The Fat Lady Sang

by Robert Evans

  Her insistence on trying to speak English led my ego to believe she really dug me. What a hot gift on a cold night, I thought. Possibly Rubi’s right. The next Mrs. Evans. Better we don’t break the language barrier—it’ll last longer.

  After the soufflés, Rubi suggested we try out Le Club, a private disco that had just opened not too far away. Though the weather was bitter cold, we took off on foot. No matter the weather, Rubi never sported a topcoat. Me? I felt the warmth of Heaven.

  “Florinda Evans. Sounds good,” I repeated to myself as we entered the club. Perfect, I thought. My Latin dancin’ will get to her big!

  We danced till we were drenched in sweat. “I’ll drop you off at the hotel with the Rubirosas,” I whispered to her. “Wait a half hour, then I’ll come back and pick you up.” How fetching her smile as we danced as one to the beat of the tango.

  Exhausted, we gave up the floor for our chairs at the table. Odile leaned forward. Her hand crossed Rubi’s, then grabbed mine, shocking me like I’d never been shocked before. Looking straight into my eyes, she whispered, with the coldness of a prosecuting attorney, four words that severed my every dream of Florinda.

  “Forget her. She’s mine!”

  Moments later, the four of us made our departure. Rubi suggested we walk back to the St. Regis, just a short distance away. As naturally as two people dancing, Odile and Florinda walked arm in arm up the block toward First Avenue. Their two men trailed a couple of yards. Me? I’m going nuts: An hour ago, Florinda was the next Mrs. Evans. Now she’s dyking it with Mrs. Rubirosa.

  “Well, it doesn’t play like she’s going to be the next Mrs. Evans,” I muttered.

  “You never know, Robert . . .”

  “I do know. Odile just gave me the layout.”

  Rubi laughed. “Roberto, you don’t know Brazilian women. She told me you are the first man she wants to meet in New York. Your picture is showing in Brazil now. Down there, they call you the Latin Lover. Maybe you should move there. She called Florinda after finishing her last picture and said she couldn’t wait to meet us in New York and firecrack the city. And Roberto, the first person she wanted to meet was you—the bullfighter. That’s what they call you down there. That’s why I called you as soon as I checked into the hotel, Odile says, ‘Call Roberto! Call Roberto!’ ”

  With the graciousness of his Latin manners, he opened his arms. “Roberto, Brazilian women—they are the best. Look at them. Can’t you see?”

  “Sure, sure. It’s the three of you and me. I’m the beard.”

  “Beard? She wants a big romance in New York!”

  “You mean between you, Odile, and Florinda? And me? I hop a cab and go home with the morning papers.”

  He laughed. “Roberto, you must understand. Brazil is a country of love.”

  “Can we change shoes? So, she’s not the next Mrs. Evans. Can I at least be a fly on the wall?”

  “My shoes? They won’t help you. They won’t let me be one.” Rubi turned serious. “Roberto, there’s as much a chance of Odile letting me get close to Florinda as there is for me to remarry Doris again.”

  “Rubi, are you saying . . . ?”

  “No! Odile won’t even let me watch!”

  The light changed and we made our way across the street in silence. I started to laugh. “Rubi, Odile’s no fool. If I were her, there’s not a shot in hell I’d let you be in the same room with Florinda.”

  The Master smiled, knowing his legend all too well. “Roberto, that’s the price I’ve had to pay,” he whispered.

  “After putting me through tonight, you owe me a big one,” I told him. “And it’s a must.”

  “Whatever you want, Roberto. Anything.”

  Taking out a pen and paper, I wrote down a name and number and handed it to him. “First thing tomorrow, make a date for four and have this guy as a filler instead of me, will ya? Give Florinda the same buildup you gave to me. Make it a repeat performance of this evening.” I smiled. “That’s all I ask.”

  “Warren?” Rubi laughed. “Florinda doesn’t know who Warren Beatty is.”

  Apparently, Florinda wasn’t that faithful. She went on to become the Countess Marina Cicogna’s live-in girlfriend. By coincidence, the countess, one of Italy’s wealthiest, was also one of Italy’s most prestigious film producers. In time, it was easier getting a date to see the pope than it was to pull Florinda away from the countess.

