THERE WAS A stopover in Paris on the long flight to Rome. I accompanied Millie to an airport coffee shop and somehow left the pills I was supposed to take to keep from hemorrhaging in the ladies’ room. I realized this with a start just as the plane was taking off.
I didn’t know what to do. I sat in my seat staring straight ahead as Millie dozed beside me. I could not tell her or anyone. All I could think of was “I may die.”
By the time we landed, I’d started to bleed. I got a Kotex from the stewardess and checked my outfit, standing in the plane’s toilet. Luckily I hadn’t stained.
Millie and I were driven directly to the Cinecittà Studios an hour outside of Rome. We were needed there for preliminary costume fittings. As the car rolled in, we were confronted with a maze of low gray sound stages that stretched for miles, all of which were being used for movies from Ben-Hur to La Dolce Vita. Cinecittà was the largest international movie studio in the world.
We finally found the wardrobe department for The Nun’s Story. I undressed with extreme care, terrified the blood might leak through the Kotex. I remained stiff and tense as the seamstress began measuring my long habit.
At the end of the afternoon our director, Fred Zinnemann, a wiry finely featured man with a slight Viennese accent, dropped by to say hello. I could barely concentrate as he told us that he’d arranged for us to visit several convents for research throughout the following week.
The entire cast had been booked at the Hotel De La Ville on Via Sistina, at the top of the Spanish steps. We were a block away from the gushing Trevi Fountain, and nearby I could see the green sweep of the Villa Borghese gardens. Except there was no way I could enjoy the scenery; the cramping was so extreme, I resisted having dinner. I just wanted to lie down.
But then Millie and I ran into Dame Edith Evans in the lobby, and she intoned grandly, “I refuse to eat alone. Let’s all go out together.” We accompanied her to a trattoria down the cobblestoned block.
Dame Edith was a formidable woman, tall, stately, considered by many to be the greatest actress in the English-speaking theatre. I thought she’d hold forth on Laurence Olivier and the Old Vic. Instead she wondered in a stage whisper, “What do you know about Audrey?” In 1958 Audrey was the biggest star in the world, second only to Ingrid Bergman.
“She’s something of a mystery,” Millie answered. “Engimatic, detached, but irresistible.”
Dame Edith murmured, “It’s as if she’s from another world. In Sabrina when she plays the chauffeur’s daughter, she falls from a tree . . .” The two women went on extolling Audrey’s virtues. I would soon learn that the entire cast of The Nun’s Story was bedazzled by Audrey Hepburn. They’d accepted roles, however small, in The Nun’s Story just so they could work with her.
Throughout the meal I remained silent; Millie commented that I must be very, very tired. I said I was.
All I wanted to do was remain in bed, but the next morning I was scheduled to do research at the Salvator Mundi International Hospital, which was run by the Congregation of the Divine Savior. It made sense for me to do my research there, since The Nun’s Story revolved around an order of nursing nuns.
My appointment was with a sensible-looking woman with a round, kind face who spoke English very well. “My name is Sister Rose,” she said. As we shook hands, I tried to hide the pain I was feeling.
“Are you all right, Miss Bosworth?” she asked. “You look very ill. Can I help you?”
I protested that I was fine and attempted to ask her questions about her life as a religious.
She kept looking at me. “You are not well. I know it. Please let me help you.”
I heard myself lying, “No, no, Sister, I’m okay.” Inside myself I was pleading, Tell her, “I need help.” But I couldn’t.
We talked only a few more minutes and then she cut the interview short. “You should go back to your hotel and rest, and you must promise you will call me if you don’t feel better. Will you promise?” She scrawled her name and phone number on a slip of paper.
She gazed at me with such compassion and concern I had to stifle a sob. “Yes, Sister, I promise.”
By the time I returned to my room at the De Ville, blood was streaming down my thighs; it stained the carpet and trickled onto the polished floor. I grabbed the phone and called Sister Rose. I told her I’d had an abortion and that I thought I might be dying.
