Merv Griffin- A Life in the Closet

by Darwin Porter

  “Marilyn and I looked like refugees,” Merv later said, “but Tony and Janet had been professionally made up by people at the studio,” Merv said. “They looked like a pair of high-class transvestites.”

  Tony Curtis with then-wife

  Janet Leigh, London, 1957

  Behind the wheel en route to the party, Janet roared out of her driveway, breaking all speed records until a motorcycle cop on Wilshire Boulevard pulled them over. He ordered all of them out of the car, proclaiming, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

  From beneath a wig of blonde curls, Tony tried to talk his way out of this embarrassing dilemma, but both Janet and he had left their drivers' licenses at home. At first the cop didn't believe, dressed as they were, that they were America's most widely publicized romantic couple. He looked with even greater skepticism at Marilyn and Merv. “But after I did my famous Cary Grant impersonation, he finally let us go,” Tony said.

  The policeman had tales to tell when he returned to his precinct. This was probably the source of those hot rumors that later distorted the actual events of the evening. By the next day, stories were going around Hollywood that Merv and Tony had been arrested dressed as drag queens. Not only that, but according to the rumor mill they were also having a torrid affair with each other.

  Years later, during an encounter with Tony Curtis in 1960, Merv quipped, “You did better with your drag act than I ever did.” In drag, Tony had completed the final scenes of Some Like It Hot (1959) with Marilyn Monroe.

  Years previously, way back in 1949, while still a starlet, Marilyn had had a brief affair with Tony. Reminiscing about that affair, Tony often asserted that the gay costume designer, Orry-Kelly, a former lover of Cary Grant, had told him, “Your ass is tighter and better looking than Marilyn's.”

  When she heard this, Marilyn quipped: “But Tony's ass gets more workouts than mine. I'm usually a front girl.”

  ***

  “Who are these unknown hookers you keep dating?” Jack Warner bellowed into the phone to Merv. “You've got to go out with name stars. Okay, so I understand why your thing with Joan Crawford didn't work out. Go for the starlets then. You'll never get your picture in the paper dating five-anddime sales gals who give blow-jobs for five bucks a swallow.” Then the studio chief slammed down the phone.

  Even though Merv hadn't taken out any hookers, he agreed with his boss. Dating Rita Farrell was not a good way to get on the cover of Photoplay magazine like his friends, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. He searched around for suitable dates, focusing on women who needed publicity as much or more than he did. Through the intervention of Janet Leigh, Merv hooked up with Gloria DeHaven.

  Despite roles which had included Mickey Rooney's sweetheart in Summer Holiday (1948) and Judy Garland's disagreeable sister in Summer Stock (1950), and despite occasional film appearances alongside “America's sweetheart,” June Allyson, Gloria had never made it big in MGM musicals

  Though a competent and rather beautiful performer, Gloria just wasn't exciting enough on screen to join the upper echelons. In the mid1950s, during the period when Merv was dating her, her career was winding down, fading into the sunset with the type of 1940s musicals in which she'd originally triumphed, as represented by Two Girls and A Sailor (1944). And whereas Gloria needed publicity to revitalize a career in decline, Merv needed exposure to jumpstart a fledgling one.

  Knocking on her door, he was startled when John Payne threw it open to greet him. “Come on in, kid,” he said to Merv. Here was Howard Hughes' erotic fantasy in all his studly beauty, a heroic, muscled, and strikingly handsome hunk of All-American male. Like Gloria, John's major films were behind him, although he'd be known in decades to come for playing the leading role in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), which graces TV screens every Christmas.

  Merv knew that John had married Gloria in 1944, divorcing her in 1950, a union that had spawned two children. “I'm babysitting tonight,” John said to explain his presence in his former wife's home.

