Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations

by Peter Evans

  “Because I figured I couldn’t shock you. I felt I could say anything to you, and we could talk it through. I thought we were going to decide together what goes in the book,” she said.

  “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I said. I now realized who she had been talking to. They were Spoli Mills’s anxieties, not hers. I decided not to make an issue of it. “We can still talk things through,” I said. “I don’t want to put words in your mouth, Ava.”

  “Then what the fuck are you here for, baby? I thought putting words in my mouth was your job. The whole point of you.”

  “But they will be your words, Ava. I just have to clean them up a little.”

  She still didn’t smile.

  She said, “I thought we had a deal—if I don’t mention it, you don’t ask about it, right?”

  “I don’t remember that deal, Ava,” I said.

  “Well, I’m reminding you of it now, baby. And I was never a fucking hillbilly, by the way,” she said. She seemed to have no idea how much of her life was already in the public domain. But I didn’t reply. I didn’t want to start another argument about the contents of the book, about what she would say, what she wouldn’t say. I wanted to stay clear of that debate for the time being.

  “And you were never a piss artist,” I said as reassuringly as I could manage.

  “Well, I was certainly having a damn good time giving the impression of being one,” she conceded, and that made her laugh, although it was more mirthless than I would have liked.

  “Is that what’s worrying you?” I said.

  She stared at me, frowning. “That story’s been told a thousand times, honey. It doesn’t worry me. The scandal magazines write about it every goddamn week,” she said.

  That wasn’t true anymore, of course. Forty years ago it might have been so, and for a moment I had a flash of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard telling William Holden she was still a big star, it was only the pictures that got smaller. That made me sad, but I think I understood her a little better.

  I reminded her that Mickey Rooney had been an important figure in her life—“at least for a year he was,” I said. I thought it might make her smile again. It was worth the risk.

  “He stuck around longer than that, honey,” she said, but didn’t smile. “I didn’t shake him off until he joined the army.”

  I agreed that Rooney had written his own book, and he’d covered their marriage and divorce in that, but people were going to want to hear about that time from her perspective, I said. The publishers would certainly expect her to deal with it, I added.

  “I’ve already told you about him, honey. If you want more, you’ll have to make it up. Go ahead, Mick won’t mind. Just give him some good lines. He’s not going to complain. He’s an old hambone.”

  It was impossible to reason with her when she was in this mood. But at least we were back on “honey” terms.

  “I’m not going to make it up, Ava. It’s your book, not mine,” I said.

  “I’ve told you all I know about Mr. Rooney, honey.”

  “I don’t think so, Ava.”

  “It’s all you’re going to get, honey.”

  “You’ve told me some funny anecdotes, some funny bits. But we haven’t gotten to grips with your life together at all, Ava. I haven’t a clue how that relationship develops. Unless you give me a little more, I have no idea how I’m going to handle this chapter,” I said.

  “Howard was kindness itself to Mama when she was dying. I nearly killed the fucker once but he was marvelous to Mama when she was dying,” she said. “All her life she had to roll with the punches. I got my survival instincts from her. But Howard got her the best palliative care money could buy. I could never have afforded the things he did for her. He sent two specialists from New York. Another from L.A. When I think of Howard Hughes now, I think of his kindnesses to Mama, his sweetness, not the fights we had.”

  The startling change of subject made it clear that she was bored with the subject of Mickey Rooney, and was not going to discuss it anymore. We had clearly gotten off on the wrong foot, and I knew that I had to let it go for now. I was grateful that the storm had passed.

  “Anyway, we had a good session yesterday,” I told her.

  “That’s because I trust you,” she said. “I do, you know?”

  I said I hoped so, although I suspected it was her way of apologizing for what she had said earlier. Yesterday’s session was good because she had said something important about herself. She had seen her faults, and her sense of guilt as she prepared to leave home, knowing that her mother was dying, was genuinely touching.

  “You convey your feelings very well, Ava,” I said.

