Little House in the Hollywood Hills

by Charlotte Stewart

  Usually I’d spend time at Tim’s place, though every now and then we’d find ourselves holed up at mine.

  Dating Tim had dimensions I hadn’t anticipated. We were having a ridiculously good time going to movie premieres, charity events, and parties of all sorts. His mom would take me aside and insist I wear her ermine stole or chinchilla coat for a big night — in an era when such things were acceptable. What I hadn’t foreseen were all the logistics that went into an evening out. Tim had a publicity rep and so did I. They were always on the lookout for ways to get our faces into newspapers and magazines, which wasn’t a huge uphill climb really, we were a popular couple for a while, but our reps had to work together, coordinating our arrival and movements with event planners and with writers, editors, and photographers.

  Because Tim had grown up appearing on television and in film — he landed his first onscreen role at the age of 11 — I realized that he was a little weary of acting and the whole mechanics of fame; none of it was new and exotic, as it was for me. Besides his own acting career, he’d grown up in a legendary show business family.

  In the early 1900s his maternal grandfather, Alexander Pantages, had been a powerhouse impresario based in Seattle, who owned a chain of some 50 Vaudeville houses throughout the Western states while Tim’s grandfather on his dad’s side, John Considine, had been one of Pantages’ bitterest rivals in the theater world, owning his own string of Vaudeville houses. When Tim’s parents, John W. Considine, Jr., and Carmen Pantages married it was truly the joining of two great, warring households, in near Romeo and Juliet fashion.

  After the death of Vaudeville Tim’s family was able to convert some of the old song-and-dance halls into movie theaters. His uncle Rodney Pantages managed the Hollywood Pantages Theater until he sold it to RKO in 1949.

  Tim’s father cut his own path as a prolific film producer beginning in the silent era. Working from the 1920s up through the mid-1940s he produced more than 50 movies, among them were hits like Boys Town and Puttin’ on the Ritz, working with a who’s-who list of the legends who forged the film industry — DW Griffin, Buster Keaton, Rudolph Valentino, John Barrymore, Mary Astor, Ernst Lubitsch, Samuel Goldwyn, and Louis B. Mayer.

  There had been a great deal of money in the family at one point though by the time I came along, I think Carmen was to some degree living off the largess of Tim’s Uncle Lloyd, a deeply tanned and fashionably flamboyant soul.

  Because acting had lost some of its glitter, Tim had started to explore other interests such as writing, directing, photography, and, easily his favorite, getting behind the wheel of a race car, specifically Go Cart racing. During our dating life more and more of his life was centered around the track hanging out with drivers and mechanics. I’d go with him and it was fun at first — what woman doesn’t enjoy being with a funny, popular guy. Over time, Tim taught me a lot of driving secrets. We’d race each other down Mulholland Drive — Tim in the Mini Cooper, me in the Mercedes — he’d give me hand signals for when to brake and when to accelerate.

  At one point he recruited me to drive a Go Cart in a 150-mile race. He was impressed when, while speeding down the track, he saw me reach back behind my head and, without needing to turn and look, adjust the carburetor.

  Afterward he said, “How’d you know how to do that?”

  “I had to adjust,” I said matter-of-factly. “The engine was running too rich.”

  Sometimes those farm girl skills gained me an extra point or two in his favor.

  Even though we spent a lot of time together and I’d become close to his family throughout this time Tim was still seeing other women, which I only knew about in the vaguest way. I didn’t ask about any of it and didn’t want to know. It was just easier. Likewise I was still seeing other men though no one I really cared about.

  Tim and I were floating along in a sunny bubble, going out on the town, partying with friends. It was all pretty easy. I was having a good time, overall, and it seemed like he was too. I figured at some point we’d get married. He’d see me as his one and only and would surprise me with an engagement ring, we’d stand up in a church and pledge ourselves to be faithful, and things would change. I’d be important to him.

  None of this passed between us out loud. I wonder how many 22-year-olds are able to put words to such half-felt, vague sensations of the heart.