She sent an ambulance immediately. The next thing I knew I was on an operating table at the Salvator Mundi and a doctor was looking down at me angrily. (I found out later he was Ingrid Bergman’s doctor and had delivered her twins.)
“You little fool!” He glared at me. “Do you know how many actresses I’ve had on this table? Why didn’t you at least take precautions?” Then he gave me a shot that knocked me out. He sewed my stitches up and I was rolled, unconscious, into a private room.
I SPENT THE next few days recovering. Various doctors looked in on me and made notes. So did a number of medical students. Was I an oddity, I wondered, an example of a “bad woman”? When I asked Sister Rose, she assured me that my “real condition” had been kept secret. Indeed, Warner Brothers had been told I was suffering from a stomach ailment, so they paid all the bills, no questions asked. And my absence from the set didn’t cause problems, since the picture was a week behind schedule. No time would be lost.
I lay there, thinking, I almost died. After my brother killed himself, I didn’t care whether I lived or died, and yet somehow I was here; I’d survived. I wondered how many hours I’d lost screwing strangers, wasting time daydreaming, eating candy, smoking cigarettes, staring at myself in the mirror. I hated myself for my weaknesses and my self-indulgence and my lack of purpose.
My breasts were sore; my uterus throbbed, but I felt I deserved the pain. Nurse-nuns hovered, bringing me hot cocoa and cups of steaming tea. When I complained of cramping, I was given a heating pad. It was then explained to me, very quietly, that cramping was normal and necessary for my uterus in order for it to return to its normal size.
I had such an abysmal lack of knowledge about my body. I didn’t even know whether I’d ever menstruate again. Then, as if by magic, an intern dropped by to inform me that I could expect my menstrual cycle to begin again within four to six weeks and that I could become pregnant during that time if I went “unprotected.” I had no intention of letting that happen. For the first time in my life I thought about my body and what I’d done to it. I touched my breasts, I caressed my vagina. I even tugged at the soft hair between my buttocks. I’d never been aware of my body before. It was something that was just there.
Then I began to miss my mother. I yearned for her comfort and support, but of course I would never tell her what I had done. She’d kept me in the dark about sex and never encouraged me to take responsibility for my body, and she’d instilled in me a fear of doctors when I was growing up. I’d never asked my male gynecologist any questions. I didn’t question him about fees or procedures either, nor had I discussed the possibly adverse effects of my abortion with the doctor who had performed the operation the week before. He had given me those pills so casually (“Just take ’em on the plane so you won’t hemorrhage . . .”), but I’d been only half listening. I still hadn’t learned to concentrate when it came to taking care of myself.
I knew that I was at a turning point. I couldn’t go on living in the same careless, reckless manner, never giving a thought to what I was doing. I had to take stock. I had to change. Easier said than done. My growing up would take a long, long time.
JUST BEFORE I left the hospital, Sister Rose came to visit me. She sat near my bed and we talked. I noticed how tall and straight she seemed, and how serene. Even though I’d grown up with nuns, I could never fathom their singular way of being. Sister Rose’s calm warmth reminded me of my beloved Mother M back in San Francisco. We were quiet for a while, and then I said, “Thank you for saving me, Sister. I am so ashamed.”
“A waste of time.”
“I fe
el guilty, so guilty.”
A long pause, and then she suggested gently, “Go to Confession.”
“I hope God forgives me.”
Sister Rose didn’t answer. Instead she murmured in conspiratorial tones, “I shouldn’t be here.” She continued to stare at me very hard. “You could’ve died, you know.”
“I know.”
“God has saved you for something,” Sister Rose noted. “There is a reason you are still alive. What do you want to do with yourself?”
“Well, I started out wanting to be an actress,” I explained, speaking very slowly and carefully because I realized this could be an important conversation. “After I became an actress and started to work, I had to face the fact that I didn’t enjoy performing all that much. I didn’t like to be that focused on myself. Sometimes I think I am not as committed as I should be to acting, that it is not my vocation. That I should be—well, I really want to be a writer.”
