Merv Griffin- A Life in the Closet

by Darwin Porter

Merv somewhat reluctantly agreed. He was hesitant because Judy sounded drunk. He feared she might be making another suicide attempt. After scribbling a note for Hadley, he dressed and drove over to Judy's house. If they were in the house at all that night, her husband, Sid Luft, and the children were asleep upstairs. Merv encountered Judy looking distraught and wearing no makeup. She'd been drinking and looked far older than her years.

  Once he was inside, she spoke to him in a soft voice. “It's Peter. A member of the vice squad arrested him in the men's toilet of a state park. The charge is lascivious conduct. I just found out about it tonight. He's supposed to be arraigned tomorrow. If the press finds out about this, you won't be seeing the name of Peter Lawford on any more marquees.”

  “Oh, my God,” Merv said. “I'm so sorry to hear this, but what can I do?”

  “You know Howard Hughes, don't you?”

  “Of course,” he said. “We're playing tennis together later today.”

  “Brother-in-lawford”

  to the Kennedys

  Peter Lawford

  “Howard will know what to do,” she said. “He can get Peter out of jail and cover up this whole shitty mess. You'll go to Howard, won't you?”

  “For Peter… anything,” he promised.

  Over badly made cups of coffee, Judy and Merv talked emotionally in her kitchen for about an hour, plotting what they could do to help Peter. Merv couldn't get Howard on the phone—no one ever could—but Merv told Judy that Howard always showed up faithfully on the tennis court exactly at ninethirty every Sunday morning. Merv promised Judy he'd make the pitch to Howard then.

  Before he left, he kissed her goodbye on the lips and headed out into the dark morning, as the first light of dawn pierced the sky over Los Angeles.

  A few hours later, on the tennis court, Howard didn't want to talk business until he'd played a game. “I don't want to be distracted,” Howard said. But during the game, Merv noticed that Howard seemed very distracted indeed by the sudden appearance of the startlingly handsome Hadley.

  When Merv introduced them, he noticed that the aviator held Hadley's hand for a very long time during their initial handshake. Hadley was dressed in the tightest white tennis shorts Merv had ever seen, making his endowment rather obvious.

  After the match, which Merv deliberately let Howard win, Merv called Howard to the far end of the court and told him about Peter's dilemma.

  “Shit like this happens in Hollywood all the time,” Howard said. “I'm an expert in covering up for stars. You won't believe the jam I got Robert Mitchum out of one night. I'll help Peter. Not because I like the boy, but he's getting connected with the Kennedys. That family might be very useful to me one day.”

  Changing into his street clothes, Howard agreed “to take care of business,” but only if Hadley drove him where he needed to go. “I've got a blinding headache, and I don't trust myself behind the wheel. I might run over somebody who's got a good lawyer. That happened to me once, you know.”

  To Merv, Hadley seemed a little too eager to drive away with Howard. Although he hugged and kissed Merv goodbye, and promised to be back soon, Merv was consumed with jealousy watching his newly defined lover disappear into the late morning sunshine with Howard Hughes. “That's the last I'll ever hear from Hadley,” Merv told his friends.

  ***

  As Merv had anticipated, Howard managed to quietly secure Peter's release from jail. No charges were ever filed against him, and the story of the men's room arrest was kept out of the press. Merv tried to reach Peter by phone, but no one was picking up at his house. Hours after they'd taken off together, Hadley still hadn't returned from “driving Howard Hughes.” Merv placed a call to Judy to tell her the good news about Peter.

  She immediately pleaded with him to join her on a drive to Palm Springs where Peter was hiding out after his ordeal. Almost to defy Hadley if he did opt to return that weekend, Merv agreed to drive her, ordering Bill Robbins not to tell Hadley where he'd gone.

  During the eastbound drive to Palm Springs, Judy was jittery and anxious, wanting the drive to be over. She drank from a flask she carried in her purse. “Don't be surprised when we get there,” she said. “I mean, you'll meet Peter's new lover, and it may come as quite a shock to you.”

  “I read Hedda and Louella,” he said. “I know about his fling with Patricia Kennedy, although I hear old Joe Kennedy is completely opposed to it. Apparently, Old Joe thinks all actors are fag-gots.”