  “These interviews are difficult for me, honey. I have to think very hard before I can find a sentence that will say even a little bit of what I feel. I’m not good at answering questions. I don’t want to give you a hard time. The truth is, I hate being fucking interrogated,” she said.

  Interrogated? I thought I’d treated her with kid gloves. After all, we both wanted the same thing: a good book, as quickly as possible. I thought that was the best way to get it. “I didn’t mean to grill you. I apologize,” I said.

  “I have to choose my words carefully when you keep asking me questions. I’ve been tripped up so many times by reporters,” she said.

  “I have to ask questions, Ava. I don’t want to trip you up. We’re on the same side, for God’s sake.”

  “I know we are, honey. I know you have a job to do. I know you want to do it and never have to put up with me again. I know I can be a bitch sometimes. Most fucking times. But I prefer it when we can just chat. Conversations are more fun. Anyway, I’m happy you think yesterday’s session worked out. I’m pleased we did it. I’m pleased it’s over and out of the way. I do want this book to work for both of us,” she said.

  Her moods came and went all the time and I was pleased that she seemed keen to get on with the book again. Nevertheless, I decided to avoid the contentious area of her early days in Hollywood and Mr. Rooney. At least for the moment.

  “Maybe, if you could explain—” I began.

  “I can only tell you what happened, honey,” she interrupted at once. “I leave the explanations to you.”

  I felt she’d pushed me away again but she laughed. “You have to earn your crust sometimes, honey,” she said.

  “I’m doing my best, Ava.”

  “I feel relaxed with you, honey.” She really did trust me, she said. “It’s just that you’re not what I’d expected.”

  What did she expect? I took the bull by the horns. “Is Spoli still saying you shouldn’t trust me?”

  “She’s never said that. She says I shouldn’t trust journalists. You’re not a journalist, are you honey?” she said in mock alarm.

  “Once a journalist,” I said.

  She smiled. “Spoli doesn’t think I should do a book—with you or anyone else. Books are dangerous, she says. She does like you, by the way.”

  “And I like her, too, Ava. But she can be a pain in the backside sometimes.”

  “She frets you will persuade me to say things I shouldn’t say . . . when I drink too much.”

  “I know that. She told me.”

  “She thinks a book, any kind of book, will hurt me.”

  “I think she’s wrong. Her husband is Paul Mills. Need I say more?” Paul Mills ran MGM’s publicity in Europe for years on the basis that all publicity was bad publicity. “He is the most cautious publicist I ever met. He thinks it rather vulgar if stars see their names in newspapers,” I said.

  That made her smile. “I like Paul,” she said.

  “I know you do. And so do I. But you do see my point? They are both paranoid about publicity,” I said.

  “People write all kinds of shit about me. They misinterpret everything I say. Nobody knows what is true and what is false about me anymore. I’m not sure that I know myself anymore. Anyway, I’ve come to the realization that all journalists are cunts,” s
he said.

  It seemed as if she was about to put me back in the “baby” class.

  “Are you still trying to pick a fight with me?” I said.

  “Of course, I am,” she said. “Fighting’s fun.”

  The bottle of wine was almost finished. I should have said, Fine, if she wanted to back out she should tell me now. But I was in too deep for such gentlemanly gestures. And I really wanted to do the book.

  “This will be your book, written by you, Ava! I promise you,” I said.

  “You will still be carrying the ball, honey. You will always have an input,” she said. “I will have to watch you, honey.”

  “Ava, I want a good book, an honest book, a book that will set the record straight, and make us both a lot of money. What’s wrong with that?”

  She thought about it for a moment. “And you think the truth will set me free?” she said.

  I laughed, she could always make me laugh, and she laughed, too.

  “Okay, no more talk of casualties in the mess, gentlemen,” she said. It was a phrase she had picked up from Papa Hemingway. It was the line he used when he wanted to end an argument, or bury the hatchet.

  “Let’s just get on with it, honey. Before I change my goddamn mind again. I think we should open the other bottle, don’t you?” she said.

