbo. Leon and I needed time to sort things out, a decision with which we both agreed.

  I did not see the publication of the book as a major consideration in that decision. I knew that one book—even if it were a success—did not necessarily establish an author’s career. Also, a book could be written anywhere. Hadn’t this one been conceived and written in England and Switzerland? The time was still not right for me to begin my book on the blacklist. My years abroad had put me out of touch with current American themes and issues. Arthur Miller, in 1953, had with The Crucible made the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 a parable for McCarthyism. Still, not enough time seemed to have elapsed to write about it in real time. Civil rights in America was the burning issue (literally and emotionally). Had I never left the States, I am sure I would have become an activist for that cause. The plight of blacks in America, especially in the South, tore at my senses. Still, I had not been a part of the action and knew I could not do justice to such a story.

  Angry letters flew back and forth between Leon and myself, Leon’s displaying a depth of bitterness I had not perceived. He had not accepted my decision that we should be separated as a trial period to see if we could avoid divorce (or had simply reneged as he had with the apartment in Venice). Finally, in a long overseas call, I told him that I was not at all sure we could work things out.

  “If it’s the apartment . . .”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “What else?”

  “Why have you been so reluctant to move out of a place that has such an ambiance of sadness about it?”

  “I’ve told you my reasons.”

  We ended up back where we were.

  Whatever the outcome in my marriage, I was certain that I would return abroad, perhaps at the end of the summer or, if Zanuck and Brown wanted me to work on an adaptation of my book, whenever that assignment was completed. One enormous dividend was the personal freedom the money I was presently making would afford me. There would be no need for me to accept an offer of work unless it was truly of great interest to me. I had never expected, or permitted, Leon to take on my responsibilities (my children, my parents). Maybe that had been wrong. I did not know then and I don’t know now. But I did not think my suddenly coming into a generous sum of money would affect any decision either Leon or I would make about our marriage. I could not help but remember the difficulties in my parents’ disunion. I always felt my mother would have been happier, freer, if they had divorced. The difference was she truly loved Merk. I was not at all certain of my depth of feelings for Leon. Having admitted that to myself, I felt that anything less than separation would be unfair to both of us.

  I am a member of a somewhat complicated, extended family. On my father’s side, there was his older sister, my aunt Bea (Beatrice). Big Charlie’s second wife, whom he later divorced, gave him two more daughters, half sisters to my father. My aunt Edith, Big Charlie’s beautiful third wife and half his age, had presented him with another girl, Joy, and a son, Robert, always referred to as Bobby in the family. We two were only a month apart in age and had been close since childhood. Bobby had been a frail child, a confused adolescent, and a resentful adult. He had known since his youth that he was homosexual and did not keep it a secret from either of his parents. Aunt Edith considered it a passing fancy and insisted on pairing him with the daughters of her good friends. Big Charlie knew damned well that he had fathered a homosexual and could not stand the sight of him.

  Although plagued by childhood asthma and, later in life, a blood disease, Bobby had grown into a man with a strong, macho appearance. He had been the one to inherit Big Charlie’s height and the ice-carved profile—sharp bones, strong chin. His blond hair had recently begun to thin and he shaved it all off, giving him an even bolder appearance that was at odds with his sensitive nature. He was an intelligent, self-reliant man dedicated to a career in social services and was now a well-respected, top executive in that field for the city of New York, a good friend of the mayor, often appearing on television news and talk shows. He had changed his name from Robert Josephson to Robert Jorgen to negate his father, and perhaps his Jewish heritage. I believe it pleased Big Charlie, who wanted to have nothing to do with a homosexual son. His current live-in partner was Mickey Deans, a good-looking young man who was, at present, working as a night manager at one of the city’s most popular disco clubs, Arthur (founded by Richard Burton’s ex-wife, Sybil), in the building that had formerly housed the famous El Morocco, a mecca for celebrities. Arthur had inherited that reputation.

