Speaking of bitches,” he said. “When my mother, the divine Lady Lawford, went to see the movie, she said that because of my long shaggy hair, she couldn’t tell me apart from the dog.”
“That’s all behind you now,” Elizabeth assured him. “You’re going to the top. I just saw the latest copy of Modern Screen. You’ve been named the most popular actor in Hollywood.”
“I know,” he said. “I bought one-hundred copies of that magazine.”
She wanted to get to know him better, and they shared their experiences of growing up in Britain. His memories were so very different from hers. He claimed he lost his virginity when he was only ten years old to a thirty-five-year-old governess who fellated him to climax. “Other governesses and two chauffeurs also used me for their sexual purposes,” Lawford claimed.
He told Elizabeth how much he hated his mother, Lady May, who was known as “Mother Bitch” in Hollywood. “She once went to Mayer and told him that I was a homosexual and asked him if he could get ‘treatment’ for me. I had to bring in Lana Turner for confirmation that I was not a homosexual.”
Elizabeth later told Dick, who confided to Roddy, “Since the talk had gone sexual, I told Peter that I was still a virgin, giving a broad hint that I was ready to change my status. To me, Peter was a gorgeous doll, the latest in the sophistication I long to acquire. Everyone in Hollywood knew I had a crush on him. I figured that since he’d been dumped by my friend Roddy, that he was up for grabs. But he didn’t even hold my hand or try to kiss me. If I’d been a boy, I would have simply unzipped and said, ‘Go for it, Peter!’”
When Dick first met her, he was astonished at Elizabeth’s style of talking. “I think you’re an old soul,” he told her. “You’ve lived lives before. Cleopatra, Helen of Troy. Your love of horses must stem from your life as Catherine the Great. When the empress couldn’t find men in the Russian army endowed enough to accommodate her, she went to the royal stables.”
Julia Misbehaves: Elizabeth Taylor with Peter Lawford
“I was not the Empress of Russia, but I was Cleopatra,” Elizabeth said. ”I was also Madame de Pompadour.”
Roddy revealed to her that Lawford had told him that he thought Elizabeth was beautiful. His exact words were, “Even at her age, Elizabeth is an exquisite creature. Everything about her face is perfect— those eyes, those long dark lashes, her smile, her hair. I’d be a liar if I denied a certain sexual attraction.”
Armed with that information, Elizabeth decided to “take the bull by the horns” (her words).
“But what, exactly, does ‘take the bull by the horns’ mean?” Dick asked her.
“During my last week at MGM, I sat one early morning in make-up with Judy Garland,” Elizabeth said. “I’d heard that Spencer Tracy had taken her virginity when she was only fifteen. Of all the women at MGM, Judy seemed the best person to ask for advice. ‘Just how do you get a man to fuck you when you’re still jail bait?’ I asked her. She said she uses a technique that is almost certain to work unless a guy is homosexual. ‘Just grope him! Start feeling him up. Under the table, at a restaurant, on the dance floor…anywhere!’”
“Since I was in this huge black limousine, and since I had a long drive ahead of me, I followed Judy’s advice,” Elizabeth claimed. “I groped Peter, and it produced the desired results. Before he knew what was happening, I was all over him, kissing him. Right there in that car, I lost my cherry, an expression I’ve only recently learned from Roddy.”
“How did you like it?” Dick asked.
“Not all that much,” she said. “It hurt at first, and it was real messy. I soiled my dress. We didn’t have any protection. For all I know, I might be carrying Peter’s child right now.”
Dick told her not to worry about that, because at MGM, Mayer frequently assigned him the task of accompanying whichever of his female stars might at the time need an illegal abortion.
He also told her that from what he’d heard, Lawford was not an appropriate candidate for the assignment of taking her virginity. “A more skilled lover would have aroused more passion in you. George Cukor told me that Peter was a lousy lay. Intercourse doesn’t interest him so much. He prefers oral sex instead.”
