The Grand Surprise

by Leo Lerman

  Then, in Yorkshire, Lincoln confessed [to Mina], “I don't know how you'll take this, but many times I've been taken for your husband.” “Oh,” said Mina, “that's so flattering—you being ten years younger.” So that came to this pass, that incestuous passion.

  OCTOBER 10, 1972 I went to the Sachs [gallery] on Fifty-seventh Street to see Betty Parsons's paintings,91 and there I found an assortment of elderly women who greeted me with joy. Only when I somehow unfocused these seamed, other-shaped faces, so confidently presenting themselves for friendly kisses, did I perceive within each quite unfamiliar visage the face of some other person I had once known well. Here were women I had seen or chatted with daily— a danse macabre—even Buffie Johnson, looking quite as she did thirty years ago running down Fifty-seventh Street. Meanwhile, making all of this even more macabre, Ruth Stephan (née Walgreen, now Franklin) queened—or princessed, that is it—in a sort of Valois topcoat and hat, looking quite unchanged. Only she survives this chaos of time, continuing to inhabit her fairy tale, while all others have become those anonymous old women and men who make up lamenting choruses in verse plays. Then Vita Petersen came up and told me that Cesco [von Mendelssohn] had died three weeks ago, suddenly, of heart failure, and he had left her a legacy. Cesco dead … His quiet, lobotomized years spent doing crossword puzzles. I wondered whether Rut immediately took him in tow and is looking after him. I must believe that they will all be there to make that life as remarkable as this has been. They help, by being there—even if I only believe this in my last moments. Cesco dead … and these weird, Bohemian sisters survive—all of them out in daylight for Betty's vernissage.

  OCTOBER 26, 1972 • NEW YORK CITY

  TO RICHARD HUNTER • london

  Bless you for insisting that I see Dr. Berliner [the ophthalmologist]. Now, you must promise, on our forty years friendship and love, not to tell anyone what I am going to tell you. Only Gray and [brother] Jerry will know, because if anyone I work for finds out, they will think that I will no longer be able to handle my jobs.

  I am fast losing the sight in my right eye, because the cataract there is ripening. This, in itself, would not be that important, since the usual operation could fix it into usefulness, but, apparently, because of the eye sickness I had years ago,92 an operation could lead to pretty awful results—such as blindness in that eye. The left eye is going, but more slowly. Berliner thinks I could last until spring. I could even last, miraculously, for a longer time, but he does say that an operation—a drastic one—will be necessary. For some reason I feel relieved and, curiously, optimistic. I can use my eyes, until the crucial time, as much as possible. I am having a variety of new glasses made. I will wear glasses on the street as frequently as possible.

  My beautiful teeth, my eyes, etc. Ah well, I grow into an ever-more fascinating monster. Also, I am even thinner and can wear more of my glamorous togs. Be of cheer—I am. And Puss seems to be. He is always better when I have an emergency—which is all this is.

  JOURNAL • October 27, 1972 The curious sense of finding the photograph taken of me in 1937 (onstage at the Mansfield Theater, in my blue twin-sweater set, me trim beneath a good, herringbone Uncle Irving suit—gray, I think) in an envelope with a letter from Jerrie Maxwell's husband sent from Ireland, telling me that she had [recently] discovered this among her things, having kept it all of these years.93 I looked at that twenty-three-year-old boy and thought, “He's nice looking!” The taxi carrying me to Condé Nast crept forward, while I crept backward in time. Written on the reverse side of the photograph, in Jerrie's meticulous, early-this-century-taught hand, the pencil curves bright: “My … nice looking and so sweet…” My being filled with regret at the loss, at not having been told that I was nice looking. I never knew. I feel this nostalgia at not knowing, at believing that I wasn't a looker at all….

  Last night, I got me up in my black velvet corduroy $83 plushy suit from Barney's, put on a shirt from Turnbull Asser, took out the homburg I bought in London from Locke in 1951 (now put on for the first time), the Cardin black evening-tie from Bonwit, and the Cardin bronze dancing pumps, over my one-dollar purple socks. I got my Lennie-style stick and went off to the Miró opening at the Guggenheim, where I was a sensation. I knew it, because I had costumed the part brilliantly, and in that huge motley I stood out—distinguished, not freakish. That was for Jerrie Maxwell and for me. I enjoyed it all immensely—and I hope that that boy did too.