  Unlike Bobby’s previous partner, whom I liked and admired, I did not take to Mickey Deans. He was too slick, too in your face, too enamored with celebrity. Whenever I did see him at Bobby’s, he would be spewing with scandalous gossip picked up in the club. Bobby’s three-room apartment, at the rear of the fourth floor in a run-down, prewar building on East Eighty-Eighth Street and Lexington Avenue, was far from glamorous. Dark during the day (when he was at work), it came alive at night, for Bobby had a great sense of style and an instinctive talent for how to use light to its best effect. There was a living room, bedroom, narrow bathroom, and galley kitchen. The living room had recently acquired a small, upright piano, rented by Bobby for Mickey’s use.

  Bobby was very much into his work and was forever finding and helping “almost lost causes” whom he was certain he could save. Whatever extra money he had went into these efforts. He was a good person, and I hated seeing him taken in by so obvious a user as Mickey Deans. I have to admit that Mickey possessed a disarming boyishness that he had honed to near seductiveness along with a calculated charm. Slim and vital, he seemed never to be static. He paced a lot, drummed his fingers (the nails well manicured) on the arms of the chair in which he sat, doodled whenever he had a pen and paper close at hand, and gestured animatedly as words shot out of his mouth rat-a-tat-tat. He sang in an untrained voice to his own simple piano accompaniment. Being of Greek American background, his true name was Michael DeVinko. He had made his way on his own from the age of sixteen playing gigs in small-time New Jersey clubs. It had taken him fifteen years to make it to Arthur and the “big time.” Bobby was clearly in love with him. What Mickey got from this relationship can only be speculative.

  As Mickey told it, he had met Judy Garland while acting as courier to deliver pills to her suite at the St. Regis Hotel; an act of friendship for an acquaintance, he said. Judy had been unable to get herself together to fly to a performance in Chicago. The pills had been delivered to him at the club in an envelope. His agreement to do what had been asked of him, he explained, was because he knew how important they were to a troubled performer like Judy and because he, himself, often needed ups to keep going and downs to sleep. They had seen each other frequently since that time and she had been coming into the club to wait for him to finish his shift.

  Early one morning, Bobby called me with an unusual edge of panic to his voice. Mickey had brought Judy Garland, in a near coma, back to the apartment at dawn. She was asleep or unconscious in the bedroom—he had been unable to ascertain which. He was terribly worried about her condition. Could they come right over? What he was suggesting was that they wrap Judy up and transport her in a taxi to my apartment (about ten blocks away) for her to stay until she came out of her stupor as both Bobby and Mickey had to go to their jobs and I was working in my apartment and so could watch over her. Although furious at Bobby, I was greatly concerned about Judy who, from what I had been tol
d, appeared to be in need of professional care, not a watchdog. I also had Michael and Cathy to think about, and I was damned sure I would be one of the last persons that Judy, once conscious, would choose to see her in such a condition. Whatever the consequences, I told Bobby that Mickey, being the responsible party, should call a legitimate doctor or paramedics. I offered to come right over and wait until either one of them arrived as long as Mickey waited with me. Bobby hung up angry but, in the end, the two of them remained with her until late that evening when she became fully awake. Mickey then took her to the club with him, sequestering her in his office with a compliant employee to help him get her through the night when they returned to Bobby’s small apartment. And so her romance—and her dependence on Mickey Deans (who saw neon marquees and residual fame attached)—began.

  Judy had been in London during the summer of 1964, her health failing, her life a wrenching tangle of drugs, bad decisions, and endless court cases—divorce proceedings with Sid, as well as a custody suit that he had filed against her, debt collectors placing liens and suing, and her agents claiming unpaid fees. During that time, she had met and married her fourth husband, the considerably younger Mark Herron (not at all sure that her divorce to Sid was final), a film hopeful whose only professional appearance had been as a bit player in the Federico Fellini film, 8 1/2. She had been hospitalized almost immediately upon her arrival with cuts on her wrists, which she claimed were caused accidentally by a scissor that she was using to open a trunk. Not long after, Herron disappeared from her life (Judy would later say that Herron conducted their relationship “from a moving telephone booth”).