Over the years, a long list of Lawford’s intimates would agree with Cukor, including June Allyson, Noël Coward, Merv Griffin, Robert Walker, Lucille Ball, Anne Baxter, Dorothy Dandridge, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland, Rita Hay-worth, Judy Holliday, Van Johnson, Janet Leigh, Sal Mineo, Kim Novak, Lee Remick, Clifton Webb, Jane Wyman, and Keenan Wynn. Author Mart Martin also added some categories of other names to that list—“lots of college girls, starlets, ‘beach bunnies’ he met while surfing, and prostitutes who knew Lawford as an excellent $50 oral sex trick, and ‘call boys,’ male hustlers, young male extras, and studio messenger boys.”
Elizabeth promised Dick, “I’m going to try again and again. I realize now that the sex act should not be judged by just one bad experience. Perhaps it’s like an actor’s performance in a movie. Some men are great, some are mediocre, and some are rotten.”
“By God, she’s got it!” Dick said, kissing her lightly on the lips.
She told him that she still considered Lawford very attractive. “I’m not giving up on him. I’ll pick up more experience with other men, and then maybe teach him a trick or two to make him a better lover.”
“Good luck with that,” Dick said.
***
When Elizabeth and Peter Lawford took that long uphill drive to San Simeon, both of them would witness the end of an era. Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst were on the verge of abandoning their beloved castle. Its high elevation was bad for his failing heart.
They were already planning a move into a newly acquired mansion, details of which were being organized by Marion, off Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills. Although Marion had arranged its purchase for only $120,000, it had originally been built in 1927 by Milton Goetz for one million dollars.
Led to their sumptuously decorated bedroom by servants, Elizabeth and Lawford were told that Marion would receive them for lunch and both she and Hearst would enjoy their company at dinner too. In the meantime, a guide would be made available to show them around the grounds of the estate, including a chance to see the Hearst collection of wild animals.
This visit marked the first time that Elizabeth would sleep alone in a bedroom with a man other than her brother Howard.
The butler told her that their bedroom had once been occupied by Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. Later, a rather drunken Marion would give them more juicy details, claiming that Claudette Colbert and Marlene Dietrich had also spent the night in the same room, making wild, passionate love.
Both Lawford and Elizabeth were shocked when they greeted Marion at her luncheon, at which Hearst himself was conspicuously absent. The blonde, spunky star, a former beauty in the Ziegfeld Follies, was a ghost of her former self. She’d once captivated Winston Churchill and Lord Mountbatten, but now she was no longer mobile. She’d taken to heavy drinking again, which had caused her legs to give way. Two nurses attended to her.
William Haines was a fellow guest at the luncheon table, along with his lover, Jimmy Shields, a union which Joan Crawford had once described as “the happiest marriage in Hollywood.” Elizabeth and Lawford didn’t know who they were. Haines had to tell them that in 1930, he’d been the number one box office attraction in Hollywood.
“I’m an interior decorator now,” Haines told her. “Louis B. Mayer fired me because I wouldn’t give up Jimmy. I’m Cranberry’s best friend. Mayer fired her, too. If you’d like to meet her, I’ll arrange it.”
Marion explained to Elizabeth that Cranberry was Haines’ nickname for Crawford.
Haines was straightforward and rather bold. He said, “I’m predicting an early marriage for you two. I hope you let me decorate your new home—that is, if you’re partial to Empire furnishing and rococo accents. I owe everything to W.R.; he taught me about antiques. When I met him, I didn’t know the dif
ference between a jardinière and a pisspot.”
Marion inquired about the accommodations of her guests. Elizabeth responded that she and Lawford were “living in luxury.”
Haines said that he was happy with Jimmy now, but he recalled how displeased he was when Marion had first invited him to San Simeon back in the 1930s. “Marion extended an invitation to Gary Cooper and Anderson Lawler and assigned them a room together. She didn’t know at the time that I was chasing after Coop. Anderson and I got into a big fight over who’d sleep with Coop. He won.”
After a tour of the grounds and a siesta, Elizabeth woke up to discover Lawford performing oral sex on her. She offered to do the same for him, or at least that was what she later told Dick Hanley, but Peter responded, “later, tonight.”
