The Fat Lady Sang

by Robert Evans

  Catching my breath, I grabbed the door to prevent myself from falling. I was an odds-on favorite to pass out right there in front of the suite of bliss.

  Catherine caught on quick. “Darling, it’s so hot out. Let me help you up the stairs.”

  “No, I’m fine.” But she knew different.

  Did I carry Catherine over the threshold? Not quite. It would have been easier for her to carry me. Her female instincts came into play as she slowly guided me to the king-sized honeymoon bed, my head spinning all the while. Poor Catherine, she’d waited all these years to be a bride, and she sure in hell didn’t wind up with Rubirosa.

  Later that night, she fixed me a bubble bath in a sunken tub. When it came to getting out, I couldn’t move. With all her strength, she grabbed both my arms and helped me out. For an instant, I felt as if I were back in the rehab ward at Cedars. Not a great way to start off a romantic melding. At that moment, we both knew: This was a far cry from a kiss to build to a dream on.

  I lay awake until the sun came up, thinking, How unfair to the lady beside me. Her first marriage and she ends up with a cripple. Worse than that, a fraud who claimed he was fit, who, in reality, was a fake.

  My guilt turned to paranoia. Catherine, to her credit, didn’t show her hand. In some way, she was determined to try to make it work. Whether it was the drugs, the guilt, or my total disillusionment at the shape I was in, I became pensive, silent, and scared.

  The next morning, Catherine and her entourage made their way up the hill to the pool and gym. As soon as they left, I got up, moved to the terrace, and started my walking exercises: Heel, toe, heel, toe. Taking a deep breath and crossing my fingers I started the trek up the hill to join them.

  Damn it, I couldn’t make it.

  Halfway there, I sat down on a rock near the road. The hill wasn’t steep, but it mattered little. Not only was I out of breath, but that damn heel, toe wasn’t working. I was on full limp.

  I started to cry. Kivowitz was right. Married less than a day and I’m falling apart.

  Pull yourself together, Evans. You’ve made tougher treks.

  The truth is, I hadn’t. Call it dealing with half a deck. Call it what you want, but I knew I wasn’t up for the role.

  Before I hit the pool, I sat down, caught my breath, then put on my best smile and strode in. The four of them were in the gym. I couldn’t join them on the treadmill, but at least I could swim. Luckily, they weren’t watching. I made the length of the pool—and that was it. Out of breath and dizzy, not wanting to show what bad shape I was in, I opened the gym door and shouted, “Meet you back at the cottage!”

  The minute I began my descent, though, I felt off balance. I knew only one thing: I could not afford to fall. When one of the housekeepers passed by a moment later, I stopped her and asked, “Please walk me down to the cottage. Hold me tight.”

  Desperate to conceal my inadequacies, I willed myself to be up for the night. Catherine was an angel. She cared, caressed, and soothed me. A better actress than I thought, but I didn’t care. At least it was an embrace—a needed one.

  Without saying a word, she said it all. My cavalier attitude, my misguided play for a quick fix, had shattered the dreams of this extraordinary lady lying beside me.

  Finally, pragmatism prevailed over promises. Painful, yes, but pretending ain’t never been my game. I had coerced her to be my bride under pretenses that were all but delusional. The good doctor was right, that quick fix wasn’t the answer. Sadly, a quick good-bye was.

  I took her in my arms. With my forefinger under her chin, I lifted her head, met her eyes.

  “I did you wrong, kid. Thought I could handle it, but my feet ain’t big enough to fill them shoes. How can I be a father to India, think of us having another kid, when I can’t even get out of a bathtub without your help?”

  She knew it. I knew it. It was over and out. Hello and good-bye.

  By the time the limousine got back to Woodland, all of Catherine’s possessions had been removed and back at her pad a half mile away. She would have everything cozy, as if nothing had happened—a hot bubble bath, a favorite dinner . . . chicken in the pot . . . served in bed—by the time her four-year live-in got back from Vegas.

  Her weekend lark? What lark? Just married and divorced, that’s all.

  Guys are so dumb. Feather his ego, give him the best fuck he’s had in years, and any man will pass out like the stud he thinks he is, not the spud he really is.