  To my astonishment, she started talking about her journey to Los Angeles in 1941, her first days at MGM. And her meeting with Mickey Rooney.

  11

  The journey from New York to Los Angeles took four days and three nights, coast to coast. It was maybe the most exciting journey she had ever made in her life, Ava told me. It was definitely the longest. Accompanied by Bappie, she took the Twentieth Century Limited to Chicago, and picked up the Santa Fe Super Chief to the West Coast. Old Hollywood hands usually left the train at Pasadena—to avoid the fans, or the writs, or irate spouses at Union Station. “Only that was a trick I still had to learn,” she said.

  In New York, they were met at Grand Central Terminal by a young man from MGM with their tickets, twenty-five dollars pocket money for the train journey, and a copy of Ava’s executed contract. “Here’s something for you to read on the journey, but better take a couple of aspirins first,” he said.

  It was the standard deal but it was the first time she’d taken a good look at it. “That’s how goddamn naive I was. Bappie went through it with a fine-tooth comb, not that that did any good: the deal was done! I was to be paid fifty dollars a week for seven years—except it never was fifty dollars, and it never was for seven years either. The studio had the option to let me go after the first three months. If I didn’t measure up in the first quarter, after they’d had a good look at me, I’d be out on my ass. After that, they could get rid of me at regular six-month intervals. That took some of the wind out of my sails,” she said.

  The standard contract was a one-way bet for the studio. The small print was full of surprises and traps for the unwary. A “morals clause” demanded that Ava promise “to conduct herself with due regard to public conventions and morals,” and that she would not “do or commit any act or thing that will degrade her in society, or bring her into public hatred, contempt, scorn or ridicule, that will tend to shock, insult, or offend the community or ridicule public morals or decency, or prejudice the producer or the motion picture industry in general.”

  The morals clause didn’t bother Ava. “I was eighteen years old. I was still a virgin. I wasn’t planning to perform a sex act with Clark Gable singing ‘God Bless America’ in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard. What shocked me was the fact that they were entitled to use a twelve-week layoff each year—and you can bet your boots, the bastards would make sure they always did, and they always did.

  “So, instead of getting fifty dollars a week for the first year, it worked out at thirty-five. Out of that you always had to be well groomed and shell out for your food and a place to live. That’s why many of the starlets and contract players had to put out, plenty of them thought nothing of giving a little bit away when the rental was due,” she said.

  She talked in a steady stream of recollection. She remembered the date—August 23, 1941—and the name of the MGM publicist—Milton Weiss—who met them at the train at Union Station and took them to the Plaza on Hollywood and Vine, which was known in those days as the Times Square of the West.

  “Don’t get too comfortable, ladies,” Weiss told them. The studio would take care of the first week’s accommodations and meals at the hotel—after that they were on their own, he said cheerfully. He was full of good advice. The sooner they got themselves a used car the better, he said: Hollywood is a surprisingly big small town if you didn’t have your own wheels. Meanwhile, he gave her the details of the bus routes she would have to take to get to the studio each day. “Allow yourself at least ninety minutes, you have a couple of changes,” he said.

  “That was fine. I didn’t mind that. When you’re young, it’s natural to be broke. I never had much money in my purse but it never worried me. I traveled in with the early-morning shift people, the cleaners, the stagehands, and maintenance people. They were a nice crowd. Even so, it was no fun getting up at 5 A.M. to get to work on time. But neither was being put on suspension. I didn’t mind not working, I never did mind that, but the fact that I wasn’t going to get a pay packet for twelve weeks of the year was a real body slam. Fortunately, Bappie got a job on the handbag counter at I. Magnin. I think the people at I. Miller in New York had recommended her. Bappie was a great saleswoman. That kept our heads above water. It also showed how smart Mama was, bless her. If she hadn’t insisted on Bappie coming with me to Hollywood, I’d have been fucked. I couldn’t have found my way to first base if Bappie hadn’t been around to hold my hand.”