  The actor didn't seem in the least jealous of Merv, perhaps realizing how harmless the date was. Merv later gave his impression of John to Johnny Riley in a phone call. “While I was waiting for Gloria to get dressed, and after he'd poured our second drink, I'd fallen madly in love with John Payne. He's my type. Forget Errol Flynn. I've left him in the dust. I had the hots for John the first moment I laid eyes on him, even though I remembered Roddy McDowall telling me how straight he was. Both Clifton Webb and even that mouthwatering beauty, Tyrone Power, had each failed to seduce John when they'd appeared with him in The Razor's Edge back in 1946.”

  It was with great reluctance that Merv tore himself away from John that night to escort Gloria to some event. Later he couldn't recall what function they attended, but the memory of John lingered.

  John Payne had become famous among both horny women and homosexual men when he'd posed for a series of beefcake photos in the late 1930s, around the same time he was stripped down to a pair of tightfitting boxing trunks for his costarring role in Kid Nightingale with Jane Wyman. These two upandcoming stars had a torrid affair, even though John was married at the time to actress Anne Shirley. When that affair cooled, Jane opted to pursue Ronald Reagan instead.

  Gloria De Haven with

  Merv's ex, Tom Drake

  At the time of Merv's date with Gloria, John's career had been reduced to a series of forgettable Westerns and films noirs at Paramount, and seemed headed for oblivion.

  Merv came up with a scheme. If he couldn't get John himself, “I figured I might earn brownie points with Howard,” Merv later told Roddy. Merv called Howard and told him he'd met John Payne, and that the actor might be interested in flying to Catalina with him for the weekend. The aviator took the bait, inviting both of them to “Come fly with me.”

  Merv then transmitted the invitation to John, slyly suggesting that Howard might be intrigued by the idea of signing him to an exclusive contract when his present deal with Paramount ran out. John also took the bait.

  The following afternoon, when John showed up at the airfield, Howard immediately informed John that he'd seen Kid Nightingale three times. John seemed flattered by the attention of such a famous and rich patron. During the flight to Catalina, Merv was assigned to the back seat while John sat up front with Howard, who manned the controls. Even though Merv knew that John was straight, he also suspected that few actors would reject the attentions, sexual or otherwise, of the great Howard Hughes.

  As Merv later reported to Roddy, that rainy weekend in Catalina had been a dud for him, although John and Howard seemed to have a good time. “They were locked away in Howard's bedroom for most of the weekend, and I was on the sofa in the living room watching old Westerns on TV. My biggest thrill happened one night around one o'clock in the morning when John wandered into the living room for a cigarette. He was stark, raving nude as the day he was born. Quite a dangler on him. All I could do was drool and daydream. He knew what he was doing. He lingered long enough in front of the flickering light of the television to give me a grand view. Right then and there I decided to become a billionaire like Howard himself so I could entice the John Paynes of the future into my bedroom.”

  Films noirs and beefcake:

  John Payne

  As it turned out, Howard did nothing for John's career except to give him a great piece of career advice. Howard suggested that the actor acquire the rights to an Ian Fleming novel, Moonraker, and secure a deal to play the British spy in the book, James Bond. John followed this advice and took out a ninemonth option at a thousand dollars a month on Moonraker. He decided to drop the option when he learned he couldn't acquire the rights to the entire James Bond series. Big mistake. For the rest of his life, he'd regret his decision to drop the option, as in the years ahead he watched the James Bond films make countless millions.

  In May of 1961, John suffered extensive, lifethreatening injuries when struck by a car on the streets of New York City. His recovery, which left him with facial scars, took two years.
In New York at the time, Merv visited him, bringing a box of chocolates and flowers.

  “Thanks, Merv,” the grateful actor said. As they chatted, Merv understood how lonely John was. When Merv started to leave, John begged him to stay on longer, as he seemed starved for company. In their final hour together, John became confidential. “I should have taken care of you that weekend with Hughes on Catalina. I'm sorry I didn't. Forgive me. Considering how I look now, and what condition I'm in, I can't do much for you now either.”

  “No need for that,” Merv assured him, smiling even though embarrassed.

  “I sang and danced on screen with Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, and so many others, but you're the only celebrity to come and see me in the hospital. There's nothing more forgotten than a forgotten movie star.”