  Could’ve pulled it off, too. Yeah, but she would have had to have married Mr. Anonymous rather than Mr. Infamous, giving them newspaper Fourth Estaters a field day. The real joke, however, was on them. While those mongers were still salaciously summarizing our betrothal, we were standing in front of the annulment man.

  Sadie, Sadie, married lady, no loner was she.

  Ah, but single she was thrilled to be . . .

  . . . all because of me.

  PHOTOGRAPHIC INSERT 1

  On the Seine, escaping before the husband returned, 1958.

  With Ava Gardner and Tyrone Power on the set of The Sun Also Rises.

  Globe Photos

  Surrounded by well-wishers after the premiere of The Best of Everything at New York’s Paramount Theatre in New York, 1961.

  Metropolitan Photo Service

  With Norma Shearer, who tapped me to play her husband, at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

  With James Cagney on the set of Man of a Thousand Faces.

  With Mia Farrow at her star wagon, on the set of Rosemary’s Baby.

  Julian Wasser

  Sue Mengers and Alain Delon at Woodland.

  With Dick Van Patten, my friend since puberty and still going strong.

  Alan Berliner

  Entering the world premiere of The Godfather with my brother Charles, Ali MacGraw, and then–Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

  Globe Photos

  With my longtime mentor and friend Sidney Korshak.

  Peter Borsari

  My son, Joshua, and me, looking ahead to the future.

  Ali, Joshua, and me, celebrating his twenty-first birthday at home.

  My association with the Kennedy family continued through a close friendship with Teddy Kennedy. Here he is on one of his many visits to Woodland, post-tennis . . . pre-dinner.

  Receiving the Golden Globe for Best Picture for Chinatown from one of the world’s great femmes fatales, Catherine Deneuve.

  Lunch with Dustin Hoffman and friends beneath my prized two-hundred-year-old California sycamore. Imagine . . . it stood here when the land was still owned by the Spanish crown.

  With Jack Nicholson and Roman Polanski, sharing breakfast after an all-nighter in Paris, 2005.

  A great day for Jack, 1974.

  The Bruce Torrence Hollywood Photograph Collection

  Nose-to-nose and heart-to-heart with Jack.

  Helmut Newton

  Catherine Oxenberg and me on our wedding day.

  With Barry Diller and Graydon Carter, celebrating our prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

  Charles Evans Jr.

  With the dashing Graydon Carter and my two brilliant directors, Brett Morgen and Nanette Burstein, arriving for a moment of triumph at the screening of The Kid Stays in the Picture at the Cannes Film Festival.

  Charles Evans Jr.

  A great day: Reading the thumbs-up notices for The Kid documentary.

  Sinisha Nisevie for Oliver Peoples

  The book launch for The Kid Stays in the Picture at Barneys New York in Beverly Hills.

  Charles Evans Jr.

  15

  That was then; this is now. No heir to Valentino—rather, an over-the-hill lothario limping down the beach alone. Uselessness and loneliness permeated my every thought. The tentacles of agoraphobia already had me in their grip. Paranoia seeped into my thoughts, making me realize I had two choices: I could fall into a life of self-pity, or I could Popeye it: Hey, I yam what I yam and that’s all that I am. Fuck ’em, fuck ’em all.

&n
bsp; Standing there barefoot as the last of the ocean’s ripples washed past my ankles, I beheld God’s Church of Nature. In its purest sense, I had finally found religion.

  I looked up at the Almighty. My eyes teared.

  “Help me, O God,” I cried. “I will not be a victim. Help me. Please help me.”

  Passing onlookers walked nearby, afraid to get too close. One thing they did know: This was one crazy cat! Ah, but they were wrong. This was one blessed cat. As the sun made its descent, I made my ascent. My agoraphobia waned, my stride wavered less, paranoia slipped from my view.

  Then, all at once, a fiery orange full moon filled up the sky like a second sun. Could it be the Man Upstairs had heard my plea? The heat of the moon’s fire was voice enough. No matter how cold the world out there might be, for the first time since I’d faced the white light and heard the Fat Lady, I felt the strength only He could have given me.

