Peter Lawford

by James Spada

  It was the most disheartening journey they had ever experienced — worse even than the time they had taken a tramp steamer to Tahiti in an effort to save money and the ship’s refrigeration had gone bad, forcing them to live on rice and potatoes for almost a month. Every day they drove through dusty small towns; every night they stopped at a dingy motel. The food appalled them both; May thought that if she had to eat grits and gravy one more time she would surely die.

  At last, they drove through the gates of the Biltmore in Santa Barbara, their car sputtering and misfiring, and met up with their son. That night they stayed at an inexpensive but pleasant motel, and the next morning at dawn they began the trip down the coast to Los Angeles, all three excited by what lay ahead of them, all three marveling at the beauty of the California coastline, all three sensing that Los Angeles was where they would spend the rest of their lives.

  PART TWO

  A THOROUGHBRED IN THE MGM STABLE

  “If Metro signed you, you were put into that machine — wrapped in cotton wool, looked after, looked over, looked under.”

  — Peter Lawford

  SIX

  When the Lawfords arrived in the Los Angeles area in the middle of January 1942 they realized they wouldn’t be able to afford the cost of a hotel room in Hollywood. Instead, they took up temporary residence in the low- priced Mission Bell Motel on Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, then a sparsely developed area of citrus groves, horse ranches, and chicken farms. The motel was at the foot of a road that led to a sprawling property owned by Mickey Rooney, who was now the number-one box-office attraction in the world. Peter was so embarrassed by his family’s financial straits that when he saw Rooney drive by one day in a gleaming new sports car he ducked behind a eucalyptus tree so that Mickey wouldn’t see him.

  The money May had borrowed for the trip west wouldn’t last much longer, and Peter had to find work quickly. Ruth Collier had retired, so May made calls to some of the influential people whose paths they had crossed in 1938. She learned that Sue Carol, a former actress and now Mrs. Alan Ladd, had recently opened a talent agency and had decided to specialize in “impressive young people” and build a stable of promising young players.

  Peter was nothing if not that, and Carol took him on. She knew that British actors would soon be very much in demand in Hollywood because the movie industry planned to produce a spate of war propaganda films. Americans and British would be fighting side by side in Europe against Hitler and Mussolini, and there would be plenty of roles for young Englishmen in Hollywood’s versions of the war. On the back of Peter’s first photo composite, Carol wrote prominently, “British.”

  May knew that Peter needed to be closer to the center of the action if he were to be available at a moment’s notice for auditions. (The bus trip from the valley to Hollywood took two hours.) She found a small apartment on Benecia Avenue in the Rancho Park area that rented for forty dollars a month and was just a few minutes’ walk from the Twentieth Century-Fox studios and a couple of miles from MGM.

  The Los Angeles the Lawfords settled into early in 1942 was a city full of contradictions, unlike any other major metropolitan area the family had ever lived in. Because of the movie industry’s situation in and around it, Los Angeles had become world famous, but it was far from being world class. Culturally, as Marlon Brando put it a decade later, it was a “boneyard.” There was no opera company, no ballet company, no major art museum. Geographically, it was spread out so loosely that Dorothy Parker called it “seventy-two suburbs in search of a city.”

  Los Angeles, in fact, was largely a company town in 1942, like any other except that the companies happened to be movie studios and defense plants. Within Hollywood, community life was shaped by the studios’ business. There was little nightlife, except on the weekends; a good many of LA’s denizens were in bed no later than ten o’clock in order to get up at four-thirty or five A.M. and head for the studio. Makeup and wardrobe people would have to be there by six o’clock to make the stars ready to face the cameras by eight; executives would have to be there even earlier to make phone calls to the money men in New York as soon as they began their day on the East Coast.

  The Lawfords loved living in Southern California. The hot, dry weather was soothing to May’s and Sir Sydney’s arthritis and Peter’s arm, and Peter was thrilled to have beaches within a half hour’s drive. He marveled at the climate: he had never before lived in an area so near an ocean that wasn’t oppressively humid.

