It was fortunate that my imagination was active, because Pronto wasn’t. Once we put him on the hill above the house, he never moved again. Ever. But kids are quick at compensation. Every afternoon, I’d race up the hill, slip on Pronto’s bridle, leap on his back, dig my heels into his sides, and ride like the wind across the prairie, hot on the trail of outlaws and rustlers. Switching my pony with the reins for a final burst of speed, shouting, “Hiiiyeeeaaagh! Giddap!,” I’d round up the last head of cattle, safe for the night, and keep the coyotes at bay. Then I’d loop up my lasso, take off the bridle, pat my hot, dusty horse and, spurs jingling, amble back to the ranch for some grub, my doggies at my heels. Pronto had not lifted a hoof.
In the fifties, “celebrity offspring” had carefully chronicled childhoods; many of us had been in newspapers and magazines from the day we were born, each rite of passage recorded—some even invented—on film and in stills. We were show-business families and we had a nose, an instinct for what would play and what wouldn’t. Our parents were all performers, producers, directors and writers whose lives and livelihood were based on a special sixth sense of staging and timing. Their children were born into the old razzle-dazzle and we learned early how to perform—not to blink at flashbulbs, to keep our eyes open and our mouths closed. We were to the movies born and so were expected to deliver, with some poise and presence, when the cameras rolled and the flashbulbs popped and sizzled.
For many of us, “home movies” had an unusual meaning. Bella Vista was like a tiny backlot; films were shot on the grounds, edited in the workshop and screened in the Rumpus Room, a theater separate from the house, which overlooked the rose garden and the goldfish pond. Slot machines stood in the corridor that led to the theater guest room, and wine slept in a well-stocked cellar downstairs. The main room was large and spacious, brightened by a big bay window and a gleaming copper hood over the stone fireplace. The pine floor was honey-colored, covered with a thick, fringed rug, and the sofas were deep and cushiony, the kind kids sink into and disappear. At the far end of the room rose a small stage with an upright piano, framed with curtains and a hand-painted canvas vaudeville drop of cherubs selling snake oil. A movie screen lowered from the ceiling to face the projection booth enclosed at the opposite end of the room. It was here that my father rehearsed and held weekend writers’ meetings, my mother studied her singing, and my friends and I put on shows; my parents screened films for their parties and cartoons for mine.
I had seen performing transform my father from someone wary and remote into the freest, most fearless of clowns. He loved performing, and he wanted me to love it, too. I was a poised, pretty child who spoke precisely and took to the stage easily, often eagerly, even learning to “throw my voice” to an imaginary friend, “Joe,” in the basement. This filled my father with pride and praise, for nothing could have pleased him more. That was the point, of course—to please my father—and so another “belly-talker” was born.
Having dealt in the finer points of voice projection, my father had no time for mumblers, and as his daughter I was expected to respond clearly and quickly to questions, enunciating and projecting properly. When I failed in that, as I often did, he turned cold and unforgiving. Not a particularly patient man, he was intolerant and short-tempered with slowness or stupidity. My father was of course famous for one-man dialogues, for snappy comebacks to his own questions: the soloist of repartee. His impatience with answers that were long in coming seemed perfectly reasonable, considering he made his living by giving his own. But when that temper turned in my direction, I froze stiff with fear, went red with shame. Not one to yell, he kept his emotions pressed and neatly hung; instead, he’d snap sharply—suddenly distant, instantly unreachable—and fix on you a stare so icy, so unfeeling that you ceased to breathe or even to exist.
For my seventh birthday, my parents gave me a supermarket. My very own market, which they had set up as a surprise in the patio. Though I didn’t recall asking for a supermarket or even especially wanting one, it was a spectacular gift and I was ecstatic to have it. While it was not, naturally, as big as a real market, it was not much smaller, either. The custom-made, wraparound counter was waist high, built of wood and painted a bright tomato red. Behind the counter, shining red shelves soared majestically—stacked with little cans of vegetables, carrots, corn, and peas, tiny boxes of Babbo, and Betty Crocker Cake Mix. In this jewellike setting a small cash register shimmered, its drawers neatly filled with stacks of crisp Charlie McCarthy dollar bills and newly minted coins with Charlie’s head on one side, Mortimer’s on the other.