  I did get married, though. Not to Florinda, but rather to Camilla Sparv, a sensational Swede. We spent our honeymoon as guests of guess who? The Rubirosas. At Spain’s most royal resort: the Marbella Beach Club.

  For two weeks, in July 1964, the four of us were inseparable. The only problem was Rubi’s continued insistence on picking up every check.

  “Rubi, I’m not a charity case.”

  “Ah, but Roberto, I am the best man. I’ll have it no other way!”

  Seeing Camilla fixate on Rubi’s endowment, I couldn’t help thinking, Can’t disagree, Rubi. You are the best man.

  The morning after a night of awesome fireworks over the waters of Marbella, Rubi insisted we travel by car to a small town in Spain.

  The road, bumpy. The thermometer, tipping one hundred. Yeah, but Rubi’s ebullience was on high. Me? I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. We arrived at an ancient town. “Roberto, I take you here to offer you my gift of marriage to Camilla. We are now entering Ronda,” he pointed to a bullring. “It is the oldest bullring in the world.”

  As we drove through the old town he pointed to the bullring. “It is the heritage of Ronda’s township. We go there now!” Smiling, “Within the corrida, my wedding gift awaits you!”

  Nonplussed, Camilla and I followed Rubi and Odile into the ancient corrida. There, the most romantic gift of my life, one that no money could buy, one that only Rubi could arrange, awaited us. Dressed to the tens in their “suit of lights” were the two most legendary matadors in Spanish history: Luis Dominguin and Antonio Ordóñez. The two men were all but godly to the Latin peoples of the world—but both looked up to Rubi as though he were the godly one. To fulfill his wish, they performed mano a mano, each fighting a bull in honor of my marriage with Camilla.

  They did it for Rubi. He did it for me.

  Exactly one year later, on July 5, 1965, Rubi’s powerful Ferrari sports car jumped the curb and crashed into a tree in Paris. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The wooden steering wheel—the type used in racing competition—had crushed his chest. At fifty-six, he died the way he lived: moving fast!

  17

  My luck, the week of my annulment was a quiet week for dirt. No scandals, infidelities, thefts, or cases of treason. My dirt became the perfect headline-filler. All the wire services, radio and TV gossip shows, the magazines and newspapers coast to coast, from A to Z, made my forty-eight-hour betrothal number one on their hit list. This was the real thing: fact that reads like bad fiction. Makes for prime gossip every time, pal.

  Not a fiction writer worth his weight would have had the gall to invent the nuptial union of our little bombshell: The Countess and the Philanderer Tie the Knot. Named for her ancestress, Catherine the Great of Russia, related to the House of Windsor, the daughter of HRH Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia and the granddaughter of the Regent King of Yugoslavia, Catherine Oxenberg’s dazzling beauty and royal pedigree pedestaled her a potential jewel for most every crown in the world. After studying privately for years with Richard Burton, she heard the beckoning call of Hollywood. Not stepping out of character, she portrayed Princess Diana twice: in The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana in 1982, and ten years later in Charles and Diana: Unhappily Ever After. What better casting, both personally and professionally: Catherine was the real thing!

  Yeah, but I was the real thing, too. Internationally notorious, a womanizer to a fault, I had had four previous marriages, and they lasted less than seven years in total. Everyone who heard the news had the same reaction: “I don’t believe it!”

  Being th
e subject of gossip most of my adult life taught me that, no matter what the gossip, without an utterance from its principals it’s a four- or five-day stampede. After that, the press heads on to other shores to dig up fresher dirt. Knowing Catherine, she would be impossible to find. She had too many places to hide.

  That made me the target of their poison pens.

  The one place I knew they wouldn’t think they could find me was lying in my bed. Well, that’s just where I assembled my staff.

  I gave it to them straight. “Woodland, as of this moment, is under quarantine. It’s zippered lips and bulging pockets time—and that fits all. All phones are off. Every gate goes on double lock. If a mole gets through, you’ve failed. There’s no trespassing, no deliveries, no calls. Got it? For the next few days, Woodland’s a tomb. Not a foot enters, not a foot leaves.”