  A long blower talk with Little T—He, just returned from preparing a documentary at San Quentin, was wild with his life—a criminal stabbed to death and dead in his arms: “I was drenched in his blood—drenched in it!” Then: “Saint[-Subber] and I were having dinner in Orsini's two nights ago, and suddenly his face went white and a whole side of it fell in…. It was awful…. I rushed him to Roosevelt…. He's all right now…. And I had Lee Radziwill, hysterical over Peter Beard, on the Coast. She's gone to England to arrange a divorce. He's bad news, isn't he? Maybe she won't marry him, but she thinks she will…. And Amanda [Burden] in that [divorce] mess…” I said, “You've arranged it all—an end for your book. All of your ‘Answered Prayers' getting their answers.”94 We chatted away as we did years go. “I always wish,” he said: “Don't let anyone doing a piece on me go near Leo Lerman….”

  OCTOBER 28, 1972 A Mrs. Levy I had met at the Hirschfelds, on the blower saying she was publicizing the wildest happening today. From noon to midnight, Charlotte [Moorman] would be in a tank underwater, playing her cello—and other such Dada, dated, hit-the-bourgeoisie-in-the-eye highjinks— the Christo curtain—all of that. I told her that she should earn her money, since she needs it, but that this had all been assaulted and it was unnecessary now. Presently, I thought that, like the “revolution” in fashion, now subsided into squareness again, the Dada antics of recent years were dead—almost dead. We are in the ground swell of a return to all sorts of squareness. Mrs. Levy said she'd been working for [Senator George] McGovern, and the people in his office were just as disorganized as those putting on today's happening. We are, indeed, in amateur times and the evil men are the pros. Is evil always well organized? Satan was organized.

  NOVEMBER 14, 1972 Jean Stafford95 told me about coming away from an American Academy of Arts and Letters meeting today with [historian] Henry Steele Commager, who put upon his head the strangest covering she had ever seen. She felt that they had become such instant friends that she could tell him how strange his headgear was. “Yes,” he said, “it's a breadwrapper. I fancied hats when I was young and always lost them. So I hit upon breadwrappers. Of course, I have to travel far to find round ones large enough, but the money I save on hats more than makes up for it.” Jean loved him: “Such a small, twinkly, pop-up of a man …” Her talk is in jolts—as though she were puffing on a cigarette—long deep puffs—or jerky and jolty with booze … but she did come through with her “On My Mind” [copy for Vogue].

  NOVEMBER 18, 1972 An important day: I became consulting feature editor of Vogue, and remained contributing editor of Mademoiselle and senior editor of Playbill. I saw Diana Vreeland's red hell, which suite I am to occupy—also was rung up for “the story” by Women's Wear Daily—and all sorts crowded in— some weeping because they thought Mademoiselle would suffer.

  NOVEMBER 19, 1972 Federico Pallavicini—as light, beautifully mannered, and full of gaiety and observation and graces as ever—a bit plumper— a delight.96 He found that the eight chairs I bought in Barbados are Thonet, from Vienna, marked. We are deeply pleased—from Vienna, by way of Barbados and the De Acosta family [furniture manufactory]! Federico's stories are the best. The Cavalli saga: How [Cavalli's mother-in-law], a Russian princess, was so fat that her private train, which took her from St. Petersburg to Florence, was a boxcar that she fitted up with Gobelins and palms and rare carpets, which stopped in goods yards and sidings en route—Warsaw, Berlin, everywhere. Local royalties came out to greet her—bowering her in blooms and being wined and dined by her—caviar, all of it—a royal prog
ress in a freight car through the sidings of Europe. Later, her daughter who married Cavalli lived in a palazzo in Venice, with [photographer] Baron de Meyer's furniture, and was a great friend of Rut's. Federico frequently slept in Réjane's bed.97

  Federico has layers and layers of mannerisms derived from great ladies, whole female families he knew when he was a child—a history of Die Elegante Welt—the continental world of luxe—Vienna, Rome, Paris, Budapest, Berlin, St. Petersburg—the gestures of that female world preserved in Fe-derico's body language—and he born in Switzerland, par hazard, of a mother there from Vienna. Beneath the genuine rare lace of his movement and talk: a collected, ever-shrewd man, as capable as any man of those women was of a good stroke of business—or passion. He is a loving, wise-eyed, worldly, be-and-let-be man.