  I was passively thinking that things would just work themselves out. I didn’t have enough life experience to believe otherwise. And my own sense of self-worth was pretty shaky. I was still, in my mind (and I believed in his mind too), Charlotte from Yuba City, while he was Tim from Beverly Hills. I was the country mouse, the wannabe.

  Whatever Tim wasn’t giving me emotionally in reality was amplified by my own sense that I really didn’t deserve much and anything nice that came my way was probably some sort of accident. Those old waves of “I’m not good enough” that I’d felt so early on at the Pasadena Playhouse and in high school were always there in the background.

  One day while shopping for a few things, I came out of a department store on Hollywood Boulevard and staggered, feeling like I was going to pass out. I caught myself and hung on until I could get to my car and start feeling more stable. I wasn’t a hypochondriac but it was such an unnerving, out-of-the-blue moment I visited my doctor to see if everything was okay. Then came the shock — I was pregnant.

  Yes, Tim and I had been having sex but I’d faithfully used birth control and thought I’d eliminated pregnancy as a possibility.

  As the news sunk in, my most immediate thought was that I didn’t feel ready for motherhood, but then again who does? I remember sitting in my car after the doctor’s appointment trying to think this through and the only thing that came to mind was that this was it — this was when Tim and I would get married. This is what would set things in motion. I’d tell him about the pregnancy. He’d probably freak out a bit but then he’d calm down, think it over, and say we should tie the knot.

  When I drove over to Laurel Canyon and broke the news to Tim though, where I had been confused, he had clarity — he wasn’t ready for marriage, wasn’t ready to become a parent, and I should get an abortion.

  It was a lot to take in.

  I felt Tim was right that a pregnancy wasn’t a sound basis for a wedding. I think that’s what he meant. Though what he’d actually said was that he didn’t want to get married. To me. The inner voice that constantly whispered, “You’re not good enough” had once again been proven right. This was more evidence that I didn’t hit a high enough standard for Tim.

  Would I ever? What would I need to do to earn a place in his world?

  The other consideration was career-related. How could our PR reps ever spin this one to the America of the early 1960s? An era so obsessed with sexual purity that Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, who played married people on The Dick Van Dyke show, couldn’t been seen in the same bed together. An era in which Lucille Ball had fought the network censors to use the word “pregnant” on her show — and had lost.

  The idea of clean-cut TV star Tim Considine marrying his pregnant girlfriend would not play well. It would damage both of our careers — his more — and it could even hurt My Three Sons — meanings the careers and incomes of everyone on the show, cast and crew — people we both cared deeply for.

  Within a few days I came around to the idea that if we weren’t going to get married then, ending the pregnancy would be the best of bad options. Could I have raised a baby on my own? Of course. There are always ways to make that happen. But it would’ve been nearly unheard of then. I couldn’t go back to Yuba City — the embarrassment and pain for my parents would’ve been off the charts. I couldn’t do that to them. I didn’t have the wherewithal financially or emotionally to raise a child on my own. I was 22 and single and oh, yeah, I partied a lot. If Tim didn’t want me enough to marry me, if he didn’t want the child, then I couldn’t see moving forward with it on my own.

  Abortion wasn’t legal in the U.S. so
not knowing of any options in Los Angeles, I flew down to San Diego, then rented a car and drove to Tijuana, Mexico, with Tim’s brother John. Tim felt like it was too risky career-wise to be spotted going into an abortion clinic — it would have been juicy fodder for the tabloids, which even then could be pretty awful.

  It took a while to find the clinic, which was above a dentist’s office. Once inside, the physician was all business. There was no “How’re you feeling?” or “Are you comfortable?” There was no one to talk me through the procedure or hold my hand. I wasn’t sure exactly what was going to happen but I knew it wasn’t going to be good.

  I was instructed to get my legs into the metal stirrups and after a quick exam, out came the terrifying-looking equipment. Since I was in my first trimester, it probably took about ten minutes but an abortion without anesthesia seems like forever. It felt like the doctor was ripping my insides out. The pain was brutal and petrifying, like something from a medieval dungeon. I tried to hold it together but the pain and fear was overwhelming. I lost control, pleading with the physician to stop, trying to pull myself out of the stirrups and two nurses had to hold me down.