At long last, before dinner was served, they were summoned into the library to meet W.R. Hearst. She didn’t know what to expect, but was shocked to see this once fabled press baron now moving deep into his 80s, and seemingly fading away. His eyes, which seemed to stare right through her, were surrounded by deep purple rings, which made them seem far larger than they were. The strain of a failing heart was clearly reflected in his withered face. Yet his mind was still sharp, and Marion told them that he still wrote a weekly editorial.
He praised Elizabeth’s love of animals, as reflected by her performance in National Velvet, and she told him she was thrilled to see the animals on his estate, and how well they were being treated.
Disgraced matinee idol William Haines (left) with Marion Davies
“One of the reasons I fell in love with Willie was because of his love for animals.” Marion said. “He once rescued an injured seal who’d washed up on the rocks right below the castle. One time he found a mouse trapped in a jardinière, and Willie brought it cheese and crackers until it ran away one day.”
“I’ve seen all the stars of Hollywood come and go, and I predict you’ll become one of the big ones,” Hearst told Elizabeth. He made no such prediction for Lawford. “My only regret is that I will not be here to guide you through a spectacular career.”
Elizabeth noted that Marion, in spite of her own physical wreck of a body, was very attentive and protective of Hearst. Years later, Elizabeth would tell Richard Burton that Hearst reminded her of King Lear from Shakespeare’s play. At one point over dinner, he expressed his mistrust of his sons. “They’re gold diggers, and I want Marion protected from these scheming beasts.”
Marion seemed almost embarrassed that Elizabeth and Lawford were visiting during the final hours of their reign over San Simeon. At one point, she said that she and Hearst used to invite as many as fifty guests for the weekend. “Those were the days,” she said. “Gloria Swanson, Louella Parsons, Jean Harlow, Norma Shearer, Irving Thalberg, Errol Flynn, Jack Pickford, Eleanor Boardman, Adolphe Menjou and his wife Katharine, Bebe Daniels, Damon Runyon.”
Despite Hearst’s obvious annoyance when she brought up the subject, Marion claimed that in 1934 during a visit to Berlin, Hearst had even invited Adolf Hitler for a visit. “Of course, that was before we knew what a mean guy he was, killing all those Jews.”
“And all those poor homosexuals,” Haines added.
Hearst retired to bed early, and Marion asked the two couples to join her in the library, where she amused them with stories about the Golden Years of Hollywood. “I saved John Gilbert’s life one afternoon when he was going to walk into the ocean and drown himself after Greta Garbo dumped him.”
“Tell them about all the men who seduced you,” Jimmy Shields said to Marion.
“Oh, Jimmy, they don’t want to know that. But, since you insist, I remember them all. Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Joseph Kennedy…even Rudolph Valentino, but he was mostly into guys.”
“I’ve had Gable, too.” Haines added.
“Yes, we know,” Shields said, frowning at him.
Marion continued: “I once asked that halo-haired Albert Einstein why he didn’t get a haircut. At another time, Billy here challenged me to seduce Calvin Coolidge, and I took the bet. He was a teetotaler. When he came to visit, I offered him a glass of Tokay wine, telling him it was only fruit juice. He drank four glasses and told me it was the most refreshing beverage he’d ever tasted. I didn’t really get him drunk enough to seduce him. But Grace Coolidge told me that the first time she spotted her future husband was through a bathroom window in a house in Northampton, Massachusetts.”
“Grace told me that Coolidge was jaybird naked and shaving with his hat on, so his hair wouldn’t fall down over his face,” Marion said. “Grace also claimed that after her sighting of him that morning, she decided she was going to marry him. I was always told that still waters run deep, but in Silent Cal’s case I never got to find out.”
“But it certainly sounds like you weren’t deprived,” Lawford said.
Before midnight, all the guests retreated to their bedrooms. Lawford stripped down and joined a naked Elizabeth in bed, asking her to “Go down on me.”
She obliged, as she would later confide to Dick Hanley.
After a Sunday morning breakfast at ten o’clock, both Elizabeth and Lawford thanked Hearst and Marion profusely. Elizabeth kissed Hearst goodbye on the lips, since she’d decided that physical intimacies between Marion and Hearst had ended before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Marion was wheeled out into the foyer for a final goodbye. She told Elizabeth and Lawford, “When you guys want some privacy, you can have the use of my guest cottage in Beverly Hills. No one will find you there. There’s also a big swimming pool. You can invite your friends over to use it. I’m sure Willie would love to sit by the window, listening to the sound of young laughter again.”
