Leaving Home

by Anne Edwards

  He had hired a car and after lunch we took a tour of the city. I was more impressed with the sound of Madrid than its architecture. Madrid was the noisiest, most boisterous of the cities I had known. Pop music blared through open windows. Cars honked their way through traffic. Tires screamed as motorists stopped short, or revved up. I did become infatuated with the Madrileños. They were people of a joyous nature who had a sense of individual importance, of self-dignity. A majority were poor. All of them had suffered much in the course of their civil war, World War II, and the long road to recovery, to which Anglo-American film companies had greatly contributed.

  A Talent for Loving was being made at the Estudios Sevilla in Madrid, with some location work in nearby sites. There were three more studios in Madrid, and they were as busy as Hollywood’s motion picture factory once had been. Anthony Quinn was shooting a movie on a nearby stage to Talent; Orson Welles (whenever he showed up) on another. For fifteen years Madrid (and Spain) had been the center for American/European production. Bob Rossen was credited with its debut and the growth that had resulted from a deal that he had made with Franco in 1952 to shoot Alexander the Great in Spain. American production companies with large-scale dramas to shoot followed suit. There were vast, fairly unpopulated areas a short distance from Madrid that were perfect for filming war, western, and adventure movies. Except for technicians and laborers, many of these early companies had employed American expats in key posts (except for actors whose careers had ended with the blacklist for, as they were recognizable, they could not get a pass by taking an assumed name). How odd was it that men and women who considered themselves dedicated liberals could have so easily done business with Franco’s Spain? Extremely! For the American dollars that were paid to the Spanish government for the right to film on their land and in their studios were, during those years, being used to prop up the generalissimo’s dictatorship.

  I was sorry to never have asked Bob about his feelings and motivations in being in business with Franco when he had been such an outspoken critic of the regime, especially during the time of the Spanish Civil War, when he considered fighting with the Lincoln Brigade against Franco (as some American writers had done)—not that he had ever been in the physical shape to participate in any army! By the midsixties, grand Anglo-American epics like Alexander the Great, Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, 55 Days in Peking, and others of their genre had tapered off. Still, filming in Spain saved American dollars and—as the rationale went—Franco’s influence in 1969 was also waning, as was his health, and he was preparing to “step back and let his protégé Juan Carlos, grandson of former King Alfonso XIII, take over in the event of his death.” (On Franco’s death in 1975, Juan Carlos became king, restored the monarchy, and successfully oversaw the transition of Spain from dictatorship to parliamentary democracy.) However, there was no way to avoid the fact that while the generalissimo was alive, Spain was a dictatorship. I don’t think Leon felt any more comfortable with this than I did. But the film colony appeared exempt from much government control. In fact, with divas like Quinn and Welles afoot, the production companies had their own disruptive power figures to deal with. I was never on those sets, but I am sure they could not have been as troubled as was A Talent for Loving, nor Welles or Quinn as outrageous as Topol, the Israeli actor who recently had been a big hit in the lead role of Tevye in the London musical production of Fiddler on the Roof (played by Zero Mostel on Broadway). After Topol had agreed to do Talent, he was signed to appear as Tevye in the film version of Fiddler. Not yet a household name, proximity to such acclaim had already turned his head, for it was to be his next film. By the time of my arrival in Madrid, it was evident that the director, Richard Quine, had lost the power battle between them. The cast included the actor Richard Widmark (who appeared as though he walked onto the wrong movie set, so quick were his exits when he completed a scene); the fine stage actress, Genevieve Page; the elegant, dashing Cesar Romero; and Quine’s third and current wife, singer Fran Jeffries.