  “He's probably right about that,” she said. “Mr. Ambassador is completely opposed to Patricia seeing Peter, and he's persuaded that vicious drag queen, J. Edgar Hoover, to conduct a complete investigation. I hope Nelly Hoover doesn't discover Peter's fondness for tearooms.”

  “What do you mean tearooms?” Merv asked. “They seem harmless enough. It's his English upbringing.”

  “Oh, darling, you can be so naïve,” she said, brushing his cheek lightly with her fingers. “A tearoom is gay slang for a men's toilet. It's called latrine sex. Some guys prefer that.”

  “Sex in a smelly toilet doesn't strike me as very romantic,” he said.

  “True, true,” she said. “Incidentally, the lover you'll meet in Palm Springs isn't Pat. By the way, I'm having an affair with Pat's brother, and my philandering husband doesn't know about it. He's handsome and charming. Jack Kennedy, or John F. Kennedy if you want to get formal. I'll introduce you to him, but you can't have him. I saw him first. He calls me up sometimes late at night and asks me to sing ‘Over the Rainbow’ to him on the phone. Isn't that adorable?”

  “You know I'm a bit of a voyeur, and I just have to ask,” he said. “Is he great in bed? I heard that for years, his old man regularly fucked Gloria Swanson.”

  “Jack's no Frank Sinatra,” she said, “but I adore him. He's got a bad back. Usually, I have to be on top doing most of the work.”

  Merv was absorbing all of this with the full intention of sharing every word, every sordid detail, with Roddy McDowall and Henry Willson.

  At a beautiful Spanishstyle villa in Palm Springs, Peter in bathing trunks greeted Judy and Merv at the door with wet kisses, inviting them in. Judy excused herself, rushing off to the nearest bathroom. When she was gone, Peter profusely thanked Merv for interceding with Howard Hughes. “It worked out OK this time, but you'd better clean up your act,” Merv warned him.

  “Oh, what the hell,” Peter said. “I'm just a tearoom queen and that's all I'll ever be. There's nothing more sexually thrilling than giving blow jobs to strangers in a men's toilet.”

  When Judy returned, Peter kissed her lips gently again. “I've arranged for you guys to have the master bedroom.” Judy led the way, asking Merv and Peter to bring her luggage.

  Merv lingered behind, tugging at Peter's arm. “Judy and I are sharing a bedroom?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she told me about the romance you guys are having,” Peter said. “Nothing serious. Just fuck buddies.”

  “She told you what?” Judy was calling from the bedroom for Merv and Peter to hurry up with her luggage. Entering the room with suitcases, Merv spotted white sheets already turned down. A sense of panic overcame him. Peter gave Merv another quick kiss on the lips before departing toward the pool patio. “After you guys settle in, come and join Smokey and me on the patio.”

  “Smokey?” Merv was bewildered. He wanted to ask Peter who Smokey was.

  Judy began undressing before him the way she'd done in front of dozens of people in the MGM wardrobe department. “C'mon,” she urged him. “Shuck those duds.” In Palm Springs all the stars go skinny dipping. Even Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo show off their pussies to each other.”

  He stripped down but turned his back to her when he slipped into his bathing suit.

  “Nice ass,” she said before rushing out of the room. “Last one in is a rotten egg!”

  Ignoring the invitation to go nude, Merv came onto the patio in his bathing suit. He immediately noticed that Peter had peeled off his trunks and was lying nud
e on the chaise longue. “Sammy, meet Merv,” he called to a black man in the pool who was frolicking with Judy. She too had ripped off her bathing suit.

  Merv had been promised an introduction to Sammy Davis Jr. but hadn't expected it to come like this. “Hi, kid, pull off your suit and come join us chitlin's,” Sammy yelled to him.

  “Yeah, Merv,” Peter urged him. “After all, you're not Princess Tiny Meat.”

  “But to get naked with a black man” he whispered to Peter. “I'm not sure I can compete.”

  “It's not a competition,” Peter said.

  Hurriedly Merv pulled off his trunks and made a running leap into the pool.

  Sammy swam over to him. “You can shake my hand or else grab King Kong,” he said. “Whatever turns you on.”

