by Ingrid Pitt
Nineteen
A stretch limo picked me up from LAX and whisked me to the fabled Beverly Hills Hotel. There was a bit of a kerfuffle at the reception desk. Evidently the room had been booked in my writer-friend’s name but that didn’t seem a problem. Blithely I followed the bellhop out to one of the little cluster of bungalows. The room was splendid, all I had imagined it to be. I was a little surprised that so far my benefactor hadn’t arrived to welcome me, but this was LA: everyone was busy-busy-busy! I spent some time looking at everything, found a little bar, helped myself to a small bottle of champagne and went out on the patio to enjoy the scenery, luxuriate in the tiny bubbles bursting against my nose, the warm sun dappling down between the heavy shards of the palms and the undeniable fact that I had made it to the City of Angels, the city of dreams.
Having rested, I decided it was time to get my act together, to unpack and let the studio know that I had arrived. I opened the huge, sliding-door wardrobe in the walk-in dressing-room and, to my confusion, was confronted with a row of suits. I checked the drawers: shirts, socks, the usual men’s gear. I guessed my American writer-friend was looking for a pay-off for his charitable act but when I rang reception they explained that the room, although booked by Mr Stern, was in the name of someone I did not recognise. I was his guest. This was turning nasty. It looked as if I was the victim of a pimping raid on foreign shores. I slumped on the bed, my hopes in ruins. How could I have been so daft? I castigated myself. Like a dumb cow I’d shut my mind to the possibility that I was being imported for anything other than my talent. Why hadn’t I insisted on getting an official letter from the studio?
I rang Fox. No, there was no screen test scheduled in my name. Yes, the man was one of the money men behind the company. No, I couldn’t have his address. I pushed. The woman said that he was at Beechcraft in Santa Monica buying an aeroplane. He was due back that evening. She was curious and asked me why I wanted to get in touch with him. I had the impression that she had guessed pretty accurately our relationship. I hung up, rang for the bellboy and demanded another room. How I was going to pay for it didn’t enter my head.
My new room wasn’t a patch on my old one but in the Beverly Hills Hotel they’re all not to be sniffed at. I lay on the bed and wondered furiously how I could make this terrible situation work for me. The telephone rang. It was my blind date. I recognised that nothing would come from meeting him with steam hissing out of every orifice so I cooled my temper and agreed to meet on neutral ground in the Polo Lounge.
My date was straight out of the make-up cave for ageing Don Juans: face-lift, stomach belt, Persil-white teeth, slicked-back rug and a suntan that had little to do with anything in the solar system. Just to make sure that he had covered all the points of bad taste he was wearing the sort of outfit that would have looked too young on a twenty-year-old. He flashed his bleached dentures and told me that there had been some terrible mistake. Unfortunately the screen test had been cancelled due to factors beyond his control but he was sure that if we could be friends he could talk to any one of a number of highly placed tycoons who would love to help me out. Understanding only too well what his idea of friendship would involve, I told him sweetly that he would have to pick up the tab for my room and food until I was able to sort out something else and that if he saw Mike he should tell him that if he ever crossed my path again he would be singing soprano before nightfall. Slightly amused, but more bored with the whole business, he agreed to my demands, got up and walked off without another word. I went back to my room and hoped he wouldn’t renege on the deal later.
The next morning I was sitting by the pool when a telephone call came through for me. The waiter plugged in the instrument. I thought it might be Maria who had taken Steffanie to Santander to give her a little holiday while I was away but it was Mike Stern. He apologised profusely and, before I could slam the phone down, asked if I needed some bar work. It took Mike a while to calm me down. He swore that he would get me something more worthy of my talent as soon as possible. Meanwhile, waitressing was the time-honoured way of getting started in Hollywood. Two days later I was cooking.
I hadn’t travelled 10,000 miles to work in a restaurant but the rest of the staff were nice, all with dreams of making it big in LA-LA Land, CV and scripts always at hand just in case a producer or director walked in. I was soon fed up with cooking spaghetti and offered to make plum cake. It was my father’s favourite and before long became the favourite of the customers. Later I added Polish cheesecake which got me a lot of accolades but no nearer to my goal.