“Writers are dreamers,” Sister Rose murmured.
“I have been writing,” I assured her. “I haven’t gotten very far. I’m not published. But I’m writing a novel and some short stories. It’s very hard.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-four.”
“You have time. Pray for guidance. You should offer up your struggles.”
I sat bolt upright in bed. “I pray every day,” I cried. “I say the prayer I learned at the Convent of the Sacred Heart. ‘Oh Jesus, through the immaculate heart of Mary I offer up all my prayers, works, and sufferings of this day.’”
“That’s a good start,” Sister Rose said. She rose and moved toward the door, rosaries clinking by her side. I didn’t want her to go.
“I was supposed to ask you questions about what it’s like to be a nun,” I called after her.
“It’s not for everybody,” she said. “But I wanted to be a nun from the time I was fourteen years old.”
“What’s it like?”
She thought for a moment. “It’s a life primarily of silence, although you wouldn’t know it from the way I’m talking. I’ll have to do a penance. It’s about love and living the Gospel. I make it sound simple, but it’s hard.”
“What’s the hardest part?”
“The vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The most difficult is obedience. The religious life has to begin every day as if it was a first.”
“Have you read the screenplay of The Nun’s Story?”
“Oh, yes. We were all asked to read it when we agreed to advise Warner Brothers and Mr. Zinnemann.”
“What do you think?”
“It’s quite accurate.” She moved closer to the door. “I have to go.” Her skirts rustled; her rosaries clinked.
“Please pray for me, Sister.”
“I will. I promise.” And then she was gone.
As soon as I was alone, I scrambled to my knees and clasped my hands fervently together. “Oh my God!” I cried. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
I looked out the window and I could see Rome and its jumble of churches and crumbling palazzi. On my bedside table was a vase of flowers from Fred Zinnemann and Warner Brothers and a note: “Get well soon.”
Was it fate or destiny or just plain luck that had put me together with Sister Rose at the Salvator Mundi International Hospital? At that moment, my survival seemed an incredible wonder.
I was alive. I was healing. Due to a series of totally unplanned circumstances.
Chapter Nineteen
AFTER A FEW more days the doctors said I was well enough to leave the hospital, so I went back to the Hotel De La Ville, feeling very disoriented. I would continue to feel this way for the next few weeks. I remember standing in front of my desk leafing through call sheets and schedules from Warner Brothers and finding it hard to believe that I was about to be featured in a big Hollywood film. Then I glanced down at the carpet, relieved that the maid had washed all my blood away.
I couldn’t tell anybody what had happened to me. I had to act healthy, so when the PR department called to set up a photo shoot with the Rome Daily American, I immediately agreed.
That same afternoon I established a routine that I maintained until my job was over. I had supper almost every night with various members of the cast. I loved hearing Dame Edith talk about Shakespeare; Pat Collinge would tell me about writing for The New Yorker; Millie Dunnock might discuss the differences between Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams as playwrights. These distinguished women were a comfort to me in my vulnerable state. I listened hungrily for anything they might tell me. They had discovered themselves and the world in ways I hadn’t yet.
Millie was my favorite, although we would occasionally eat our meals without talking. I was uncomfortable with that; I thought we should fill our silences with chatter. But when I did, Millie would often not answer. She remained deep in thought, her enormous eyes filled with melancholy.
“Is something the matter?” I would ask.
She would shake her head. “It’s inexplicable. It’s emotional. Words would destroy what I am trying to figure out inside myself.”
So I let her go on pondering. Keeping quiet, keeping one’s conscience. It was a lesson that took me decades to master.
THE INTERIORS FOR The Nun’s Story were all being filmed at Cinecittà. I began going out there a lot for more costume fittings and makeup tests. The sheer size of the place overwhelmed me: offices, piazzas (Fellini had an apartment there), so many sound stages I couldn’t keep count.
I lost my way the morning I had an “emergency meeting” with Fred Zinnemann. I hadn’t expected him to be waiting for me in my dressing room.