  Do I believe in miracles? You bet your ass I do!

  Back to Woodland I traveled. As I entered my onetime Land of Oz, I was totally alone . . . yet not alone at all. I was surrounded by a 360-degree vista of every kind of tree imaginable: a sea of hundreds of polychromatic rosebushes, gardenias, lemon and lime trees, evergreens, and eucalyptus trees, many reaching two hundred feet or more. Not for nothing was our little street called Woodland.

  At last, I felt protected by my roots of thirty years.

  Wandering through my Garden of Eden, I lay down on the grass beneath the sprawling, two-hundred-year-old sycamore behind my house. For more than an hour, my eyes panned the vistas I had once taken for granted. It may have been the first time I lay behind the gates of my Garden of Eden alone. “Am I really here?” I wondered aloud. And that prompted my first call to the outside world.

  I dialed Warren, my seven-digit pal. “It’s Evans. Before you get a chance to play Mr. District Attorney, don’t ask me any questions. Get Jack and come down, will ya? I need ya. I need ya bad.”

  Couldn’t have been more than ten or twelve minutes before the Two Musketeers showed up at Woodland. They must have known I meant it.

  “Well, you got yourself a new name,” I said.

  Warren didn’t laugh. Jack did. “Yeah?” Warren said.

  “Quick Draw!”

  Jack interrupted. “Good name, Pro.”

  Beatty continued. “When it comes to time to celebrate, you sure keep it a secret.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Yeah, but I can get away with it. You can’t.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Nicholson cackled. “That’s why he’s called the Pro.”

  “Did you come here just to make me feel bad?”

  They chuckled. Twenty-one marriages of all faiths had been consecrated under the languid branches of that old sycamore. It was known as the Lucky Tree. Nineteen were still in play. The only two that took a dive? Mine.

  Beatty gave it to me again, below the belt.

  “You’re dumber than I thought, Evans. Why the fuck didn’t you call me? I would have tied your hands behind your back, put tape over your mouth. I’ve known her for years. She’s wonderful, but she’s not for you.”

  “You’ve known everybody for years!”

  “You were just afraid of a bad report, huh?” We both knew he was right.

  Nicholson just laughed. “When you need me, Keed, I’m there for you faster than a rabbit fucks. When it gets to hitchin’ time, though, I ain’t even invited. Instead I’m lying out on the sundeck, holding my dick with one hand and fielding calls with the other. ‘Who did he marry? Where’d he get married?’ And I just laughed. ‘I know nothing about it.’ Next time you’re in deep, Irish is out of town. Call nine-one-one.”

  “You’re right, Irish. So are you, you prick,” I said, looking at Warren. “I was scared. Know why? I knew you would have talked me out of it. Got a flash for you. While we’re laughin’, Cinderella’s at her fuckin’ attorney’s, gettin’ an annulment.”

  The two of them looked at each other. Nicholson gaped. “After four days?”

  “You’re wrong. After two. My own doctor told me I was certifiable.”

  The DA turned on me. “Certifiable? Are you kidding me? That’s brilliant! How many guys can sweep a girl off her feet, take her away from a guy she was engaged to for four years, marry her, and dump her in one week?”

  Jack interrupted again. “The best part?” His eyebrows arching north: “He did it with half a tongue!”

  They both burst out laughing. “Now that’s talent!”

  16

  I awakened the next morning realizing that there was one thing I’d yearned for, one luxury that had eluded me, all my life: POM—peace of mind.

  Many a friend called, wanting to drop by. Despite my waterside epiphany, I wasn’t up for the part. I was becoming more and more reclusive by the day.

  At the behest of Warren and Jack, I paid my first visit ever to a psychopharmacologist. After two hours of heavy analysis, he demanded that I go on antidepressants immediately. He would brook no objections.

  “Take advantage of our latest breakthroughs; they’ll work for you. I urge you to treat this with the same seriousness with which you treated your strokes. Left untreated, this condition could cause a . . . critical setback.” I got the hint.

  As I waited for the elevator on my way out of his office, I all but broke down. The doors opened . . . and there stood a blast from the past, whose presence in my life remained as potent today as it had decades ago. Yet she had no idea who I was. Could I have changed that much?