  NOVEMBER 27, 1972 How to write Federico? How his little noises—so expressive, communicative, allusive—make a tree he describes come to life— trunk, boughs, twigs, flights of leaves. He paints, with these noises, on air. How layers of Austro-Hungarian high life flash before us, while he unreels sagas such as Ouida never dreamed upon her purple pages. The history of his uncle Wy und Wy (that is how the name sounds), an archbishop more girl than boy: When in the Lido, a rich woman showed him her vanity case, and he immediately powdered his nose from it. And his sister—very hochgeboren [highborn]—more man than girl—ran off and married a girl in [Venice's] San Marco, and the emperor, out of his own purse, paid to keep the scandal quiet. This lady-man ruled Viennese society using a scandal sheet she edited and wrote. No one could afford to omit her from the lists. And the history of [society portraitist] Boldini (a dwarf who pounced on his sitters—and assaulted them sexually) and his two wives, the last Madame Boldini still alive in Paris… Such heady chronicles pour out of Federico—a whole fantastic world now lost.

  DECEMBER 3, 1972 Dr. Berliner says the eye operation will be absolutely necessary. I can, he mentions, wait until spring. Meanwhile, a third pair of spectacles—trifocal. The immediate danger is loss of depth perception, which caused me to spill a cup of coffee recently. I must not only build up a bank account but must build up a reserve of courage and health—physical and mental—and some method of writing to immediately replace the way I do it now, in case I am blinded, even partially. But having had so much luck in my life, I cannot believe luck will desert me forever. It will seem to go, but it will not go—and I have been so much loved—actually loved.

  The Coward [revue Oh, Coward!]—I did not realize how brilliant, feeling, and sentimentally romantic Noël is—a practical romantic. I heard, constantly, Ela's voice and Noël's and Gertie's and Bea [Lillie]'s and, scoffingly, Marlene's. I was feeling: Ela a suicide-murder, walking to that destiny—really running—all of her life, Bea mad, Gertie dead of cancer, and Noël—really an invalid. Marlene goes on, a marvelous wreckage upon whom the moon never sets.

  DECEMBER 17, 1972 Alex Liberman told [art critic] Barbara Rose that after Barney Newman died, he closed off all human relationships.98

  DECEMBER 18, 1972 Marlene to dine with us at Pearl's. She was infinitely touching, even more touching than boring, in her long, long tirade against her television show.99 “I'm so pretty,” she said, “I could throw up.” When I asked about the children, she ignored the question. She is not going to Christmas with Noël. She told the Times that she was, to get away from papers. “He's a dying man,” she said—looking lost, alone, sturdy, but fragile. To have nothing is sad, but to have had everything, including great beauty, is sadder.

  DECEMBER 20, 1972 The tucked-in, slightly bewildered, feel-of-bitter-knowledge look on Marlene's face. “It seems that I did everything wrong—to people. I didn't know that.” Her silence when asked about the children. Not a word—a chasm opened, icy. Then on to something else. But about Rudi— sweetness and Mother Earth feelings. “The evening… around six … that's the bad time for him…. No one to talk to … everyone is dead…. The animals are taken care of… only the television …”100

  DECEMBER 19, 1972 • SAINT MARYS, GEORGIA

  TO RICHARD HUNTER • mexico city

  Vogue goes apace. I haven't worked so hard since I was stage manager at the Grossinger. I love it. I write this instinctively—like a bird flying. Yesterday was the most difficult seeing because there is so very much bright light here [at Howard Gilman's]—beautiful, clean-shining, radiant—but making seeing for me almost impossible. I was deeply depressed, but I am out of the slough now.

  I had two sessions with George Cukor—very like a somewhat prettier Edna Ferber and full of good anecdotes. I liked him, but always the feeling that I put my nickel in and the Pianola played the tunes it had played many times before.

  JOURNAL • DECEMBER 22, 1972 Marlene told me that she was going to spend the holidays with Rudi. No one else wants her. That is why she could not even talk about Maria and the children.

  DECEMBER 29, 1972 The comedy of Robert MacBride's research into Diana Vreeland's life. She wanted an “autobiography” written, so T procured MacBride to do it. MacBride diligently unearthed all sorts of concealed-behind-the-arras facts—such as D.V. is Jewish, both sides.101

  JANUARY 6, 1973 Watching [the revived musical] Irene, I suddenly realized that working with Alex at Vogue was like having an opening night every day.