  When it was over, I felt as torn up in soul as I did in body. Once I got my clothes on I stumbled down the stairs where John was waiting for me. I was nauseated and crying. In the car I was throwing up. At the U.S.-Mexican Border, the officer asked where home was and I was so out of it I said Yuba City. By the time we got to the airport in San Diego blood had soaked through my pants so John had me wait in the ladies room and he went to buy me a new pair of jeans.

  On the plane back to L.A., I was shaking and sick, praying the bleeding would stop.

  I had difficulty forgiving Tim for not going with me. One part of me understood it — protecting your career was important. At the same time, I kept thinking, when two people are really together, you shared messy, painful, frightening ordeals like this. Getting pregnant takes two — it’s not as if I’d done this to myself. If I were really important, he’d have insisted on being there. He’d have held me. He’d have made me feel loved.

  Looking back now, I realize that after the abortion, my drinking picked up, which is saying a lot. Going all the way back to my Pasadena Playhouse days, I’d enjoyed cocktails, beer, and wine as part of a night out. (Or, really, a night in. Any night would do.) But even then I was drinking three times more than most of my friends, which I didn’t see at the time. I thought I was just being a normal kid.

  Now I found that night after night instead of a glass or two of wine, I might have most of a bottle on my own and then switch to vodka. Alcohol stepped in where my relationship with Tim let me down, making me feel attractive and special. At least temporarily.

  If this is going to be an honest portrait of my life at this point, I don’t want to give the impression that it was all darkness. Far from it. There was always a lot going on and much of it was really fun. Friends came over a lot to Tim’s Laurel Canyon house — actors, musicians, and people we knew in the industry. We’d get high, talk and laugh a lot, play board games, dance and listen to music. In a way, we’d recreated those Friday and Saturday nights I’d grown up with in Yuba City. We made it our own, of course, but it felt like I had entered that secret club of adulthood that had seemed so distant and inscrutable — and exciting — as a child.

  And life went on. Tim kept going to the studio filming My Three Sons. He was not only acting but was more and more often directing episodes. I kept up a busy schedule too with TV parts and advertising gigs. In March 1964 I was at The Cellar Theater in a well-received revival of the play “The Front Page” directed by Ken Rose, one of my teachers from the Pasadena Playhouse. Among the cast was Sid Haig, another buddy from the Playhouse (who would go on to Comic-Con fame at the evil clown figure, Captain Spaulding, in Rob Zombie’s House of a Thousand Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects.)

  Tim and I dated for four years until, in the spring of 1965, talk of marriage started up between us. I don’t remember who said what but the idea began to grow seemingly on its own. He didn’t propose to me on a bended knee or any of that. We just slowly started to talk about it and then it became a reality. We were engaged.

  News of our engagement made all the entertainment press. TV Picture Life wrote breathlessly that Tim had presented me with a diamond-shaped wristwatch, which made me “the first girl in Hollywood to have a diamond too large to wear any place but the wrist.” Meanwhile, Teen World magazine, claimed that Tim had slipped a huge diamond ring on my finger. Uh-huh. Pure La-La-Land stuff.

  What actually happened is that early in our relationship we’d spent the day at Disneyland and at a shop on Main Street USA he purchased an enamel ring with two Siamese Dancers engraved on it, which I slipped onto the ring finger of my right hand. A few years later when we made the decision to become engaged, Tim simply took my hands and switched the ring from my right hand to the left.

  In one sense it seemed kind of sweet and goofy, in another I knew if he’d chosen to he could have given me something really elegant from a jeweler in Beverly Hills. I tried not to interpret this gesture too closely but you can guess what that voice of “you’re not good enough” was whispering to me.