Quickly setting up shop in the patio, chattering happily with my first customers—Dee, the cook, the houseman—sliding cans across the counter, taking money, making change, I briskly rang up sales on my little cash register, the Merry Merchant—a symbol of supply and demand.
Suddenly my father rounded the corner, eyes bright under his peaked flying cap. Hung with light meters, lugging cameras, sound and tripod, he came to a stop at my market, heaved his equipment to the ground and began, determinedly, to try to assemble it. Finally set up, adjusting his 16mm. movie camera on its teetering tripod, swinging the bill of his cap to the back of his head, he fitted his eye to the lens, switched on the camera motor and began to film, at which point I stopped dead in my tracks.
“Action, Candy!” The scene was set, but I wasn’t moving. “Come on, Candy, hand her the peas “ I stood, rooted, behind the counter, clutching my cash register, sullen and self-conscious. Business was booming when along comes my father. Mr. Cinéma Vérité. I lowered my eyes, answering inaudibly, behaving stiffly. Atmosphere on the supermarket set grew strained. My father grew impatient. “Speak up, Candy, and talk into the microphone,” he snapped. “And wipe that sick smile off your face.” My shame increased with his annoyance until, finally, desperate and defeated, the director threw up his hands in disgust, adjusted his cap, shouldered his camera and tripod and stalked away.
I was left alone with my failure, paralyzed by the self-consciousness that would follow me later onto larger sets.
Little milestones were given majesty in Hollywood, the everyday made extraordinary. Family backyards were often studio backlots: mothers’ movie sets, fathers’ sound stages; and sometimes the backyards themselves were even better.
One of my playmates was Carla Kirkeby, the daughter of a hotel magnate. She lived alone with her mother in Bel Air in a small Versailles—a sugar-cube chateau that spread across acres. There you flipped the switch to start the electric waterfall tumbling down boulders into the pool far below, danced across gleaming parquet in the vast gilded ballroom, took the elevator, ran through the tunnel, and jumped on the trampoline on the lower lawn, then hiked up the rocks of the rumbling waterfall and raced through the French gardens to reach the garage, which was nearly as palatial as the house itself—a hotel for cars, discreet and distinguished, giving onto a cobblestone courtyard enclosed by high walls. The automobiles were sleek and shining, always in a state of readiness—a Rolls-Royce coupe, a Bentley convertible, a Jaguar roadster and a station wagon; assorted others belonged to the staff. In the very last stall shone the smallest automotive models: three miniature convertibles that were electrically powered. These were for the children, and we stampeded toward them, clambered inside and hurried down the drive. Whirring along, feet clamped down on the pedals, we whizzed by boxwood hedges and long rows of topiary trees —like two Mister Toads in mad dashes, gangsters making our getaway.
Walt Disney had a miniature train built in his vast backyard; a perfect knee-high working replica of a steam engine with four cars and a caboose. It puffed along narrow graveled tracks and across a tiny trestle bridge while “Uncle Walt,” in engineer’s cap and kerchief, sat happily astride the engine, shoveling coal and tooting the shrill steam whistle as he took us for rides.
For parents so expert at larger than life, they seemed mesmerized by the minuscule as well, fascinated with inflating the scale or reducing it. It was the life-s
ize that failed to hold their interest.
Even in a landscape so completely at odds with it, Christmas took on fabled proportions as well. For here climate was given no quarter; here parents could create their own. You had only to dream of a white Christmas and white was what you got—boughs of massive fir trees sagging with snow. It was no accident that “sno-flocking,” a costly process in which Christmas trees are sprayed with a sticky white substance flecked with silica for a realistic sparkle, found its way onto Hollywood trees—invented, perhaps, by a prop man at the request of a producer for his family’s fir.
Snow fell, too, on the nighttime Christmas parade down Hollywood Boulevard, blown in swirling gusts by giant studio fans spaced along the route. This I remember particularly because as my parents, Charlie, Mortimer, and I chugged along in my father’s antique Stanley Steamer—one of the many celebrity-filled convertibles—waving to the line of crowds, I got a fair dose of snow in the eyes. By then I knew that public display of tears was unacceptable so, eyes squeezed shut and furiously tearing, I kept waving and smiling crazily, like a child blind and bereft, pluckily bidding goodbye.