  Bappie’s wages allowed them to move into a tiny walk-up on Wilcox Avenue, south of Hollywood Boulevard. It was within ten minutes walking distance of the buzziest part of town, including Musso and Frank’s restaurant, and Don the Beachcomber’s, which was more famous for its drinks than its food; and an array of ornate movie palaces including the Egyptian, Grauman’s Chinese, and the Pantages, which turned movie premieres into an art form.

  “That stretch of Hollywood Boulevard became our regular Saturday afternoon stroll. Every weekend we’d catch a movie, sometimes a couple. I remember seeing Random Harvest with Bappie’s favorite actor, Ronald Colman, and Mrs. Miniver with Greer Garson. God, that was before history, honey.

  “Money was tight but I don’t ever remember going hungry. We had a two-ring gas cooker. We could always rassle up a meal. We shared a pull-down bed, but it was no great hardship. I’d shared beds for most of my life, sometimes with my sister Myra, but mostly with our black maid, Virginia. I’ll tell you, honey, when you’re sharing, there’s nothing to choose between a brass bed in North Carolina and a bed that pulls out of the wall in Southern California. But I was young and optimistic. I had no trouble sleeping anywhere in those days. That’s one of the best things about youth,” she said.

  Ava talked about her first days in Hollywood. She described the Roman columns that stretched for over half a mile along the front of the MGM studios on Washington Boulevard. She remembered her amusement and disappointment when she discovered that they were made of plaster and wood, and not marble, as she had imagined, and her excitement at being introduced to Mickey Rooney on the set of Babes on Broadway. She was funny about the commissary, known as the “Lion’s Den,” with its huge mural of Louis B. Mayer—“his weasel eyes behind those round wire-frame glasses watched every spoonful you ate.”

  Ava had been in Hollywood barely twenty-four hours and was being hauled around the studio by a publicist whose job it was to get her photographed with the stars. “It was a ritual all new contract players went through, and if the new girl was pretty enough and the star big enough, the pictures sometimes made the small town newspapers and occasionally even got into the Hollywood trades. Those fuckers never missed a trick. I’m told the photographs of my meeting with Micke
y Rooney appeared in newspapers all over the world. But I still went on suspension after the first month!”

  She’d talked for a long time. Suddenly she stopped and looked at me quizzically. “What’s the matter? The cat got your tongue, honey?” she said.

  “I’m listening. It’s fascinating. You’re doing fine,” I said.

  “You know I hate monologues, honey. My mouth gets dry,” she said.

  It was after 8 P.M. I knew what she wanted. “Would you like a glass of water?” I said.

  “Fuck you, baby,” she said.

  I opened the bottle of red wine that was on the small table by her side. I didn’t mind her drinking when we worked. “I drink to remember, honey,” she often said, and to a point it seemed to work. I poured two glasses. “A Chilean Merlot with aromas of blackberries and a hint of vanilla,” I said facetiously, handing her the glass.

  “As long as it’s wet, honey,” she said. She lifted her glass. “Prost, honey.”

  “To you,” I said.

  She tasted the wine, holding the glass to her lips with both hands. “That’s nice,” she said.

  “Okay, here’s a question,” I said, getting back to business. “Can you recall your feelings when you met Mickey Rooney for the first time?”

  “My feelings?” She looked at me as if I had asked her to reopen an old wound.

  “Can you remember what he said, what you said?” I said speculatively.

  She turned the question over in her mind for a minute or so, sipped her wine. “You know, it’s very odd, trying to remember how you felt about anything as a kid. I’ve read so many versions of my life when I first went to Hollywood. The bastards never get it quite right,” she said.

  “Well, now’s the time to put the record straight,” I said.

  She looked amused. “I can remember that first meeting with Mick very clearly—probably because he was wearing a bowl of fruit on his head. At least that’s what it looked like. He was playing this Carmen Miranda character—do you remember Carmen Miranda? You probably don’t. She had a brief fame in the forties. She was a Brazilian dancer, a hot little number while she lasted. Mickey was playing her, complete with false eyelashes, false boobs, his mouth smothered with lipstick.