  I was in Switzerland most of the summer of 1964. When I returned to London, Judy was in the hospital again, this time with “an acute abdominal condition.” I visited her twice. Her frailness shocked me. She looked pitifully small and could not have weighed more than ninety pounds. I was, therefore, alarmed to learn only a few weeks later that she had accepted an engagement at the Palladium, then relieved when Liza, teenage and adult in many ways, joined her mother in London and agreed to appear with her in the concert. I did attend a performance, but did not go backstage afterward. Judy had been puffed with pride as she shared the stage with her daughter. I think I just wanted to carry away that image with me.

  Now, just two years later, she was back on pills (more probably never cleaved of them), placing herself in the control of a man who seemed inadequate for the kind of support and care that she required. She was dead broke, further in debt, unable to pay her hotel bill, and had no place to go. She remained at Bobby’s, occupying the bedroom for a week or more while he and Mickey shared the pullout sofa in the living room. Then Bobby borrowed money so that she could check into a hotel. I have no idea what (or if) Mickey contributed.

  The situation grieved me. It was not easy to walk away from a seriously troubled Judy Garland. Still, I felt I had to keep my distance. My concentration and resources had to be on my kids and my new career. Truth was, I felt relieved when Dick Zanuck and David Brown asked me to come to Los Angeles to discuss the screenplay of The Survivors. My feelings were bolstered when my publishers suggested that I coordinate a book tour, to kick off with an appearance on a popular nighttime West Coast television show with the publication day of the book, and then cross the country—East, South, Northwest, the upper Pacific Coast States, and back to California. Such an expansive publicity campaign, especially on a first novel, was not always the case. Irwin Shaw had even decried the lack of publicity on his most recent book, as had Vera Caspary, and both of them had been well known. I was informed by author friends that I was very lucky.

  Cathy and I flew to LA, while Michael headed for Berkeley. We went directly to an apartment on South Spalding Drive in Beverly Hills that I had prerented in New York sight unseen from Garson Kanin, who co-owned the building with his brother, screenwriter Michael Kanin. (I was friendly with Garson and his wife, Ruth Gordon, in England long before Funny Girl.) They had bought it both as an investment and as a place where Garson and Ruth could stay when in California. The Kanin brothers’ elderly mother also had an apartment in the building, a situation I later realized was not too agreeable to Ruth. The first thing I did was enroll Cathy at Beverly Hills High School. Then I went over to nearby Sloane’s Furniture and purchased a few necessary pieces for our comfort. I had taken the apartment as furnished. However, the Kanins had left only bare necessities. The apartment itself was elegant and far exceeded my expectations. But it was absent of any personal touch. I rather liked the idea of lending my own style to it, especially since I had the money to do so, and because the apartment had been rented to me far below its market value.

  The building was unique in that two wings, which faced a wide courtyard, were centered by a small tower that contained two duplex apartments with their own entrance. On the lower floor of my apartment, one entered into a reception hall that led to a beautiful high-ceilinged living room with log-burning fireplace. Off this room was a glassed-in, lanai-sunroom from which one could look across the courtyard onto the street. The dining room would generously seat eight to ten guests. The pine-paneled kitchen had a built-in dining nook. Up a few steps and set back from the living room was a den or office, small but useful. Upstairs there were two good-sized bedrooms and baths, and a master bedroom suite that had its own private terrace for sunbathing. It all seemed too good to believe. We settled in fast and Cathy started school. Letters from Leon were caustic. “I hope you’re happy now with your dogs and all that sunshine!” Not a good way to win back my affections.