There were many children’s parties at Christmas with as sorted Santas giving gifts. One time, the man ho-hoing behind the spun-silver beard was David Niven—an elegant, urbane Father Christmas, a soigné Saint Nick. Another year, Charlton Heston played him differently—a man of unearthly substance and stature, his ho-hos booming from a great height, somewhere between Santa Claus and God; when he asked if you’d been good all year, it caused a real crisis of conscience.
Come December, Hollywood living rooms became Nutcracker Suites. Towering trees seemed to shed presents like pine needles, thickly covering the floor. Gifts tumbled in all directions, piling up like snowdrifts and eclipsing the carpet. The rooms were impassable before December 26th.
At Christmas, Hollywood children grew giddy and greedy, buried under offerings. It was a child’s dream come true, but I wonder if we children really believed it; there was a sense, somehow, that ours were weirdly bountiful harvests, that living rooms shouldn’t swell so with loot.
Like the snowfall, the number of presents varied from year to year, depending on ratings, grosses and the wellwrapped gratitude of studio heads and sponsors. These gifts of grandeur—indications of the corporate value of the receiver—were often given to the children to impress the parents on whose shelves they usually ended up: Georgian silver porringers, carved ivory animals, tiny feathered mechanical birds that, when wound, twittered in fine-ribbed gold cages. Impeccably wrapped, lavish and useless to anyone four feet high.
It was Uncle Walt Disney’s gift we looked forward to most and we began to wait for it in October. A monolith in Mickey Mouse paper, instantly spotted by size and wrapping, it was the only gift bigger than the receiver, for here was a man who shared our souls. His presents stood three feet high and three feet wide and were filled with every Disney treasure: a Snow White gramophone, Tinker Bell dolls and Pixie Dust, pirate swords and porcelain Peter Pans. We were dizzy with delight to get them. But as we grew taller, the presents grew smaller, until, by adolescence, they disappeared completely—a metaphor for our early youth.
Our birthdays, too, assumed the scope and shimmer of a studio production. A treasure hunt was held for Timothy Getty’s seventh birthday, and the countless children invited were asked to come as pirates and buccaneers. Golden earrings in ears and noses, sashed in satin, wearing long blue beards, the children fanned out in short, greedy squadrons assisted by butlers in breeches and big black hats adorned with skulls and crossbones. The Getty estate—now the Getty Museum—sloped almost to the sea and, as legend has it, was once the site of true pirate booty and buried doubloons. But in Timothy’s time the great lawn swarmed with bands of smaller brigands feverishly in search of tiny treasure chests stuffed with chocolate gold coins.
Our parties were true extravaganzas—lavish competitions in professional skill, loving displays of parental pride. It was innocent one-upsmanship, well-intentioned, yet tough to top. Most seemed to agree that the Oscar for Best Birthday Given by a Parent went to Vincent Minnelli for Liza’s sixth given at Ira Gershwin’s house in Beverly Hills. That was the party parents spoke of with reverence, shaking their heads, smiling, Now that was a time. I don’t think the children remembered but the grownups certainly did; my mother described it to me just recently, amazed I’d forgotten a day so spendid, so fresh was it still in her mind.
The Gershwin lawn rolled on forever, and in the center, children spun slowly on a many-colored carousel, while others clustered round the Magic Lady—a woman in a long blue gown sprinkled with stars who pulled doves from her sleeves and rabbits from hats. There were hot-dog stands and icecream cones and clouds of cotton candy. Clowns clowned and jugglers juggled and sleek, shining ponies circled the lawn at a tiny, clipped canter for any child who wanted a ride. It was a fairy-tale gift to a daughter from a father who was a master at making fairy tales come true.
If I don’t remember her party, I do remember Liza: shy and soft-spoken, quick to smile. She peered with huge eyes through thick, long lashes, kind and gentle, generous and unspoiled. I remember always liking her for that because most of us were none of those things.