  As happens with film companies, the participants—actors, director, producer, cameraman, and their families—form a tight group, which can often be quite pleasant. Aside from Widmark’s indifference and a hopeless script, the major problem in Talent was that Topol was a loose cannon. Despite his wife’s constant attendance on the set, he chased after every young woman who had a bit or extra role (the younger they were, the better he seemed to like them). Angry mothers and threatening brothers, uncles, or fathers appeared at the gates of the studio wanting to have at him. It was Leon’s task to pacify them. To add to this, the Quines were constantly quarreling. Fran Jeffries was a singer, not an actress, and did not like her role, especially the scarcity of her scenes. By the end of shooting, she had filed for divorce (they had been married about a year). At one point, Quine went missing for five days and the assistant director and Leon took over. Widmark, at fifty-six one of Hollywood’s most durable stars, appeared on the set when called for and then made haste for his dressing room to remain behind a locked door until required to return to the stage. That left Cesar Romero who was a “peach of a man,” if one dare use such an old-fashioned phrase. He was warm, fun, intelligent, a truly good human being and, with his classic Latin good looks, a joy to behold. He remained unruffled by the chaos around him, and I never saw him even once lose his cool or his professionalism. Cesar was the one light in the entire holy mess that was the making of A Talent for Loving. When he was not scheduled to work, the ambiance truly got dark on the set.

  Walter retreated to London shortly after my arrival, leaving Leon as negotiator and peacemaker, attempting to keep things rolling in what must have been the most dysfunctional film set in cinema history. I was present almost daily as Leon thought I might be helpful (mostly to keep Fran Jeffries occupied, I suspected). I greatly respected his diligence and understood why he was never between jobs. Leon could be counted upon, and his knowledge of so many facets of filmmaking was a great asset when producing a movie of wide scope, with star players, on a tight budget. Working hours in Madrid were controlled by the sun, custom, and a need to save energy (physical and artificial). Temperatures in Madrid can rise dramatically midday. The whole city seemed to shut down between noon and four p.m., including the studios. At four, work would commence until nine or sometimes ten p.m., when restaurants and nightclubs really came alive. Very often members of the company (excluding Mr. Widmark) dined out together. Cesar Romero (who often was addressed as “Butch” but not by me) and I clicked. We shared an offbeat sense of humor and an overview of the mad happenings on the set (never, I must add, involving his participation). In the parlance of society, Cesar was a confirmed bachelor. Remarkably, perhaps due to strong studio control (he had been at 20th Century-Fox for much of his film career), his homosexuality, though well known in the industry, was not public knowledge. Frequently called upon to escort a single female star to a premiere or other publicity function where he would be photographed with one of these glamorous ladies on his arm, his fans viewed him as a sophisticated man about town. Nothing in his attitude or appearance hinted at his sexual orientation.

  At sixty-three, when he appeared in Talent, he was well over six feet, his posture remarkable, his physique that of a man twenty years his junior, his dark, thick hair handsomely streaked with gray. Both his hair and his famous mustache were always impeccably trimmed. What you saw first, however, was his wonderful smile, which said “I’m a happy man and I’m glad to be alive.” Suave and sophisticated though he was, there was not an ounce of pretension about him. He had Cuban parents, but he had been born in Manhattan and had started his career as a ballroom dancer. He loved music, and when he chose where we (the members of the company who had joined for an evening) were to go, it was always someplace where there was good Spanish dance music, establishments that did not always serve the best food.

  I still loved to dance and often attended dance classes for exercise. But my leg problems made me fainthearted on a public dance floor. I politely resi
sted when Cesar first asked me to try the tango with him. He would not take no for an answer and swept me onto the dance floor. His hold was strong and supportive, and I knew I could trust him not to let me fall. The next day on the set, he drew me aside and helped me to master the basic tango steps while avoiding placing too much pressure on my bad leg. Between takes, when I accompanied Leon on location, Cesar would sit with me and talk.

  His great love had been the actor Tyrone Power, who had died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of forty-five a decade earlier in Madrid while he was filming Solomon and Sheba (he was replaced by Yul Brynner). I knew that Power had been married several times so I assumed he was bisexual. But the odd thing was that Judy Garland, as a very young woman before her first marriage to David Rose, had been madly in love with Tyrone Power and followed him to Mexico where he was making a film, only to find him with Lana Turner in “a love nest.” Of course, when the studios ruled Hollywood, the sex lives of their stars (their properties, really) were whitewashed by teams of publicists, hired for just that purpose.