  ***

  Although Merv's earlier film, the 1953 film So This Is Love, had bombed at the box office, its director, Gordon Douglas, nonetheless opted to cast the perpetually willing Merv in yet another film, The Charge at Feather River. It was one of the first Westerns to be filmed in 3D, and it starred that heartthrob of the 1940s, Guy Madison.

  Merv eagerly looked forward to meeting Guy, one of “the boys” in the stable of Henry Willson, the notoriously gay talent agent who “created” a stable of newly minted male movie stars, renaming them with monikers like Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson.

  On the set of The Charge at Feather River, Gordon ordained that the death scene previously filmed by another actor, a citizen of Poland, had to be reconfigured and reshot. The original actor had returned to take a job in Warsaw, and “I was elected to redo the entire death scene,” Merv recalled. “I was seriously pissed off at Gordon. What a fucker. I felt I'd been doublecrossed by being given such a paltry role when I was dreaming of costarring in the film with Guy Madison.”

  Gordon promised Merv that if “I ever direct a film that calls for a guy who can play the piano and sing too, I'll cast you.”

  “Yeah, right,” Merv said.

  Gordon, as director, later recalled, “Even though I didn't do much for the film career of Merv Griffin, I liked the kid. Like a politician, he sought out the stars of the film and ingratiated himself with them. He had the power to form instant friendships more effectively than any other actor I've ever known. And he was star struck. To Merv, a star meant anybody who got at least fifth billing in a film.”

  Merv didn't become friendly with Vera Miles, one of the stars of the film. But he'd already sampled the charms of her future husband, Gordon Scott, who became famous as one of Hollywood's sexiest (and most promiscuous) Tarzans. Merv did get to shake hands with the squarejawed, intense, nononsense Frank Lovejoy, born in the Bronx. “He brought the Bronx with him,” Merv said. “In fact, Frank was the best thing in the movie.”

  Merv was no doubt referring to a scene where the actor “discouraged” a rattlesnake with tobacco juice and even aimed a squirt at the 3D audience, who screamed at the prospect of getting tobacco juice in their eyes.

  Merv claimed to have enjoyed meeting the other female star of the film, Californiaborn Helen Westcott, who began her acting career at the age of four. He loved talking to her about her handsome father, Gordon Westcott, who had been cast in several Warner Brothers films until his early death at the age of thirtytwo in 1935. Those films had included Gloria Swanson's illfated silent, Queen Kelly (1929), and Bette Davis's Fog Over Frisco (1934). “A lot of young actors were interested only in hearing about Rock Hudson or Marilyn Monroe,” Helen recalled, “but Merv could listen for hours to tales about Hollywood during the silent days or during the early talkies. I liked that about him.”

  Near the end of Merv's association with The Charge at Feather River, Helen introduced him to a friend of hers, the garglevoiced Aldo Ray who earlier had been a protégé of gay director George Cukor. Born Aldo DaRe to an Italian family, the former frogman for the U.S. Navy had been cast opposite the bisexual actress, Judy Holliday, in the 1952 The Marrying Kind.

  According to Roddy McDowall, both Cukor and Spencer Tracy had enjoyed Aldo's considerable erotic charms when he was cast in Pat and Mike (also 1952), costarring Katharine Hepburn. Roddy had told Merv that Aldo was “basically straight, but didn't object if some gay male wanted to service him.”

  “My kind of man!” Merv said.

  Much of inside Hollywood was surprised at the almost instant friendship that developed between Aldo and Merv. Helen herself called them “the odd couple.” After being introduced by Helen, Aldo and Merv were seen together frequently, especially when Aldo became involved with another of Merv's newly made friends, Rita Hayworth, with whom Aldo had costarred in Miss Sadie Thompson. Another of Merv's friends, Jose Ferrer, was also a star in that steamy film of the tropics. “Jose planned to seduce Rita,” Merv said, “but he was thwarted when Aldo got the Princess instead.”