  Having laid down the law, I laid out a little incentive for enforcement. “It’s also ‘get rich’ time. Total adherence, each quarantined day, puts five Ben Franklins in your pockets. Know this clearly: A mistake by one is a washout for all. I’m looking for a short quarantine; you should be looking for a long one. This is the single most important assignment of your careers. Only one thing that must be accomplished: From this moment on, I am the Shadow. Any questions?”

  Though our pictures ran in most every paper and magazine across the country, not one of them motherfuckers could get a single firsthand quote on the story. That would have been their passport to a continuing saga. Without it, in time something else would come along and distract them.

  It sure as hell did. As my public laceration reached its height, President Bill Clinton stepped in to save the day—by giving the world his deposition detailing his tryst with Monica Lewinsky. Every last salacious innuendo was included, including the meaning of the word is.

  Me? The timing made me savor the moment. What a luxury it was to be yesterday’s news! Now you see me, now you don’t.

  That was the way I wanted it to be forever.

  It didn’t quite work out that way.

  My euphoria over my newfound anonymity caused me to extend my quarantine for another three days. Once it was lifted, I gave my staff two days off, filled their pockets with green . . . and asked them to leave my phones off. How romantic those days alone—total silence, and the extra kick of knowing I’d beat the Fourth Estate at their own game. Sad to say, but I can’t remember a more romantic three days in bed.

  Ring-ring-ring went the phone. On the other end? An undeniable request. Sumner Redstone’s seventy-fifth birthday party. I couldn’t say no.

  In steps English. “Sir, if am to get you to the church on time, I have to get you to Carroll’s on time as well.”

  “Carroll’s?”

  “Yes, sir. I believe their selection will best suit you. If Carroll’s doesn’t have what we want, there’s always Armani, Gucci, Bataglia.”

  “Uh-uh. That’s what you think. I’m up for one store, and that’s it. What we don’t find, you can go huntin’ for. If they don’t fit, they don’t fit. I ain’t lookin’ to be Oscar de la Renta.”

  On the way to Carroll’s, I gave Alan an earful.

  “Gotta tell you, English, this is one event I’m just not up for.”

  “Should be a breeze for you, sir.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Have you forgotten, sir, how many times I’ve driven you to black-tie affairs?” Knowing what he was thinking, I gave him a long look.

  “Don’t be a wiseass, English.”

  “Fact’s fact, sir. Those were the days when your face graced the front page of every paper in town, suspected of murder, drug distribution, prostitution, fraud . . . what am I missing?”

  “A few, you prick! How about the three-part article on my alleged connection with the top capos of the mob?”

  “Oh, yes, I did forget that NBC story accusing you of being the government informant in the DeLorean case.” Both of us laughed.

  As I entered Carroll’s, however, the laughter gave way to claustrophobia and then panic. My heart quickened, my mind raced, wanting to get the hell out. Dick Carroll, the store’s proprietor, rushed toward us.

  “Don’t show your hand, sir,” English whispered. “Be the Bob Evans!”

  Dick stayed by my side as if he were my personal dresser, offering suggestion after suggestion. Desperate to get the fuck out, rather than model suit after suit, I accepted anything they put on. To everything, I said, “That’s fine.”

  Fuck getting to the church on time. All I wanted was to get back to Woodland. That’s where my head was.

  What a difference a moment makes. A sudden surprise: Out of the adjoining dressing room appeared a wide smile and a genuine embrace. Art Buchwald.

  “Bob! Great to see you!”

  “You too, Art!”

  “Bob, give it to me straight. Seersucker jackets? Don’t they make me look squatty?”

  “Ah, seersucker’s for the young.”

  “Never liked seersucker anyway,” Art chortled.

  Forget politics—shopping in men’s clothiers can sure breed strange bedfellows. We’d known each other for decades, but to my misfortune Art and I had never become close pals. Yet there we stood, smack in the middle of Carroll’s, gossiping like two old yentas. Not about yesterday’s bombshell—or scandalous infidelity—but rather of incidents forty years past. Our connective tissue: Mike Todd.