The Spaghetti House did at least throb with the fat and famous. None of them so much as did a double-take when this fabulous blonde primped and gushed and served her plum cake, until one day Willy Wilder, Billy Wilder’s brother, walked in. Willy loved my plum cake and soon started to stop by to chat with me in German. One day he invited me out to lunch and began to tell me about a film called The Omegans that he was going to shoot in the Philippines in only a month’s time. Would I like to play the lead? he asked. I sat there and looked at him. A film shooting in four weeks, with no leading lady? It was not credible. The only explanation was that Willy was just like all the others. I burst into tears. Willy sensitively guessed at the reason for my outburst and hastily assured me that the offer was kosher. I was just what he wanted for the lead.
Willy’s wonderful offer meant that I could go home at once and be with Steffka again. He gave me an advance on my pay to cover expenses and soon after I got back to Madrid the script arrived with a return ricket to Manila. I had, stupidly, put myself in a vulnerable position but, through determination and amazing good fortune, I’d won the day.
Twenty
The rain was so intense that I couldn’t see my hand six inches away from my face. I was staying on a houseboat with nothing for company but creepy crawlies and the fear of headhunters, who I’d been told lived in the nearby mountains. I’d quickly asked for some bodyguards for my houseboat and kicked myself for insisting on special quarters when I could have stayed with the rest of the cast and crew in tents.
The only American actor on the film was Keith Larsen, husband of Vera Miles. Willy’s wife was there and the crew, camera and sound were American but the rest were local luminaries.
We’d spent a couple of weeks in Manila, where I’d been able to ring Steffanie and have long chats. I had trained her well to cope with our separations. She knew I had to provide for us and she was always glad when I landed a job but she made certain I knew that she missed me. I would give her things to accomplish while I was away and, sure enough, the minute I returned, out came the books or drawings, depicting her mother in the funniest shapes and forms, doing what she went away to do.
Film-making is hard work and you don’t want to be preoccupied with small details and worries. On every film I’ve worked on someone has looked after me and made life tolerable. On The Omegans I had a Filipino dresser, Cabrera, who was prepared for everything. During filming I had to lie in the Pagsanhan river for hours, day after day, covered in leeches. Cabrera would put me in the swimming pool at the end of the day and with a lighted cigarette burn them off me. One couldn’t be prissy or he couldn’t do his job.
On the few occasions I wasn’t used, I’d borrow the jeep and race through the jungle to the nearest phone to call Steffanie. Invariably she and Maria would be out. I’d leave message after message with the telefonista and, feeling as depressed as hell, motor back to location.
Once the film was wrapped, all I wanted was a quick flight back to Spain to be with Steffi. I had to stop over in Hong Kong, where I decided to go for a walk to see something of the fabled city. Flush with my film pay I decided to buy myself a piece of jewellery to commemorate the journey and picked out a beautiful jade ring. The jeweller warned me against buying it, saying it was bad luck to buy jade for yourself but I gave him a gentle raspberry and wore it from the shop.
The next morning I began to wonder if the old man hadn’t been right. Just before I
left I checked my belongings, only to discover that my travellers’ cheques were missing. I had left them in my room when I’d gone out the previous evening. I notified the management (who informed the police) and the issuing bank and, in a decidedly bad mood, took the hotel limo to the airport. Half-way there I discovered I had left my jade ring at the hotel. I told the driver to check in my luggage and caught a taxi back.
Having retrieved my ring from where I’d left it on the bathroom shelf, I hailed another taxi but the traffic was murder and, to my horror and frustration, my plane left without me – but with my luggage. Politely, the airline supervisor told me that it would be waiting for me at Tokyo airport, my next stop-over. It was hours before the next flight and I kicked my heels around the airport, particularly irritated because Toshiro Mifune, Japan’s superstar in Kurosawa’s hit movies, whom Willy had introduced me to in Manila, had promised to pick me up at Tokyo airport and take me to dinner. I wished I’d just left the bloody jade ring and caught my scheduled flight.
When I landed in Tokyo I enquired about my luggage, only to be told that the flight that had left without me had not yet arrived and was believed to have disappeared over the Mongolian mountains. It was never to be heard of again. If I hadn’t gone back for the jade ring I would have disappeared with it. The engraving on my ring was ‘Be Lucky’. When Steffanie turned eighteen I gave it to her so that she should be as lucky as I was that day in Hong Kong.