In the limousine retracing its steps south to Los Angeles, Lawford complained that visiting San Simeon was like a pilgrimage to a mausoleum.
Elizabeth differed, claiming, “I adored them. Let’s don’t be too harsh. I fully expect one day to end up in a decaying Hollywood mansion with pictures all over the place showing how I looked in the 1950s and 60s. Every evening, I’ll show my old movies.”
Without knowing it, Elizabeth had eerily evoked the plot of an upcoming film, Sunset Blvd., in which Gloria Swanson played a faded star of the silent screen, Norma Desmond. But when Elizabeth made that prediction, Sunset Blvd. was only a germ in the brain of Billy Wilder.
***
Louis B. Mayer quickly rescinded his order to fire Elizabeth, and called Dick Hanley with the news. Mayer had been in serious negotiations with Sara. The end result was that Elizabeth would be lent out to Warner Brothers for a key role in Life with Father (1947), a film that would star William Powell and Irene Dunne. The director? None other than Sara’s new lover, Michael Curtiz.
When Dick relayed this news to Elizabeth, she was delighted. She’d be reunited with the Taylor’s family friend, Irene Dunne, and she’d be directed by the eccentric but well-respected Curtiz. “I’ll force him to bring Errol Flynn onto the set!” Elizabeth vowed to Dick.
She was less than thrilled when she learned that her onscreen boyfriend would be played by James Lydon, a young actor known for his screechy voice and adolescent portrayal of Henry Aldrich in the Henry Aldrich movie series filmed throughout the course of World War II. She would later say, “Jimmy and I have about as much chemistry together as Marjorie Main and Clark Gable.”
“Even before the filming of Life With Father, I had already switched my bobbysoxer allegiance from Frank Sinatra to Vic Damone. I had pictures of Errol Flynn pasted in my bathroom and a framed studio portrait of Vic Damone beside my bed. At night, I practiced French kissing Vic on my satin-covered pink pillowcase.”
Between Courage of Lassie (1946) and the five-month shoot of Life with Father, Elizabeth breasts grew very large and very fast for a teenager as young as she was. “I wasn’t quite up there with Jane Russell yet, but I came in with a 35” bust by the time I turned fifteen. I found that nothing excites a man, even a middle-aged man, more than a teenage girl with large busts.”
/> “The 1940s after the war was a time of Pretty Girls and Varga Girls,” Elizabeth recalled. “A girl was supposed to have melons for breasts and sticky sweet, scarlet-red lips, ideal for a man’s cocksucking fantasies. Someone in makeup suggested that a ‘Joan Crawford mouth’ should be painted on me. Because Curtiz knew Crawford so well, I asked him if I could be introduced to her at some point. Who better to paint a Joan Crawford mouth on me than the star herself? Curtiz promised he’d arrange a meeting between us.”
In Life With Father, Elizabeth found herself co-starring with Powell and Dunne in a comedy set in New York of the 1880s. MGM was getting $3,500 a week from Warner Brothers for her services, five times her salary at MGM. Elizabeth played a girl who wins the love of the household’s oldest son, Lydon, whom Variety would later describe as “effective as a potential Yale man.”
Powell noted that Elizabeth was “swiftly maturing,” and Dunne feared that “she is growing up too fast for her own good.”
Elizabeth had her own comments about the stars. “Irene is a lovely creature, charming and polite. But it’s time she started playing matrons. As for Powell, what in hell did Jean Harlow see in him?”
During filming, Sara hovered over Elizabeth as if she were a rare Tiffany gem. She even took her home when she developed a pimple or had the semblance of a cold coming on.
“Yet in spite of this, I managed to slip away from Sara enough to have a back alley life,” Elizabeth told friends at one of Roddy’s Sunday afternoon parties. “My mother never really knew what I was up to. Roddy was my beard on many an occasion. So was Dick Hanley. Sara knew they don’t like girls. I also got help from ‘mainstream adults’ like Marion Davies and Michael Curtiz, who criticized my mother for holding on to me too tightly.”
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