Merv Griffin- A Life in the Closet

by Darwin Porter

  Although just as sweaty as they were, Howard had not joined the men in the showers. Merv had heard that he was quite shy. As Merv emerged fully dressed with Pat and Errol, he saw Howard chatting in the corner of the court with Bing Crosby and a very young honey blonde who looked like a princess. He was astonished when he realized that the court was being taken over by Bing and this dazzling creature.

  Unlike Sinatra, who seemed jealous of other singers, Bing was more confident and self-assured. “Freddy Martin tells me you're the best male singer he's ever had,” Bing said, extending his hand. “I've been meaning to drop in to the Grove one night to catch your act.”

  “I'd be honored, Mr. Crosby,” Merv said. “But it might take more guts than I have to perform before the world's greatest singer.”

  “You're far too kind,” Bing said.

  Merv was astonished that the singer did not introduce him to his demure companion. She smiled at Merv, and he smiled back—and that was the extent of their meeting. Years later, Merv would insist that Bing's companion at the time was Grace Kelly.

  If Merv were correct in his identification of the starlet, that would mean that Bing and Grace had begun an affair long before it was generally assumed that they did and much before the 1954 release of their joint film, The Country Girl, for which she'd win an Oscar, beating out Merv's favorite, Judy Garland, who had competed with a spectacular performance of her own in A Star Is Born.

  While still a model on the East Coast, Grace had flown to Los Angeles and could well have been in California at the time Merv first claimed that he'd seen her. How she met Bing Crosby so early in her career remains a mystery.

  On Catalina, Howard had arranged for the quartet to stay in a private home. Whenever Howard needed a temporary residence, one always seemed to be made available to him. Pat and Howard shared one bedroom, Errol and Merv another, just as he'd done at his Uncle Elmer's. Later that afternoon Pat and Howard left without inviting Errol and Merv, though Howard agreed to be back in time to take them to dinner that night.

  As Merv remembered it, Errol was drinking heavily that afternoon and complaining bitterly about the huge back alimony payments he owed to Lili Damita, a bisexual actress he'd married in the 1930s.

  When he wasn't talking about Lili, Errol enthralled Merv with stories of the shooting of his latest film, Kim, in Jaipur, India. It was scheduled for release in a few months.

  At the end of the shoot, or so Errol claimed, he'd invited all the men who'd worked on the crew—“all except our homo contingent”—to join him for a big private party on the sound stage. Spending money he could ill afford at the time, he hired the prop department to build a pyramid-like structure in the center of the stage and to paint it in gold.

  The week before, he'd had his assistant round up the prettiest girls he could find in Jaipur. They were dressed in see-through gold lamé Turkish pajamas and arranged artfully on the pyramid. Errol's rule was that each of the young women had to make herself available for intercourse to any member of the crew attracted to her.

  At the door to the sound stage, Errol had stationed two bare-breasted handmaidens to take all the clothing of the male crew, including their underwear. Errol told Merv that he'd spent most of the night watching the crew seduce the beautiful women before taking “the prize” at the top of the pyramid for himself. He described her as a fourteen-year-old virgin. “God, did she bleed that night.”

  At the end of the orgy, as dawn broke over Jaipur, Errol handed out gold medals to each man. Each was engraved with the words, “Flynn's Flying Fuckers.” In time those medallions became highly prized souvenirs in Hollywood.

  After dinner on Catalina with Howard and Pat that night, Errol and Merv shared a double bed, crawling in shortly before midnight. If Merv expected any more action, he was disappointed. As he would later tell Roddy, “The moment he hit the pillow, Errol was sound asleep and can that man snore. From the sounds coming from the next bedroom, Howard and Pat seemed to be having fun.”

  The next morning, Merv rose early and wandered the beach by himself. As he was heading back to the house, he saw Pat emerge from the bungalow, wearing only his underwear. Rubbing sleep from his eyes, he invited Merv to walk along the beach with him to look at the seagulls. Merv found himself wishing that he'd spent the night with Pat instead of his childhood idol.