  Cesar had his own curious faith called “liberation theology,” a combination of Marxism and Christianity, which held that religion and communism were compatible (although Marx wrote most famously that “religion was the opiate of the people”). He tried to explain this to me, but I admit I found understanding it daunting. He believed in a utopian society and that what Christ would have created, if he had lived, would have been a kingdom that bore a strong similarity to Marxism.

  Despite, or maybe because of, the problems with Talent, my reunion with Leon had been successful due largely to my involvement with his work. I had put my writing aside. I was there for him when he needed to let off some steam or discuss the day’s latest snarl. The picture was not going well, and he knew it. The original concept had been geared to satiric comedy (which is perhaps why Topol, who spoke with a distinctive Israeli accent, was cast as a Mexican general). But Quine was not comfortable with the genre, so the satire was not funny and the script was so twisted that it was hard to get the story or characters straight. Leon’s hope was that it might come together in the cutting room as had happened to the Beatles movie Help!, when he and Walter had thought it should have been called Helpless. (For the record, A Talent for Loving did not obtain a theatrical release for twenty years and was dismissed with sharp criticism and departed abruptly from theaters.)

  What did I learn about Spain and its people in the short time I was there? Well, they drank more beer than wine. The Prado was so badly lighted that the great art that hung there could not be fully appreciated. Spanish women were more powerful in business than one would expect, especially in a country that was a dictatorship and where men seemed to rule their households. I was amused to find painted on the door of ladies’ lavatories in several restaurants a woman’s gloved hand holding a red rose, men’s room doors decorated with a black top hat and a silver-topped black cane—à la Fred Astaire. I refused invitations to the barbaric bullfight contests (which received full coverage on the government-controlled television, the gore not censored for children). In fact, there was little else to watch on television other than bullfights. The generalissimo’s portrait remained prominently displayed in both private and public buildings (including the hallway of our apartment house). The workers with whom I spoke to at the studio were more materialistic than I expected. There were soul-crunching slums in certain districts (but then, as I had spent time during my first marriage in the southern states, Alabama and Mississippi, as well as Texas, I was no stranger to the inhumanity of slums).

  “Viva la Muerte!” had been the strident battle cry of Franco’s Falange Party in the civil war (paradoxically translated “Long live death!” in English, but surely meant “to the death”). However, Franco’s rule was dying, as was the man. Madrid (which is the only Spanish city on which I can comment) seemed to be celebrating the wake before the death of their generalissimo and of his national party.

  Before I departed, Leon and I made short-range plans. His secretary Leigh would work with a real estate company in Switzerland to find us a small chalet in Gstaad on a six-month rental, the lease to begin in June. Gstaad had been a compromise choice of residence. I would miss Salka in Klosters, but I would be close to Chillon and to the library in Montreux, which had a fine archive on the period I needed to research. Gstaad was also a short train ride from Leysin, the university to be attended by Cathy (now desiring to be called by her full name, Catherine, an invigorating wake-up call that my daughter was no longer a girl but a young woman with a strong identity of her own).

  In Gstaad, Leon would have the pleasure of rekindling his years-long friendship with Yehudi Menuhin, who had a full-time residence there and had also founded a music festival held during the summer in a church in nearby Saanen. Talent would be wrapped up by June and Leon would have the best part of the summer with me before heading to Denmark, the location of his next project.

  Tax laws in Britain had grown progressively difficult with an enormous chunk of one’s earnings (if either a British citizen or a legal resident) being eaten away. There was a loophole that lessened the bite if the taxpayer spent six months plus one day out of the country. This is what Leon desired us to do. The way he configured it (or his accountant had done), we could achieve this by one or both of us spending the time required in Gstaad and for the lease to bear Leon’s name. Never clever in such matters, I had no idea how this setup might affect my own tax situation, except for the fact that I could not be subject to double taxation. What I knew instinctively was that a marriage should not be regulated by tax considerations or for one’s life to be measured in dollar bills. After an emotionally testing afternoon of disagreement on this matter, I gave in to Leon’s scenario and therefore cannot blame him for what became a rocky start to the reconciliation that my time in Madrid had engendered. Once again we would be apart for long periods of time, which I felt was not a foundation for marital harmony. What sweetened the plan was that Cathy could come “home” on weekends, I was deeply involved in my novel, and had Jay, who was most enthusiastic about being in Europe, to help me in my research and transcriptions.