  My first meetings with Dick Zanuck and David Brown were warm and welcoming (as they would always continue to be). Although considerably younger, they were, like Sidney Buchman, gentlemen of the old school. Dick was the son of the dynamic Darryl F. Zanuck, who had been with Joseph Schenck, a founder in 1935 of 20th Century-Fox, and chief of production for over twenty successful years. As one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, he did not suffer yes-men easily and was famous for his studio meetings with his underlings where he would snarl, “For God’s sake, don’t say ‘yes’ until I finish talking!” Having had enough of Hollywood by 1962, and believing that the passion had gone out of the Industry, he joined his French mistress in Paris and appointed Dick vice president in charge of production. The relationship between father and son was (as were most of Darryl Zanuck’s close connections) stormy. The son inherited a lordly title to a dominion in ruins. With the catastrophe of Cleopatra, the studio was on the edge of bankruptcy. Not one movie was being filmed on the huge lot. Dick closed the studio down except for a bungalow, which he took over for his office.

  “That’s where I operated the studio for two years. It was me, a legal guy, a couple of janitors, and a guard at the gate. You could literally see the tumbleweeds [on the old back lots].” Except for his talent as a filmmaker, Dick was nothing like his father. Small of stature, he was big on ideas and ran his office not on fear and bombast, but with intelligent discussion and respect for the opinion of others.

  David Brown had been the studio’s story editor then head of the story department when, in 1969, he became Fox’s executive vice president of creative operations. Dick’s senior by eighteen years, David was a tall, slim, always impeccably attired man, with a jaunty mustache, a wide smile, and a twinkle in his eyes. Before his association with Fox, his had been a literary background as editor of both Liberty and Cosmopolitan magazines, well known then for their fine short stories (and his as a contributor). The two men teamed up later to coproduce. They were a dream partnership, really. I have always referred to David as a “Bloomsbury gent.” He held writers in high regard and had an acute understanding of how to adapt a book to film. Due to the difference in their ages, one might suspect that David was a substitute father image to Dick. That was not what I observed. They were much more like two bonded colleagues.

  For our first meeting the three of us had lunch at the studio commissary’s executive dining room. Paul Newman sat at the next tab
le (he had recently completed work on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). I admit that my eyes strayed from time to time to his table. I think he was the handsomest man I had ever seen—bar none. It was the depth of intelligence reflected in his face that contributed a lasting impression. Dick then escorted me personally around the studio with a stop on the previously used set of the Harmonia Gardens for Hello, Dolly! (the great scene where Streisand, as Dolly, comes down a seemingly mile-long staircase to be welcomed back). Dick and David had grand ideas for The Survivors. They wanted whatever contribution I could give, but let me know straightaway that a studio writer would do the final adaptation (this turned out to be John Gay). They envisioned a cast headed by Audrey Hepburn (who had just completed shooting on Wait Until Dark) and Gregory Peck, both under contract at the time to Fox. I could not have been more pleased with the substance of our meetings.

  Meanwhile, I had the publication of the book and the subsequent publicity tour to deal with and to ready myself for the latter, which was to take me to twenty-one cities in twenty-five days ending with several additional days of appearances in Los Angeles. To make sure Cathy, the apartment, and the dogs were in good hands, I hired a housekeeper, Lucy Adams, a marvelous black woman who immediately became a family member. I also engaged Jay Schlein to help me with research on the new project and secretarial needs on my current, crowded agenda. Jay had worked as a secretary for various writers, including Garson Kanin, and his know-how was extremely useful. He was also crazy about Cathy and the dogs and had enlisted Lucy into teaching him how to cook.

  Jay was gay and had recently been freed of concealing his sexual choice by the death of his elderly, conservative mother, who had been in his care for years. He was a minted breath of freshness, good humored, bright, and always helpful. His sister’s husband was a well-known Hollywood agent whose top client at one time had been the irrepressible, Brazilian, singing-dancing star with towering fruited hats and raised platform shoes, Carmen Miranda. At one point, at the height of her career, she had been in danger of losing her American visa and her agent his handsome 10 percent. Marriage to an American citizen seemed to be the answer, and Jay was almost badgered by his brother-in-law into being the dupe. Jay finally refused under threat of exposing his homosexuality (which would have let the government know that the marriage was a facade). A year after this incident, the “Brazilian Bombshell” died of a sudden heart attack.