  Pat was extremely candid about his relationship with Howard. “The fucker knows I'm mostly a ladies' man but he likes to bang me to show me who's boss, as if I didn't know. I hate it. It hurts me. Our aviator friend is huge.”

  “Why do you put up with it?”

  “I'm on his payroll, and have been for a long time,” Pat confessed. “At some point I decided to hang out with the rich and famous, knowing that would make me their servant, subject to their bidding. If I don't like it, tough. If that means that on occasion I have to spread my cheeks for Howard for a few minutes of pain and humiliation, so be it. The financial rewards are great.”

  The two men strolled along in silence for a long time before Pat came to a stop and looked out toward the sea. “If you ever become rich and famous, enough so you can afford me, just call me up and I'll come running. I'm sure you'd be a lot more fun to be with than Howard. He's nuts sometimes. You see, I'm what is called a hustler.”

  By the time Merv became rich and famous enough to hire Pat, he was no longer appealing to him. But on that beach in Catalina, Merv determined that when he got older, and no doubt pudgy again, he would hire a string of Pat DiCiccos.

  The prospect thrilled him because it meant he wouldn't have to depend on his youth, good looks, or even his waistline to have the sexual adventures with young men he craved.

  ***

  Merv bonded with many men—only a few of whom became sexual relationships— over the course of his life. Along the way, he made a number of “to-the-grave friends,” as he called them.

  Marlon Brando was a friend of a then-unknown jazz vocalist, Harry Belafonte. Marlon had met Harry at the New School in New York in the 1940s and had formed a friendship. Since money was tight, Marlon and Harry sometimes bought only one theater ticket to a Broadway play, Harry sitting through the first half of the show, Marlon sitting through the ending—or vice versa— and comparing notes about the plot developments.

  Marlon, of course, had found success on Broadway, but Harry was still struggling and going through a sort of identity crisis. Instead of a jazz vocalist, he had decided to become a Calypso singer, inspired by African and West Indian songs such as “Yellow Bird.”

  Marlon called Merv one night and invited him to hear Harry sing at a little dive along Bleeker Street in Greenwich Village. “He's a real good-looking guy, and you might fall for him, but I've got to warn you: He's not one of my fuck buddies. No way!” Puffing on a cigarette for emphasis,Marlon said, “Oh, in case it matters, he's black.”

  “Fine with me,” Merv said. “I'm color blind.”

  Hearing Harry sing for the first time, Merv was immediately enraptured by his looks, his voice, and his style. He later told Marlon, “An electric bolt went up my spine when I heard the lyric ‘Day-O.’Merv seemed to understand that Calypso could capture an American audience, although he could hardly have known that his “discovery,” Harry Belafonte himself, would one day be dubbed the “King of Calypso.”

  Born in Harlem, Harry was the son of a cook from the island of Martinique. He later lived with his grandmother in her native Jamaica. Back in New York, he performed at the American Negro Theatre with Sidney Poitier, another rising star. Merv had already heard Harry's debut as a pop singer on the Jubilee Label in 1949, but on the night of their first meeting in the Village he told Harry that he could “scale a higher ladder” in the music world if he developed his talents as a Calypso artist. “You're the best, man.”

  “That's Mon!” Harry corrected him.

  From the first night, Merv and Harry bonded so much so that Merv invited the singer to become “my first roommate in New York.” Harry had recently separated
from his first wife, Marguerite Byrd, whom he'd married in 1948. “He was very sad and didn't have a career going yet,” Merv later recalled.

  After his first week as Harry's “roomie,” Merv called Marlon. “Harry Belafonte is the best reason I know for integration.”

  “Has he fed you any big black dick yet?” Marlon asked provocatively.

  “Not yet—and maybe never,” Merv said. “Sigh, I can dream, can't I? I don't think Harry swings that way, much to my regret. Since we're roomies, I can at least check him out to see what I'm missing.”

  Merv even went with Harry to Philadelphia where he sang an evening of Calypso songs, introducing “Matilda,” which in time would become his first full release single after he recorded it on April 27, 1953. The song would remain his “signature” throughout his career.