  After that introduction, Merv soon overcame his shyness, finding Sammy enchanting and charming. They continued chatting even when the pool splashing ended. Peter and Judy donned robes and moved toward the bar to begin the heavy drinking of a fading afternoon. Dressed in a robe, Sammy lounged by the pool with Merv.

  “Peter used to be a part of our Rat Pack,” Sammy said, glancing over at Peter and Judy at the bar. “I keep begging Frank to take him back, but he's too stubborn. Ever since Louella Parsons wrote that Peter was seen out on the town with Ava Gardner, Frank cut him off. The Rat Pack's not the same without him. Judy's only a sometimes member. Before Peter was banished, the Rat Pack consisted of two dago singers, a kike comic, a limey swell, a hot puta with red pussy hair, and a slightly offcolor entertainer—the best in the business.” He was, of course, referring to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, Shirley MacLaine, and himself.

  Sammy looked over at Peter and blew him a kiss before asking for a drink. “Don't get the idea I'm gay,” Sammy said. “I'm not! I've fucked more blonde showgals than Frankie himself. I've even fucked Ava Gardner. But don't tell Frankie that. He'd have some of the boys in the mob cut off King Kong if he knew that. But I like a little gay action on the side for variety. After all, you know yourself that Peter is the best cocksucker in Hollywood. That boy's got a very deep throat.”

  Drinks and more drinks preceded and followed a patio barbecue presided over by Sammy. “We niggers know our barbecue,” he said. Shortly before midnight Sammy and Peter disappeared into the bedroom, leaving Merv alone with Judy.

  She urged him to join her at the piano. “Let's sing some songs together,” she said. “You're the only person in Palm Springs who knows as many songs as I do.” Merv sat and sang with her until around two o'clock that morning, as both of them were drawn to good lyrics and wellwritten melodies.

  “You know,” she said, finally rising to her feet, “we should take our act together on the road.”

  King Kong and Rat Packer:

  Sammy Davis Jr.

  Reaching for his hand, she led him to the master bedroom, shutting the door behind them. Unfastening his robe, she also dropped hers at her feet. In bed she pressed her nude body against his. “There's always the first time,” she said. “Didn't you tell me that as a little fat boy growing up in San Mateo, you told all your friends that you wanted to marry Judy Garland one day? Well, just imagine that this is our honeymoon night.”

  ***

  Late the following morning, Frank Sinatra called and invited Judy and Sammy as his house guests to a home he'd borrowed from a friend in Palm Springs. Although he knew that Peter was within earshot, he pointedly didn't invite him. So after Judy and Sammy checked out, that left Merv alone with “the outcast,” Peter. Merv agreed to drive Peter back to Malibu where he was to hook up with Patricia Kennedy.

  En route to the coast, Merv learned that Peter's marriage to Patricia was imminent. Peter had little to say about his future bride, although he made it clear that he did not plan to give up sex on the side once he'd married “this Roman Catholic school girl who needs some breaking in about the way we do things here in Hollywood.”

  Until he actually met her, all that Merv knew about Patricia was that she was the sixth of nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald, and that her brother was a rising politician in Massachusetts. Peter claimed that Patricia was the most beautiful of all the Kennedy siblings, “although Jack is pretty cute—I'd like to fuck him too.”

  “I talked to Rose the other day,” Peter confided. “She's not as opposed to the marriage as that monster she's married to. Once I assured her that our kids would be raised Roman Catholics, she became more at ease about her daughter's upcoming marriage. Pat is clearly not her favorite child. She told me that her daughter had a fine physique and a good mind, but then Rose complained that she puts neither of them to any particular use. ‘She's not competitive like my other children,’ Mamma Mia told me. ‘Pat won't really succeed at anything,’ she said. She told me that Pat's major accomplishment in life might involve marrying a movie star.”

  At Peter's house in Malibu, Merv was introduced to Patricia, discovering that she had a certain regal bearing like her mother Rose. Lithe and athletic, she seemed the epitome of grace and East Coast charm school breeding. Also in attendance that day was Lady May Lawford, Peter's mother. Rather formally dressed for a hot afternoon, Lady May sat under a large umbrella protecting her fair skin from the harsh rays of the California sun.

  It was obvious that Lady May did not approve of her future daughterinlaw. She seemed to endure her presence. Peter and Patricia quickly excused themselves for a walk on the beach, leaving Merv alone with the stern and rather judgmental Lady May.