  I am reading Cecil [Beaton]'s forties diaries—a tremendous ramble fraught with historical and semi-historical chichis (this period argot applies) … rather like a semi-official sightseeing tour along a back road of history, which road sometimes has to join the main highway. The Garbo sections are the most vital—sometimes silly. Like over-embroidery on a fine fabric, his sissiness threads the sincere fabric of his emotion. I cannot doubt the sincerity of his emotions over Garbo. I can only continue to feel the basic insecurity of his life—or is it a kind of prodigious triviality?—chichi is the word. But surely any person exterior to my life would feel this about me. “How do you maintain your standards, standing as a real lover of literature—all that—a real being— and the life you have elected—Vogue, Mademoiselle?” the woman married to the museum man asked me. There it is. But my truth is so deep in me. Perhaps Cecil's truth is equivalent. When he was agonizing over that dreary, tall, American boy, seven years ago, Cecil's agonizing was sincere, his tramping over mountains, camping out in sleeping bags, although seemingly so ridiculous, was sincere. Cecil thinking himself in love is in love.102 Nevertheless—here and there he strikes authentic, revealing notes. He makes people live. But these diaries are deficient in humor, and only the Garbo sections seem unleashed out into a life of their own.

  JANUARY 8, 1973 So Cord Meyer, Jr., the World Federalist leader, is a CIA chief103 How the world topsy-turvies. Those years ago, when he and Mary [Pin-chot Meyer] were our neighbors, and he was all for glorious freedom—a rich boy married happily to a pretty, rich girl whose sister (Rosamund Pinchot) had tragically killed herself in a pact with Cesco Mendelssohn, who didn't keep his part of the agreement (!). Then the Cord Meyers moved to Washington.104

  Mary was Scotty Fitzgerald Lanahan's closest friend. They wheeled their babies in carriages side by side: Mary pretty, in an old-fashioned rose-in-bloom way; Scotty a worn, good-looking girl—rather like her father [F. Scott Fitzgerald], and a bit like her mother [Zelda]. Then Mary was murdered in Washington, Scotty became a Washington social force, and Cord [already was] a CIA man. Curiouser and curiouser.105

  And now [journalist] Merle Miller wiring the Cord Meyer revelations with a photo of Cord and Mary—he a very young, very vulnerable boy, eyes on an everyone-loving-one-another-and-mankind future. I never suspected that Merle was queer, in that long-ago worldly innocence of the Lanahans' annual garden party and Mary's stop-bys—and all the world lilacs and promises at 1453.

  JANUARY 14, 1973 Marlene's television broadcast, at last. Not as bad as she said it would be. Actually, quite touching and fascinating, although too static, demonstrating that what is electric in a theater is not on the television screen. The serious songs came across better. She
looked extraordinary—quite beautiful, and sometimes the essence is joyful, precious beauty. After, on the blower, she seemed calmer to have it over.

  JANUARY 16, 1973 Noël's gala [Oh, Coward!]. The photo in the morning's Times told it all: Marlene and Noël tight together, two very old, very worn people—worn by their talent, their beauty, their wit—exhausted by time and horror at what time did to them. I have rarely seen two so vulnerable. And last night midst their near-peers—two old troupers, she all Wendy-love and he all of the Lost Boys in one very sick old, old man. Valentina came in Garbo's curls and clutched me intermittently.106 I took Anita [Loos] who was the youngest person there. “Thank you for getting me out of my rut,” she said.

  JANUARY 31, 1973 Quick look-in at Horst and Hansl [assisting] who were photographing Truman's menagerie for me, in Little T's U.N. Plaza flat, while Truman is in Palm Springs. The flat was in an appalling condition. Obviously T got away at some last minute—ties, underwear, manuscript pages, trash, shirts helter-skelter in his bedroom—a chaos. Hats everywhere, one tossed onto the famous Tiffany wisteria lamp. Dog shit on the pretty late Victorian carpet. I thought it a practical joke, but Horst warned, “It's real….” The menagerie ranged from tacky to splendid, Woolworth to fine eighteenth-century Japanese ivory. A wall-covering painting of fish is the aquarium section of this zoo. No taste, not even an eye, but a sense of old-child fun and sensitivity to curious and colorful objects—a dim stirring of souk—and anything he could capture from his self-made past.