“You’re late,” he said.
It was 7:05 (I had been called for 7:00 a.m.). Millie had warned me, “Fred is always on time.” To me, he was the artist who’d discovered Montgomery Clift for The Search and directed Brando as the tormented paraplegic war vet in The Men. I loved all of Fred’s movies, especially the suspenseful Western High Noon and From Here to Eternity (which had won eight Academy Awards). I knew he was a meticulous craftsman; every detail had to be perfect. Which may have explained his next comment to me: “We must do something about your teeth.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your teeth—your two front teeth,” he replied briskly. “In your color test they photograph yellow. We can’t have that. So I’ve arranged for a dentist to make you some porcelain caps.” Fred’s assistant appeared as if on cue to hand me a slip of paper. “You will be driven directly to the dentist’s office. He’s waiting for you. This has to be done right away because we are shooting your first scene with Audrey tomorrow morning.”
“Oh.” My head was spinning. I followed the assistant outside to the long driveway between the many sound stages where limos and cars were forever idling.
“Hopefully this won’t take too long,” the assistant murmured as he helped me into my car.
It didn’t take long. The Nun’s Story was a multimillion-dollar Hollywood movie, so the dentist (who could speak only a little English) worked feverishly, bringing out tray after tray of caps for me to try on. None of them seemed to work. Some hung over my lower lip like fangs. Others were too short. After about an hour he slipped on a pair he thought would be “bella!” They did at least feel secure, but when I smiled in the mirror I was horrified to see a cartoon character gazing back at me. The teeth were so bucked I resembled none other than Bugs Bunny.
The dentist assured me it was the best he could do. I decided I should go back to Cinecittà.
I had to wait for about an hour for Fred to reappear in my dressing room. Finally he hurried in. “I’ve been in conference with the Vatican,” he explained, rolling his eyes. Then he clapped his hands together. “Let me see your beautiful smile.”
I flashed him my Bugs Bunny grin.
“Good Lord!” Fred exclaimed. “You look like a—”
“A cartoon character. I know. The dentist said this was the best he could do.”
F
red crossed his arms together in what I would soon remember as a characteristic gesture. “I guess you won’t be able to smile in the movie. But,” he added, “you aren’t expected to smile much anyway, so I don’t think it’ll be too big a loss.”
Now I was worried about speaking at all. “Will my teeth show when I’m saying my lines?”
“Not enough for there to be a problem.”
From then on, before I came to the set I would always run my lines in front of the mirror, making sure my teeth could barely be seen.
WHEN I RETURNED to my hotel I ordered dinner in my room and thought about my role as Sister Simone, the devout, clumsy farm girl who befriends Sister Luke when they are both young postulants. I had only three scenes with Audrey, but “they were plot points, so they couldn’t be cut.” Bob Anderson had explained this to me when he’d given me the rough draft of the screenplay back in New York. At the start of the movie, we see Simone and Luke constantly breaking the rules. Before they take their final vows, Simone tells Sister Luke that she can’t take the rigorous life of a nun, so she’s leaving. Sister Luke remains in her order for seventeen years, struggling with her conscience, before she leaves the convent too.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, bright and early, I filmed my first scene. It took place in the parlor of the convent where the novices were all saying good-bye to their families. Although I had no lines, I was told I’d be in close-up and I was understandably nervous—and excited too, because I was finally going to meet Audrey.
Everybody was milling around, talking and giggling as the lights were being adjusted. Then all talking stopped on the set as Audrey herself appeared. I watched spellbound as she glided across the floor toward me, her feet barely touching the ground. Then I felt her slender delicate hand in mine and heard her say in that inimitable accented voice of hers, “I’m so glad you’re going to be my little friend for a while.”
Nobody has ever made quite the impact on me that Audrey did at that first encounter. She greeted me as if she’d been waiting to meet me all her life, which I suspect is how she greeted everyone. I’ll never forget gazing into that remarkable face of hers; it radiated such beauty and sadness.
The Men in My Life Page 25