  Merv was attracted to Aldo's husky frame, thick neck, and even his raspy voice, which made him perfect for playing tough, macho roles. At the time Merv met Aldo, his marriage to Shirley Green was coming to an end. On a few occasions Merv double dated with Aldo. “He was taking a girl out for serious purposes,” Merv later told his friend Johnny Riley. “If Aldo would strike out with a woman, I'd get him later in the evening for sure. Okay, our socalled affair consisted entirely of me giving him a few blowjobs, but in Aldo's case that was enough to satisfy me.”

  Aldo enthralled Merv with stories about George Cukor. “He did a lot for my career,” the actor said. “So I felt there was nothing wrong with dropping my pants and letting the guy enjoy himself. I got pissed off at him, however, when he made me go to ballet school because he claimed I walked too much like a football player.”

  One night Aldo called Merv and asked if he could come over later. Merv eagerly invited his newly enlisted friend, hoping that this would be their first real “date.” Aldo dispelled that notion when he asked if he could bring a friend.

  When that friend showed up at Merv's door with Aldo, it turned out to be a recently acquired friend of Merv's as well. Rita Hayworth, who was starring in Miss Sadie Thompson with Aldo. They told him they would soon be flying to Hawaii for location shooting and wanted some place to escape from prying eyes for a few hours. “No one will think of looking for us at Merv Griffin's house,” Rita said.

  Merv immediately sensed that “two is party enough, three a crowd,” as he put it, but Rita urged him to stay for a while to talk to them.

  Merv knew that Rita, in the wake of her divorce from the Aly Khan, the then fabulously wealthy spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslims, had gone back to playing the field. Amid torrents of international controversy, she resumed affairs with former loves who included Victor Mature and Glenn Ford, and also dated newer contenders who included Kirk Douglas. She was also seen increasingly with an Argentine, the crooner Dick Haymes, a rival of Frank Sinatra. Haymes was known among Hollywood insiders as “Mr. Evil” because of his record as a mean drunk with a penchant for beating up women.

  After three failed marriages, Rita was very candid about herself and why she had returned to Hollywood. “I'm trying to reinvent myself, and that ain't easy, dear hearts.”

  During their meeting, Merv noticed that she was distraught and kept asking for a refill of her drink.

  “Rita and I are just having fun getting to know each other,” Aldo interjected. “Both of us know we're not ideal candidates for marriage.”

  In spite of what she said, Merv suspected that Rita would impulsively race into another illfated marriage with yet another womanizer. She was the marrying kind, he'd determined. She looked disheveled, and he knew she was dissatisfied with her more mature appearance, and had been horrified at the way she'd been photographed in certain scenes in Salome (1953), her latest picture.

  “You Were Never Lovelier,” he assured her, quoting the title of her 1942 movie before disappearing for the night, after offering the couple his guest bedroom and making sure they had plenty of bath towels.

  In the morning when he woke up, bot
h Aldo and Rita had departed. “We've got to get back to our other lives,” Rita had scribbled in her note of thanks. The evermischievous Aldo had written under it: “Why didn't you come and join us in the middle of the night? It would have been fun.”

  From that night forward, and until the end of his role as a player in 1950s Hollywood, Merv became accustomed to lending his guest room to offtherecord couples. Many times he wished he'd been the lucky one snaring the “hunk of the week,” but he enjoyed having a lot of sexy men running around his house in their underwear. “Who knows?” he told Roddy. “Maybe the gal won't put out one night, and I'll get lucky.”

  Merv and Aldo remained friends for many years. In 1958, he accompanied Helen Westcott and Aldo to a screening of a film in which they had appeared together, the steamy drama, God's Little Acre. That film was based on a notorious novel by Erskine Caldwell which had sold more than fourteen million copies. In that film, Helen played Aldo's spurned wife.

  By then, Aldo had long ago ended his affair with Rita, as she'd entered into another disastrous marriage, this time to Dick Haymes, who “used and abused her,” in Merv's judgment. Aldo had lived up to his self-styled judgment that he wasn't a good candidate for marriage. He'd wed actress Jean Marie (“Jeff”) Donnell in 1954, but divorced her two years later.