  May adored the scent of night-blooming jasmine and citrus blossoms that wafted through her windows in the evenings, and she appreciated the fact that in this desert climate even the hottest days were followed by relatively cool evenings. All three Lawfords were certain they’d moved to paradise.

  Their own small part of that paradise, however, left a lot to be desired. They possessed not a stick of furniture, and the apartment on Benecia Avenue was unfurnished. Peter took on the challenge of decorating it as cheaply as possible. He found a store with a bargain basement in downtown LA, where he bought a mahogany dining room set for forty-nine dollars, a brown-chintz-covered living room suite for thirty dollars, and a lamp with an onyx base for three dollars.

  Sue Carol, in the meantime, had less luck finding Peter parts. She sent him on a few auditions without success: Hollywood’s rash of war- movie productions hadn’t started yet. There were a few being filmed, but those had already been cast. Peter was finally forced to admit to Sue that he needed to find a job — any job — or his family’s financial situation would become desperate. She told him that the Village Theater in Westwood, owned by MGM’s parent company, Loew’s Inc., had an opening for an usher. Peter went for an interview and was hired on the spot for fifteen dollars a week.

  Five days a week he hopped on the westbound trolley on Santa Monica Boulevard and then transferred to the northbound one on Westwood Boulevard to the theater, where he donned his gray striped pants and white gloves and showed people to their seats to see a movie.

  And every day he telephoned Sue Carol to ask if any acting jobs had appeared on the horizon. To his deepening discouragement, the answer was always no. With his youthful impatience, he didn’t reflect on the fact that he’d been in Hollywood less than two months and that many screen hopefuls sought employment for years. He was wildly eager to do something — and he was mortified to be ushering when he should be making movies. When MGM held a preview of Mickey Rooney’s latest film at the Village, Peter once again avoided Mickey, hiding his face as the movie’s star was led down the aisle to his seat.

  Then, after Peter had worked at the Village a few weeks, he got a call from Sue Carol at the start of a busy Saturday: “MGM is looking for a British boy your age for Mrs. Miniver!” Peter asked a co-worker to cover for him, hopped on a trolley down Westwood to Washington Boulevard, and sprinted the four blocks to the imposing Metro front gate.

  Within minutes, he was on the Miniver set, where one of the picture’s climactic scenes, in an air force base, was being filmed. The movie starred Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon and revolved around an upper-crust London family’s courage and sacrifice in the face of Hitler’s blitz. In the scene being filmed that day, Mrs. Miniver (Garson), her son (Richard Ney), and his fiancée (Teresa Wright) had driven onto the base when an air raid siren begins to wail.

  Director William Wyler needed a fresh-faced young man to play a flier who runs past Mrs. Miniver’s car in response to the sirens and yells just one line. The assistant director handed Peter and three other boys a side of dialogue to read. Wyler listened to all four and then pointed at Peter. “He’s good.” The AD dismissed the other boys and told Peter, “Okay, run up to wardrobe and get your flying suit.” “Now?” Peter asked, dumbstruck.

  “Not tomorrow! We’re making a picture!”

  Peter had thought he’d have to wait a week to hear if he’d been hired and another week to do the scene. But his bit had been a last- minute addition to the script, and Wyle
r wanted it in the can today. Dazed, Peter got into his RAF uniform and helmet, listened carefully as the AD explained the scene to him, and waited for Wyler to call, “Action!” When he did, Peter ran across the set and yelled into Greer Garson’s car, “The Jerries are over London in the hundreds. Looks like a big show!”

  Before six that evening, Peter was back at the Village Theater, filling in for the girl who’d covered for him that afternoon and regaling his young co-workers with stories of his day on an MGM soundstage. His appearance in Mrs. Miniver lasts only a few seconds, and he’s unrecognizable unless one knows where to look for him. But it was a start, and Peter was thrilled.