  Never in his life had Merv met a more outspoken woman. He didn't know if Lady May meant what she said, or whether she merely uttered scathing observations as a means of shocking people. No sooner was Patricia out of sight than she launched into an attack on the Kennedys. “They're nothing but a bunch of barefoot Irish peasants,” she claimed. “By marrying Peter, that bitch hopes to link herself with the British aristocracy. My God, the next thing I hear, old Joe Kennedy will be buying a title for her. There are a lot of them for sale these days. I like her brother Jack, but he always has his mind down between his legs. I told Peter he should have married Elizabeth Taylor. She's always been in love with him. Besides, Elizabeth is going to make a lot of money one day, and then Peter and I could live in the style to which we were once accustomed.”

  Lady May asked Merv if he'd get up “and fetch me another gin and tonic. I share my taste in drinks with the Queen Mother.”

  When Merv came back onto the patio, Lady May, a bit tipsy, wanted to continue with her revelations. Like the TV talk show host that he was to become, Merv was all ears.

  “Peter told me that Kennedy gal was a virgin when they met. Jack Kennedy introduced Peter to her in Palm Beach, and she fell madly in love with him right away…and started pursuing him that very day. She might have been a virgin when she first met Peter, but she's not a virgin now. I found contraceptives in their bedroom. Old Joe gave the gal ten million dollars, but I've warned Peter he'll have to pay all the bills after they get married. That bitch holds onto every last red cent she's got.”

  Before she'd completely downed the gin and tonic Merv had brought her, and before she requested a refill, Lady May launched into an attack on the Rat Pack.

  Above: Patricia

  Kennedy with her

  brother, JFK.

  Left: Her toxic

  mother-in-law,

  Lady May Lawford

  as displayed on the

  cover of her 2006

  autobiography

  “I'm glad Peter is no longer fraternizing with that dried-up piece of spaghetti, Frank Sinatra. He hates me as much as I hate him. But Peter's still seeing that queer Van Johnson. Johnson is the one who got Peter to wear those damn red socks. One night at a party I saw Peter and that Pat Kennedy kissing that darkie, Sammy Davis Jr. They call him ‘Chicky.’I'd call him a nigger and tell him never to get within ten feet of me.”

  Merv sighed, wondering how Lady May would react if she knew what her son had b
een doing with Sammy only the night before. Certainly a bit more than kissing.

  Just before sundown, after Peter and Lady May went upstairs to get ready for the evening, Patricia sat with Merv on the patio watching the sun go down. Still in her sports attire, she looked tan and lovely, and Merv was enchanted by her New England accent. “May must have filled you in on a lot of things — her version of things, that is. I find it rare that a socalled lady of breeding would be so uncouth. When Peter and I get married, we'll have to muzzle her, especially if Jack continues his career in politics. We definitely have to keep May away from the press. Her class prejudice went out of style with Queen Victoria.”

  Patricia would later express the same sentiments to dozens of her friends and, once, in a letter to Lady May herself.

  Before she went upstairs to get dressed for dinner. Patricia turned to Merv. “Did Lady May tell you that she used to dress Peter as a girl until he was ten years old?” With that startling remark, she turned and left.

  Merv felt the need to excuse himself from further contact and dinner that night with this dysfunctional trio. He wanted to get home where perhaps he would learn some news about Hadley.

  As Merv was leaving, Patricia rushed down the stairs and kissed him on the cheek. She even extended an invitation to him to visit the family compound at Hyannis. “You'll love my brothers, especially Jack. He's got more personal charm than any of the other Kennedys. Only Peter has more charm.” As an afterthought, she said, “I hope you're athletic. The whole family is athletic, especially me. The only reason I was still a virgin when I met Peter was that I could outrun my brothers.”

  ***

  After his return to L.A., Merv opened the door to his living room to find Hadley sitting there in his boxer shorts. “What went wrong?” Merv asked. “Howard Hughes got tired of you? I could have told you that would happen.”

  “C'mon, baby, and give your daddy a big, sloppy kiss,” Hadley said. “Sexual fidelity was invented by heterosexuals, and even they can't play by their own rules most of the time.”