  “He bombed that night with ‘Matilda,’” Merv said. “It was an all-white club and they couldn't relate to songs about Kingston Town and banana boats. In the middle of ‘Matilda,’ a fat drunk called out, ‘Sing Melancholy Baby, nigger, or get off the stage!’ Harry bravely carried on.”

  Although not the ardent civil rights champion that Marlon became, Merv as a TV talk show host would expose the world to a parade of black entertainers, followed later by the most important civil rights leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

  Long after they were roommates, Merv stayed in touch with Harry and took pleasure in his success, especially when he became the first African- American to win an Emmy for his solo TV special, Tonight With Belafonte (1959).

  ***

  Around the time he met Harry Belafonte, Merv also became a close friend of Robert Clary, the Parisian entertainer, who was about his same age. The two performers became close when Merv was performing on The Hazel Bishop Show and also appearing with Freddy Martin's band at the Roosevelt Hotel.

  Merv had met Robert in the summer of 1950 when “the little short guy” had come to see Freddy Martin's band at the Hollywood Palladium.

  Robert was just getting known in the States because of his popular recording, “Put Your Shoes On, Lucy.” Merv loved the song. At the Palladium, when he heard that Robert was in the audience, he went over after his act and introduced himself.

  Robert (often known as Bob) was there with Red Doff, a publicist for Capitol Records, and he'd just signed a recording contract with Capitol. Merv congratulated Robert and praised his singing voice.

  “I don't think I ever saw two men get along so well on first meeting,” Doff said. “Before the night was over, Bob and Merv were in love with each other. Don't draw the wrong conclusions. In fact, the next day Merv would introduce Bob to Bob's future wife, Natalie Cantor, Eddie Cantor's daughter. Those two lovebirds, however, would wait until 1965 to get married. Eddie gave Bob's career a big push, but that wasn't the reason for the marriage.”

  Robert had long admired his future father-in-law, especially when he appeared in blackface as had Al Jolson before him. He was so impressed that he, too, performed in blackface in Paris between 1945 and 1947, long before it became politically incorrect for a white performer to come out with such makeup.

  When Robert flew to New York for an engagement, he moved in with Merv at the Royalton. Merv later complained that, “I got little sleep because my new friend and I would sit up all night talking about our future plans for stardom for both of us. Today you'd call it a heavy rap session.”

  Merv became fascinated with Robert's horror stories about his childhood in Nazi-occupied France. He was the youngest of fourteen children, most of whom would die in concentration camps. As a young Jewish boy, Robert, too, would be deported by the Nazis.

  “The whole experience was a complete nightmare,” Robert told Merv and others. “The way they treated us, what we had to do to survive. We were less than animals. Sometimes I still have nightmares. I wake up in a cold sweat thinking the Nazis are coming for me. I fear they're going to haul me off to a concentration camp like they did my brothers and sisters.”

  “What a way for a kid to be introduced to life,” Merv said. “You must hate them.”

  “I don't hold a grudge,” Robert said. “Grudges are a waste of time. But I learned the hard way just how dark the human soul is. My fellow human beings can be more savage to each other than any animal who might kill you in the jungle and eat you. At least the animal is killing to survive, as nature intended. The Nazis killed for sadism, pleasure, and a psychotic political creed. When you meet a human being who is kind and generous, a friend like you, you cherish that person.”

  Merv also cherished Robert. The two men were seen walking down Fifth Avenue arm in arm. Sometimes, Merv would playfully rest his elbow on Robert's small head. These were just some of the endearing moments the two friends shared with each other. Some members of Freddy's band, knowing Merv's sexual proclivities, assumed the two friends were lovers, at least to judge by their open displays of affection. But that does not appear to be the case at all.

  “I adored Bob,” Merv later said. “He brought a joy to my life, and he was a survivor. Except for getting kicked out of our house in San Mateo, I'd had it easy growing up. As his friend, I was always there to cheer Robert on, whenever my schedule allowed, at one triumph after another.”