  Mrs. Miniver was the biggest hit of 1942. It netted Metro a profit of nearly five million dollars, a staggering sum for the period, and won seven Oscars, including best picture and best actress. Its success had as much to do with the wave of patriotism sweeping America as with the film’s quality, and before long a tidal wave of war movies burst forth, with Peter playing bit parts in many of them: Universal’s Eagle Squadron; Republic-British Lion’s The Purple V, Someone to Remember, and The London Blackout Murders; and Twentieth Century-Fox’s The Immortal Sergeant.

  Peter’s ten-dollar per diem income as a day player on these pictures, although sporadic, was a welcome addition to the family’s meager finances. It wasn’t enough, though, when he was fired from his ushering job after he was caught sneaking friends into the theater. Happily, Sue Carol called within a few days to tell him that he’d been offered a six-week assignment as an extra in another flyboy picture, Thunder Birds, a Twentieth Century-Fox film with Gene Tierney. He’d have to go to Phoenix, he was told, and because it was a location shoot he’d be paid a hundred dollars a week. Peter was ecstatic. In six weeks he’d have a bankroll it would have taken him five months of ushering to save.

  He went to Phoenix in May and had worked on Thunder Birds for two weeks when a telegram came from Sue Carol: “MGM over a barrel. Can’t find English boy for major role in ‘Yank at Eton’ with Bartholomew and Rooney. Picture starts next week. Director will see you if you can come to LA. Can you get off the picture? Please advise.”

  Peter’s head swam as he put the yellow piece of paper in his pocket. A major role! But he might not be able to get out of his Thunder Birds contract, and even if he did, there was no guarantee he’d get the part in A Yank at Eton. Then he’d be back where he was before, broke and unemployed. He couldn’t sleep that night as he weighed his options and agonized over what was best to do. Whatever his decision, he vowed, he’d make it without any consultations with his mother.

  He decided the gamble was worth it. He approached the assistant director and told him about his dilemma. The man knew that the opportunity that had presented itself to Peter was extraordinary. “Sure,” he said, “go ahead. What’s another extra more or less? I’ll get you a release.”

  Peter returned to Los Angeles on a day coach, feeling as hot as the Arizona desert: he’d caught the flu and had a 103-degree fever. Sue Carol met him at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles and drove him the ten miles to MGM, where his audition was scheduled for that afternoon. On the way, he made Sue stop at a gas station so he could vomit. All the time his worst worry was that the film’s director, Norman Taurog, would shake his hand, wonder what was wrong with his arm, and decide not to cast him.

  Much to Peter’s relief, that didn’t happen. Taurog told him the part was a boys’ school bully and asked him to be prepared to read for him in an hour. Peter studied the sides of dialogue and thought about all the encounters with bullies he’d had in his life. Then, weak and dizzy, he read for Taurog. When he was finished, the director said, “You’ve got the part. We start on Monday.”

  Sick and feverish, still Peter was ecstatic. He remembered later that he thought to himself, this is it. My first real part. Now I’m a star. It certainly was a leap up from day work. His part was the third lead and paid him two hundred dollars a week for six weeks, a staggering sum compared to the Lawfords’ income over the last four years. May celebrated by preparing a steak dinner for the family, and all through the meal she wavered between waxing grandiose about Peter’s future and warning him not to blow this chance. Then she put Peter to bed for three days so he’d be healthy for the first day’s shooting.

  A Yank at Eton was developed to capitalize on the 1938 success of A Yank at Oxford, which had starred Robert Taylor. The story concerns an American high-school football player (Mickey Rooney) who enrolls at Eton after his mother marries an Englishman and proceeds to trample on British tradition and get himself in trouble. Along the way he battles Ronnie Kenvil (Peter), a snobby, conniving upperclassman determined to keep him out of the school steeplechase competition. Kenvil sets the American up to be blamed for a barroom brawl, but at the last minute the Yank proves himself innocent and is allowed to run the race — in which he bests Kenvil.

  The film was shot on the MGM lot and on location in Connecticut, and it afforded Peter his first taste of everyday life at Metro as a featured player. He arrived at the studio at seven A.M. and went straight to makeup, where he was given a light pancake base and a dusting of powder to make his skin less reflective. Then the wardrobe women outfitted him in his uncomfortable Eton schoolboy uniform: a formal black suit, high-collared starched white shirt, and black tie.