  Mike was Art’s closest friend as well as possibly the most important influence on my young life. His adventures—misadventures, gambling, hustling, and cocksmanship extraordinaire—were in a league of their own. Todd’s infamous gambling exploits prompted Damon Runyon himself to tag him “the greatest natural gambler to ever cross my path.”

  He had such moxie that, even with empty pockets, he met and married the most royal movie star in the world: Elizabeth Taylor. So enraptured was Elizabeth at being Mrs. Todd that she not only changed her life, her name, and her religion (to Jewish, to please Mike, son of a rabbi), she even insisted that Todd be the chief executor of the Taylor family trust. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t pay his own hotel bill.

  Buchwald was among our country’s best-regarded journalists. His recall of incidents and minutiae close to half a century past was spooky. How else could he remember Mike’s fondness for me, including incidents even I had forgotten? Trying on another jacket, Buchwald laughed. “Mike told me you had more moxie than anyone—including himself. At sixteen, you were gambling for half a buck a point at gin . . . and winning, too. In those days, at a half a buck a point, you could lose fifteen to twenty grand in an afternoon.”

  “Never played for those stakes,” I said. “Never won that big, but I was a winner—a big one! Many a Saturday I’d come home with my pockets full of green. And they weren’t five-dollar bills.”

  “Mike gave me chapter and verse on you, Kid. That was his nickname for you.” Buchwald laughed. “ ‘A kid actor, playin’ with the big boys, and takin’ ’em pretty good. Now that’s talent! Reminds me of me, only he’s smarter. He enjoys the action. Me? I only enjoy playing when the stakes are higher than I can afford to lose. Big difference in age, yeah, but the Kid and me got off on the same action. Breakin’ the rules. The guys who make ’em don’t live by ’em, why the hell should we? Art, do you know why he’s smarter than me? We both know that I made and blew a million bucks before I was twenty-one. Yeah, but Kid, he didn’t lose it.’ ”

  Art laughed again.

  “Mike was an original. Never impressed by wealth. He had very few men friends—didn’t have time. He had too many broads going for him. Broads were something else—gambling and broads were his turn-ons. But when your name came up, he was a different guy, Evans.” He shook his head. “Told everybody that he’d bet his bankroll that you’d be a seven-figure guy by the time you hit thirty. Too bad everyone knew Mikey’s pockets were change purses, so no one took him up on it.”

  Art broke off for a moment.

  “Did you know, Kid, Mike’s moxie spared
no one, not even me. Do you wanna hear the best?”

  Art proceeded to tell me the following story:

  When Around the World in Eighty Days premiered in Washington, D.C., in late 1956, Art was a 50 percent partner and owner of the top Cantonese restaurant in town. Being a journalist certainly didn’t leave him with deep pockets! It was constant pressure, making each week’s payroll, food, booze, and accounts payable.

  Back then, there were no credit cards. The bigger the politician, the quicker he signed the check! Try calling the Speaker of the House to get paid for an egg foo yong he signed for six months earlier. “In the best of times it was tough keeping up with your bills,” Buchwald remembered.

  Mike and Elizabeth were among Art’s closest friends. Knowing it would be a big coup for his restaurant, they reserved it for the post-premiere bash of Around the World in Eighty Days.

  Mike wanted the whole nine yards. He insisted that Art put up a huge tent adjacent to the restaurant and fill it with thousands of multicolored balloons. That way it would allow everyone attending the premiere the luxury of attending the post-bash as well!

  Assiduously, Mike menued the evening for eleven hundred of his closest pals. Iranian Beluga caviar by the kilo. Cristal by the case. That ain’t no cheap way out of town, pal!

  When the kilos and the cases started disappearing with the speed of hot dogs at a football game, Art began to wonder how Mike was going to pay for it all. That mattered little to Mike, though. What did matter was that the who’s who of Washington were out in full bloom, like never before. Why shouldn’t they be?

  Even in Washington, Beluga and Cristal are not the MO of evening gatherings. In Washington’s inner circle, there was one rule: If you can’t charge it, don’t buy it!