Parties, for me, were a source of terror; I was led in reluctantly, often tearfully, then hung by the edge. The day usually ended in tentative enjoyment as, party hat in hand, I curtsied goodbye at the door. Frightened and self-conscious with other, bolder children, I headed home relieved and happy, eager to hike the hills with my dogs. I remember being pleased to find Liza at these parties, often hovering at the edge as well—surprised at her shyness, grateful for her friendliness.
In “Uncle Walt’s” backyard: Edgar, Candy, June Allyson, Frances, Walt Disney
And I remember always asking to go to Liza’s to play dress-up because in her closet hung little girls’ dreams. Vincent Minnelli had seen to that, too. In her dress-up closet, on low racks at child’s-eye level, glowed tiny satin ball gowns embroidered with seed pearls, wispy white tutus, flowered pink crinolines. You could choose between Vivian Leigh’s riding habit from Gone with the Wind or Leslie Caron’s ballerina costume from An American in Paris; my favorite was Deborah Kerr’s champagne satin ball gown from The King and I. Each one fit as if it were made for us. And each one was. Liza’s father had had the most famous leading women’s costumes from MGM movies copied by the designers themselves—all scaled down to perfect six-year-old sizes.
The Maypole. From left: Liza Minnelli, Carla Kirkeby, Vicki Milland and Candy
When I turned six, in the merry month of May, I wore a party dress of yellow organdy appliquéd with French lace and stood nervously with my mother at the gate of Bella Vista, ready to receive my guests. Little girls fluttered in like pastel puffs, the palest springtime flowers, and clustered together like a bouquet. The boys stumbled in—reluctant Princes of the Blood—hair slicked fast, sheepish in their navy knee socks, squirming in their gray wool flannel shorts. Shoving each other and giggling, they kept a ritual distance from the shy smiles of the girls as if anything in organdy might contaminate their budding manhood.
Parties were held in the patio, and that year my mother had had a maypole made that streamed with brightly colored ribbons. The girls skipped in a dainty circle, weaving the ribbons into tight stripes around the pole—delicately, demurely—till the boys took a turn and it became a tug of war. Quickly tearing the ribbons from the pole, waving them proudly like trophies of war, they soon used them as lassoes and bridles for the girls, who were delighted with the attention. After ice-cream animals and cake, two white police dogs precisely executed their tricks in the patio; our governesses hovered nearby in crisp, crackling uniforms while our parents—the Dick Powells, Ray Millands, Jimmy Stewarts, Arthur Rubinsteins, Randolph Scotts, David Selznicks and Ronald Reagans—gathered over cocktails inside.
Sixth birthday
Then—organdy wilted, hair ribbons undone, knee socks sagging and ties askew—we rac
ed to the Rumpus Room, wound tighter than clocks, and scrambled for a place on the sofas. I wedged myself between Jimmy Stewart’s son Ronnie and Dorothy Lamour’s son Ridgeley. I had crushes on both of them. The lights went out, and in the darkness, giggling and whispering, we waited for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to begin.
Here was a story about another princess who lived far away in another Magic Kingdom, in love with a prince, surrounded by odd, tiny men. At long last, her prince finds her, gathers her gently onto his horse, and, with the creatures of the forest weeping and cheering, they ride together into the sunset.
The queen and the dwarfs stay home.
Our fantasy lives were shaped by movies like those of other kids of our generation, but it was our parents who made the fantasies, who cherished childhood more than we. Hollywood, for them, was the Sea of Dreams where they set their silver sails and filled their nets with magic. Our parents were Ivanhoe and Moses, Spartacus and Shane. They fought lions, roped stallions, slew dragons, rescued maidens; they healed the sick, sang in the rain, woke up in Oz and got back to Kansas. Snapped their fingers—it snowed in summer. Sent a memo—it rained indoors.
And we were the children of Paradise, where nothing seemed beyond our reach. Fantasy was, for us, familiar. The extraordinary, everyday. But reality remained a stranger, and most were pleased to leave it that way.
3
MY firmest early memory of my father was one afternoon when I was six. Bringing me home from watching a radio show read-through, winding up the mountain road to our house in his Chrysler Imperial, a deep emerald green, he passed the turn home and drove, instead, to a spot high on the mountain that hung out over the city and the sea.
Knock Wood Page 4