On top of everything else, Mifune was not there to meet me. He had been told that the plane was missing and decided I was a goner. I got on the phone to him and told him that reports of my death had been grossly exaggerated and that I wasn’t due out until the morning. He came and picked me up, and we went out on the town. He was incredible. Everywhere we went he was treated like royalty. I was a bit miffed. I got elbowed aside in the fans’ eagerness to get at the great Japanese star. Early next morning he took me back to the airport. We promised to keep in touch.
I was aching to get home, nearly physically sick with longing. When I arrived in Madrid, I was almost glad I had lost my luggage. There was nothing to stop me rushing straight through customs. Steffanie was standing with Maria at the barrier, grinning and waving her favourite teddy bear at me. Like a fool I burst into tears, grabbed her and sobbed down her neck. She let me get over the worst of it and then, practically, suggested we all had a Coca-Cola. She had just discovered Coke and thought it was the answer to any problem. I don’t think she realised why I was weeping and couldn’t stop. I’m a very lucky old bat!
Most of the actors who had lived at Dr Fleming 42 had left. By 1967, no more American films came to Spain. I didn’t care. I considered myself an international actress now. Well, I had just done an American movie for a Wilder. If you said it quickly enough, Willy even sounded like Billy. There were still some Americans in Dr Fleming and they were impressed.
Marc Lawrence, who had stayed in Spain, introduced me to Milo Frank, who worked for Cinerama. They were starting production on Krakatoa – East of Java with Diane Baker, Brian Keith, Rossano Brazzi and Maximilian Schell. I hoped Milo might be able to offer me something on the film but since they already had Barbara Werle, there was no way they could work another blonde white woman into the script at that late stage. In spite of this Milo and I became staunch friends. He kept telling me that I should move to Hollywood but I prevaricated, playing with Steffi, making up for lost times.
When Milo returned to the States he continued to write, phone and nag me to get my head in gear. There was a lot of work in Hollywood and he was in a position to see that I got my fair share. As the bank balance was not balancing very successfully, I decided I’d better drag myself to LA for the second time.
I sobbed all the way to the States. Everything I did seemed to take me away from Steffanie, but I couldn’t possibly take her with me until I had sorted out what I was going to do. I took a short-term lease on a flat in 2000 Doheny Drive, just a stone’s throw from Sunset Boulevard and the Spaghetti House where I had so recently been a cook. I’m afraid I exaggerated my fortune outrageously there, but nobody seemed to mind. I just prayed that I could get something set up very soon and not have to face the humiliation of begging for my old job back.
On his home territory Milo wasn’t quite the big shot he had been in Spain but he did get me an agent, Walter Kohner, and gave me some introductions. Everything was definitely on a better footing than on my farcical previous visit.
I was still missing Steffanie desperately but couldn’t afford to bring her to join me. I knew Steffka was safe with Maria, but that didn’t stop me worrying, especially as I had been forced to move them to a new flat in a less salubrious part of Madrid.
One night I dreamed that Steffanie had fallen down the elevator shaft. The dream was so vivid I couldn’t ignore it. Half out of my mind, I rang the telephone operator and demanded to be put through to Madrid immediately. She chewed her gum and told me there was a six-hour delay. I became so hysterical the operator switched me through to the supervisor to whom I recounted my dream. She was probably into dreams for, having tried to reassure me that it was all going to turn out for the best because dreams always worked in opposites, she agreed to have my call prioritised. It still took nearly half an hour and by that time I was fit to be tied.
When the telephone finally rang I knocked it to the floor in my eagerness to pick it up. For a moment I thought I’d broken it but then I heard Steffanie’s voice. She’d just got back from play school. I dread to think of the state I would have been in if nobody had answered the phone. Hearing Steffi’s voice patched me together instantly. I might be an absent parent but I was determined not to unload my guilt on my baby. I made out I had just phoned in the normal way to see how she was and what she was doing. She asked me when I was coming home and I told her that I’d just found a new job and when I was paid I would send for her and Maria. She took it all in her stride and passed me on to Maria, whom I begged to get a gate installed across the kitchen window that opened into the elevator shaft so that Steffanie couldn’t possibly fall out. I didn’t tell her why but she promised to have it done immediately. When I finally hung up the New York supervisor rang and said, ‘A’right there, sugar?’ What a fantastic woman! I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t been able to hear my baby’s voice right away.