  That included the time Robert became an overnight sensation on Broadway when he appeared in Leonard Stillman's New Faces of 1952 along with Eartha Kitt and other stars. Merv was also in the audience when Robert appeared on Broadway in Seventh Heaven, with such famous names as Ricardo Montalban, Gloria de Haven, Chita Rivera, Kurt Kazner, and Bea Arthur. Merv also watched every episode of Hogan's Heroes on TV, when Robert became a household word playing the quirky Louis Le Beauy. “Back in that concentration camp in the 40s, little did I know that I'd eventually play a prisoner of war in a Hollywood version of a Nazi stalag,” Robert told Merv.

  “Although I was a singer myself,” Merv recalled, “I was never jealous when my friend sang such show stoppers as ‘Lucky Pierre’ or ‘I'm in Love with Miss Logan.’”

  ***

  Early in his career, Merv formed a friendship with another Robert. The two men would become bonded for life.

  One of the unlikeliest of all his friendships—one definitely not sexual— was the bond Merv formed with an Italian-American actor from New York, the son of a shoemaker. Robert Loggia, five years his junior, was a character actor and leading man best known for playing crooks, thugs, and gravelly voiced cops. He even portrayed Joseph, the “stepfather” of Jesus, in The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1965, with Dorothy McGuire as the Virgin Mary.

  It wasn't that film but the 1985 movie, Jagged Edge, with Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges that brought Robert his only Oscar nomination in the supporting role as a delightfully foul-mouth private investigator.

  Loggia later told friends that it was Merv's philosophy of life that first attracted him to the singer. “My philosophy is that you have to constantly be turning the page,” Merv said. “That prevents me from getting caught up in negative vibes. It's all about change for me. I just keep moving and enjoying the ride.”

  Over the decades, Merv and Robert would take sixteen long sails on Merv's yacht, including one that lasted three months. “Merv knows how to live and how to give,” Robert later said of his friend. “His spirit and charm are unwavering. Every sail with him into unknown waters was a new adventure because Merv is as close to me as any brother I could have.”

  Robert, who probably spent more quality time with Merv than almost any other male friend, joined the chorus of those who praised Merv for, “Just being a great guy to be around. He's a storehouse of anecdotes and a walking history of show business in the 20th century. Bring up any name, and Merv will tell you about the weekend he spent with that celebrity in Cannes. My God, he even knew Pat Boone when both of them appeared in the 1950s on Arthur Godfrey and His Friends.”

  “Merv always told me that he'd never retire,” Robert said. “His exact words were, ‘You'll have to carry me off and beat me over the head at my funeral
to make sure I don't rise up out of the coffin for one last show-stopping number.’”

  Robert didn't have to do that, but he had the saddest face at Merv's funeral, when he, along with Merv's son, Tony Griffin, and others, had the painful job of carrying a dear, lost friend to his final resting place.

  “Merv had a great life,” Robert said, “one of the most fabulous of any show business personality who ever lived. It was my great pleasure to share in that life. During those long voyages at sea, I got to know one of the world's special people.”

  ***

  “I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts,

  Every ball you throw will make me rich

  There stands my wife, the idol of my life

  Singing roll a bowl, a ball, a penny a pitch”

  At long last, in 1950, Merv recorded a hit song, a puckish and rather silly novelty entitled “I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.” He recorded it despite the fact that he hated it, denouncing it privately as “fake and phoney.” As its popularity grew, he would immediately turn it off when it came on the radio, as it did frequently over a period of several months.

  Composed in 1944 by Fred Heatherton, an English songwriter, the ditty celebrated the traditional “coconut shy” (coconut toss) sometimes seen at English country fairs. What is rarely known today, and never mentioned in Merv's autobiographies, is that Danny Kaye also recorded his own, less popular, version of the same song in the same year, 1950, that Merv's version was defined as a hit.

  Danny and Merv weren't the only two artists competing for sales of “Coconuts.” Eventually, even Monty Python recorded it, and the song is still played over the public address system at Cambridge United football matches after home wins. It was sung on the Magical Mystery Tour, the special BBC broadcast by The Beatles in 1967, and it was heard in Judy Garland's last film, I Could Go on Singing.