  I returned to Beverly Hills and, with Jay’s help, packed up the apartment ready to be placed in storage. Cathy left California directly after her graduation for London where she was to spend several weeks at Lennox Gardens to see friends before joining me in Gstaad. By that time, with Jay’s help, I would be set up in our new—if temporary—home. I did not fly across the ocean unaccompanied. Our three poodles rode in the cargo section in the lower half of the plane. (They presented still another problem for me to ever return full-time to London, as Britain had a six-month quarantine for all dogs entering the country and I knew I could not subject our pampered pets to such a trial. “Oh, well,” I thought in a cavalier way, “I’ll have to deal with that later.”)

  Leon’s company took care of my flight ticket and, as they received a substantial discount from Iberia (the Spanish airline), I flew on one of their new jumbo jet carriers from Los Angeles to Barcelona where I was to transfer to a smaller craft taking me to Geneva (a distance about equal to that of LA to San Francisco). I had two hours between planes. The first thing I did was to check with the airline how my dogs were doing and to make sure they made the connection with me. I was informed they were fine. About thirty minutes before flight time, I was paged. Somehow Air Cargo had misplaced the crates with my animals in them. But they wanted to assure me that if they weren’t found in time for my flight, they would be placed on the very next available one.

  “Then they are here at this airport?” I said, trying to keep my cool.

  “Si, si.” In Air Cargo, it seemed, but they were not sure which crates they were in.

  I tried to remain calm as I knew the Spanish anger hotly when they are confronted, a situation that could only make matters worse.

  “Take me to Air Cargo,” I managed with some control.

  Oh, that was not permitted.

  Un
able to contain my anger a moment longer, I raised my voice. “I want to see the agente de policia immediatamenta!” I shouted in my limited Spanish, with visions of my three dogs suffocating in their crates and possibly being sent to some foreign shore where they might never be found—or worse! to be eaten!!! I turned away and shouted again, “Policia!”

  “Señora! Por favor!”

  A representative of the airline, a short, square, flustered gentleman with a ludicrous Groucho Marx mustache, was swiftly by my side. “Take me to Air Cargo!” I managed in my best deep-voiced, dominatrix imitation. I think the man had visions of my pulling out a whip from my over-the-shoulder bag, for he grabbed my arm and with a stammering of Spanish—not one word of which did I understand—steered me out a side door, across a field, and into a large Quonset hut–style building. “Air Cargo, señora,” he announced, glancing up at me with utter disdain as we entered the steaming interior. There were hundreds—maybe thousands—of crates piled up one upon the other. I took a long step forward and called out—loudly!—“SANDY! BIBA! CHRISSY!” Immediately, I was answered by a chorus of barking dogs, their barks familiar to my ears! Still, I could not yet tell where the sounds were coming from. I stepped forward several more paces and then started to stride down the center aisle between the crates and suitcases. “SANDY! BIBA! CHRISSY!” Closer now, the barks accompanied by pawing on wood. Very close. And then I saw their pink noses poking at the airholes in three crates of various sizes (to accommodate their different sizes).

  I insisted on walking them across the field to where my connecting plane now sat, ready to be boarded. The airline allowed me to fly with Biba (who was so upset she seemed to be having a fit until—once in flight—I was able to calm her) on my lap. Sandy and Chrissy, still barking their indignity, were put into cages in the cargo section. When the plane landed in Geneva they were brought to me (now out of their crates) and we boarded the charming mountain train that travels from Geneva to the villages above. The Swiss seemed to have no problem with dogs riding with their families.