  It was the winter of 1963. I was in my apartment in New York, taking a bath, when the phone rang.

  “Roberto, you must come to dinner tonight so I can introduce you to the next Mrs. Evans. She’s possibly the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met . . . and she’s all alone. Doesn’t know anyone in town.”

  “Where and when?”

  Only one man on earth could have lured me with a pitch like that. Porfirio Rubirosa.

  He was a woman’s man, a man’s man, a modest man, a gentleman, and widely chronicled as the greatest cocksman of the twentieth century. So legendary was his endowment that “How’s your Rubirosa?” became worldwide slang. Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, Kim Novak, Jayne Mansfield, Eva Perón—they all waited in line to find out.

  Privately, he confirmed one story: An obnoxious drunk stood by Rubi at the urinal in the men’s room of the Ritz hotel in Paris. “How big does that son of a bitch get when it’s hard?” the drunk asked, nudging him. Bored from decades of being asked the same question, he nonchalantly answered: “I don’t really know. It takes so much blood to get it up, I always pass out!”

  Known to many as “Rubi”—to some, less elegantly, as “Rubber Hosa”—in less than a decade he pulled off the nuptial parlay of the century by marrying the two richest women in the world: Doris Duke, heiress to the Duke tobacco fortune, and Barbara Hutton, heiress to the Woolworth dime store fortune. He married them, divorced them, and left them fanatically jealous of each other.

  No one could claim even a distant second to Rubirosa’s Throne of Seduction. But he was more than that. An airplane pilot, a daring two-goal handicap polo player, a title-holding sports car racer, tournament tennis player, and a boxer to boot. He had a full-scale boxing ring in his chalet outside Paris—not for show, but for the three competitive rounds he put in each day. I know, I was his houseguest more than once—and I was never able to lift my arms for the third round.

  I had been introduced to him at my bogus engagement party in Paris, and that one moment almost made up for my disastrous trip. We became instant pals. Macho and mysterious, Rubi was the only guy I’ve ever known who attracted the attention of men as fervently as women. Hosting Rubi for dinner brought even the most reclusive potential guests to the table. He was one fuckin’ stellar attraction! Ever modest, he often whispered to me, “I’m sure you’re wrong, Bob. She wouldn’t want anything to do with me. I’m much too old for her.”

  “Sure, Rubi! You k
now different, I know different. Next!”

  He lived by his own rules, constantly mocking himself, laughing about his inability to lead a structured life. Money, or lack of it, never bothered him. Why should it? It was always there for the asking.

  As we were leaving a boring lunch together in New York, he asked me what he thought was a serious question. “Roberto, why is it the ambition of most men to save money, and mine is to spend it?”

  “They ain’t Rubi, that’s why!”

  He knew where I was coming from. He also knew I was right.

  In the winter of 1962, we four-engined it to Palm Beach to attend their event of the year, the International Red Cross Ball. From around the world they flew—Cary Grant, Yul Brynner, Kirk Douglas—filling the gala with movie stars galore.

  Walking in with Rubi that evening was nothing less than mind-boggling. The movie stars became instant background. From debu-tramps to royalty, every eye in the joint turned to Rubi—and then, by reflex, to his crotch. Me? I was embarrassed. Him? No way. He was used to it. That was his legend. Even if he wanted to, as he often said, he couldn’t shake it!

  A few months later, Rubi was in New York with his wife of five years, Odile Rodin. She was his fifth and last, the only one who wasn’t extraordinarily wealthy or famous. Oh, but she was extraordinarily beautiful. He had met and married her when she was only nineteen, a young actress on an express train to success as a French femme fatale. She quickly changed her mind.

  Two hours later, we were all having dinner at La Cote Basque. The girl I was with hardly spoke a word of English; my Portuguese was even worse. It didn’t matter. I was in love. This five-eleven, raven-haired Brazilian beauty was a knockout! I was the only one of the four who couldn’t converse in Portuguese. She charmingly insisted that we all speak English. Continually making fun of herself, she didn’t give up trying. Her name? Florinda Bolkan. To my surprise, she was the reigning Glamor Queen of Brazilian flicks.