  Photos of Tim and me applying for our marriage license appeared in the Los Angeles Times and other LA media outlets — in many cases on the front page. A friend in England sent a clipping from London’s Evening News in which news of our imminent nuptials appeared in a news box above the main headline

  Tim and I married at 3 pm on October 23, 1965, at Bel Air Presbyterian. John was Tim’s best man and several close friends such as Liz Baron and Lydia Banks were my maids of honor. Lydia was my roommate at the Pasadena Playhouse and had married fellow student — and great friend — David Banks. I had been a maid of honor in their wedding. Among the guests were Fred MacMurray (the only time I met him) and the other cast members from My Three Sons such as Don Grady, Stanley Livingston, William Demarest, and Bill Frawley, who’d recently lost his spot on the show. The studio had replaced Bill earlier that year because they could no longer insure him due to declining health. He didn’t take it well and I heard that he would still drop by the set now and again and wasn’t terribly nice to William Demarest, who was a really sweet guy who did a terrific job on the show as Bill’s replacement, Uncle Charley. At the wedding though everyone was on their best behavior. Bill gave Tim and me a very funny letter saying he couldn’t decide what to get for us. And even though it was possible we needed a bird cage he was giving us $100; he exhorted us not to spend it all at once. Bill died about four months later of a heart attack and we missed him terribly.

  After the wedding, I found Tim’s mom and sister packing my bags for our honeymoon. Which was odd to me. We had tickets for New York with a later stopover in Nassau. And while I was thrilled at the prospect, since I’d never been east of Denver, packing is something I thought of myself as qualified to do. I tried to think of it as a nice gesture but that voice of inadequacy inside of me strongly suspected it had something to do with Charlotte from Yuba City not being up to the task, not really knowing what to wear in front of the press or East Coast society types. The family had a reputation to keep up and it was going to take an extra boost to get this country girl to look the part.

  Or — wait — was it their way of showing some kindness and generosity? Was I unfairly misjudging them through the filter of my crappy self-worth?

  When we arrived at the airport with a group of family and friends, Tim handed me a document titled “Itinerary for Mr. and Mrs. Tim Considine” provided by our travel agent. I scanned the top of the thrice-folded sheet. Okay, as expected, Los Angeles to Chicago, then Chicago to…wait, what? Chicago to PARIS…? Paris to ROME! Rome to VENICE! Venice to MADRID! Madrid to LONDON! Oh my God.

  We were going to Europe — everywhere in Europe — for six weeks!

  What a wonderful surprise my darling had arranged and what a doofus I felt like for not suspecting a thing — having my bags packed for me all bec
ame clear. I have a great picture of us with our friends as we boarded the steps up to the plane. No elevated boarding structure in those days. Tim and I are in suits, me with a hat and gloves. So proper. So young.

  As we traveled, our honeymoon received a lot of press coverage thanks to our hard-working PR agents. Fortunately though in this era before rabid paparazzi we had plenty of time to ourselves and enjoyed many under-the-radar adventures.

  In London I realized immediately that all the girls were wearing miniskirts and I folded the top of my skirt over a few times to keep up.

  Rome was everything it promised to be. Our hotel stood at the top of the Spanish Steps with easy access to the Western Union office frequented by all the local American students. We took side trips as suggested by our Fielding Guidebook and wandered the Trevi gardens and the Coliseum. After about a week of pasta I was dying for some good old American food. Mr. Fielding’s book listed a hamburger spot so we consulted the map and soon we were chowing down on burgers, like those from home, along with patatine fritte.

  In the booth next to us we noticed an older American couple, who we figured were probably satisfying a craving for food from home as well. I watched as Tim picked up our guidebook and looked at the couple then glanced back at the book. It was Temple Fielding, our guidebook’s author. What a cool opportunity.

  We introduced ourselves and they congratulated us on our wedding. We were pleased to tell him how wonderful his book had made our first European trip. As we chatted Mr. Fielding asked about our next stop and we said we’d been invited to spend several days on the west coast of Italy in a little town called Porto Santo Stefano. He knew it well and said that not only was it a lovely seaside town but in fact they had a friend there, the Contessa Lily Gerini.

  “That’s who we’re staying with!” Tim answered.

  The Contessa was a friend of Tim’s mother and had arranged a visit. They wished us well as we left for our hotel.