The job I had landed was a TV series called Dundee & the Culhane with John Mills. I played the ‘perk’ for a travelling judge in the Old West with a gun-slinger as bodyguard. Ralph Meeker was the local star. It was great working with two old pros like that. I love Westerns and this one was tremendous fun. Between shots I learned to play poker for sunflower seeds. Or I thought I learned to play poker. I was to find out very soon that playing for sunflower seeds is a whole lot different from putting your hard-earned cash on the line.
I was worried by the level of violence in LA. Every day the papers were full of reports of muggings and shootings. Everyone seemed to carry a gun and when one of the continuity girls on Dundee was attacked with a knife as she parked her car one night at the supermarket, I decided it was time to learn to protect myself. I had a friend who was a stuntman-cum-actor and he was studying karate at the great Nishijama dojo (gym) in Hollywood. I decided to enrol.
Karate was extremely good for me, for my peace of mind especially, and it was an excellent way to while away the boring lonely days when I wasn’t working. As usual I went OTT. Every moment I could spare I was working out and doing katas, which are a series of choreographed stances and movements laid down by Funigushi, founding father of Shotokan karate. I put so much effort into it that I was graded in no time.
Nishijama’s dojo was an ‘in’ club, frequented by the stars. Even the King, Elvis Presley, was a regular visitor. Like everyone else I was in awe of him and worked my butt off to get noticed. Elvis would arrive with a group of mates, most of whom seemed to be highly proficient in karate. He would work out, bid an expansive farewell and leave. I tried to persuade Nishijama to introduce m
e to him but he wasn’t keen as he recognised that one of the reasons Elvis came to the dojo was to get away from people pestering him and to relax. I was almost at the point of walking up to him and saying ‘Hi, I’m Ingrid. Fly me!’ when Nishijama asked me to do a kata with Elvis. I almost fainted. Elvis was very good; I was awful. Still, he didn’t seem to be too upset and I worked out with him on a few other occasions. He was a black belt at this stage and I a brown. On each kata I wanted desperately to make an impression and pushed hard, until one day I went too far. Elvis wasn’t expecting it and his counter was more forceful than I’d anticipated. He caught me flush on the breast. He could see he had hurt me and stopped immediately. He apologised and I said it was all right – ‘What’s a poke in the boobs between superstars?’ Sensei Nishijama instructed us to carry on. I guessed that discipline was everything and you didn’t stop a kata because some broad with ideas above her station got her tits in the way. I think Elvis was embarrassed. Then I got another job and didn’t go to the dojo for a while. I never met Elvis there again. It was such a shame because he was very good. I enjoyed his stage performances a lot after that because he used the karate movements of the katas in his act. I watched him in action in Las Vegas at one of his great shows. He asked me to stand up and announced that he would sing ‘Love Me Tender’ to Ingrid Pitt – which I thought was out of this world . . .
My next job was in Ironside. I was playing an escaping Soviet Olympic swimmer and the day hadn’t started well. Standing around in a swim-suit waiting to do my water nymph bit for the cameras hadn’t improved either my temper or my health. I wanted my bed, a superheated water bottle and a balloon of brandy. Just as I was about to make my wish come true and have a really early night the telephone rang. It was Ralph Meeker. I hadn’t seen him since finishing Dundee & the Culhane about a month earlier. During the series we had become quite friendly. He now told me about a poker game that was going on at the house of the legendary Hollywood stunt co-ordinator Yakima Canutt. He wanted to take me along. Yakima was particularly famous for the bench-mark super-stunt with John Wayne in John Ford’s Stagecoach, the one that Harrison Ford reprised in Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when he went under the lorry and came up over the back. The last thing I wanted was to go out and be sociable but I was still at the stage when I believed that if you stuck close to the successful some of the gilt would rub off, so I let Ralphie persuade me and was waiting on the stoop when he arrived.