  He reported to the set at eight A.M. and then, more days than not, experienced the bane of all movie actors: the interminable waiting. He waited while scenes were set up. He waited while lights and camera angles were adjusted. He waited while the director conferred with the producer and the producer conferred with the star. He waited while takes were reshot for one reason or another. For only a small fraction of his day did he do what he was hired to do: act.

  After a morning’s shoot on A Yank at Eton, Peter, Mickey, Freddie, and the others would lunch at the fabled MGM commissary. The studio’s patriarch, Louis B. Mayer, ordered that it be, like everything else at MGM, the best of its kind. Its decor was created by Cedric Gibbons, who designed the Oscar statuette and won the second Academy Award ever given for set decoration. Green and chromium, the enormous room had a seating capacity of 225 and served lunch to twelve hundred people every day. Mickey Rooney usually sat with Judy Garland and MGM’s other young musical stars at a table set aside for the Music Department, and that’s where Peter ate his lunch during A Yank at Eton filming. He was awestruck at the number of stars he had long admired who were on the lot at the time and whom he would see in the commissary from time to time: Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, beginning Keeper of the Flame; Joan Crawford filming Reunion in France; Hedy Lamarr shooting White Cargo; Lana Turner making Slightly Dangerous; and Robert Taylor working on Stand by for Action.

  To Peter’s joy, there were also dozens of beautiful young women just starting out at MGM for him to gawk at, among them Ava Gardner, Kathryn Grayson, Esther Williams, Donna Reed, Marilyn Maxwell, Gloria De Haven, June Lockhart, and Cyd Charisse. It was enough to distract a young man from his lunch. What Peter was too excited to notice at first was that most of these dazzlers were checking him out thoroughly as well.

  After a month of studio work, the cast and crew of A Yank at Eton moved to Connecticut for location work. Peter found the month and a half he spent there very pleasurable. There were fewer restrictions on him three thousand miles away from May and the studio heads, and although Mickey Rooney had just married Ava Gardner, while alone on location with his buddies he acted like a bachelor. Mickey, Freddie, and Peter spent most scene breaks playing poker and most evenings barhopping.

  Still, for all the camaraderie on the set of A Yank at Eton, Peter took his job very seriously. He worked hard, and his efforts show: he’s very good in the picture. As the Daily Variety reviewer put it, Peter “ably enacts” the rather thankless Kenvil role, second only to Rooney’s in length and impact. He more than holds his own in his exchanges with the veteran scene-stealer, and it is fascinating now to watch him as an eighteen-year-old lad on the cusp of manhood.
He looks handsome and adult in a jacket, tie, and camel-hair topcoat, but in the film’s climactic sequence, in which Peter runs the steeplechase wearing shorts and tank top, his youth is betrayed by his stick-thin, gangly body, all arms and legs.

  When A Yank at Eton was released in October to huge box-office grosses and good reviews for Peter, he and Sue Carol were convinced that he would immediately be cast in other important roles and then be signed to an MGM contract. It didn’t happen. There were still a limited number of major roles for British boys his age, so it was back to extra bits, to day work in a number of movies for various studios.

  Over the next year, Peter worked for Universal, Twentieth Century-Fox, RKO, Columbia, and Republic-British Lion, but it was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that most fascinated him. The studio was the Tiffany of Hollywood, and if Peter was impressed with that, May was positively adamant that it was at MGM that Peter ought to be. She continually telephoned Sue Carol to badger her about getting Peter a contract with the studio, and each time Carol patiently explained that she was doing the best she could.

  Metro did put Peter in several major productions, among them Random Harvest (with Greer Garson again), which was an enormous hit, and Above Suspicion, Joan Crawford’s last MGM film after eighteen years with the studio. But he was still a mere extra. He began to fear that A Yank at Eton had been a fluke and that his one big acting opportunity had been wasted. Then, in a twist that could happen only in Hollywood, a brief, uncredited, nonspeaking role in his next picture finally won Peter entree into the gilded circle of MGM contract players.