“I talked Ronnie's ear off,” Merv later recalled to his friends. “I guess I was really talking to myself, trying to figure out where to go from here. More than friends or family, I was married to my career—always, ever since I sang with Freddy Martin's band.”
At the end of that long ride into the desert, Merv made a decision to promote Ward, at the time only in his twenties, as his personal assistant. Prior to that Merv had defined Ward as his secretary, even though his typing skills hadn't advanced beyond the huntandpeck system.
“I've never felt as compatible with anyone as I have with Ronnie,” Merv told his associates. “If I ask him to do something for me, I know he'll carry it out beautifully. I trust him completely.”
By December of 1995, most of Merv's business interests fell within the orbit of an entity known as Merv Griffin Entertainment. He took great pride in naming Ward as Vice Chairman of his newly organized company. He was put in charge of “establishing the strategy and focus” of Merv's many investments and business interests.
Merv told the press, “Ronnie has been with me for twentyfive years. Not only is he a brilliant facilitator of our established projects, but he also has a remarkable aptitude for spotting new areas of profitability. In addition to overseeing Merv Griffin Entertainment, he heads my thoroughbred operation, Merv Griffin Ranch Company, and he was responsible for the formation of our newest company, Worldwide L.P., which specializes in highend residential real estate.”
Ronnie Ward would not be the only young man Merv would pluck from relative obscurity and hurl into fame, the spotlight, and fortune.
***
At this point in his life and career, Merv could buy any home he wanted. He purchased a spectacular home in Pebble Beach on Carmel Bay, near where he'd once worked as a struggling singer. Here he could “find peace and tranquility,” and entertain whatever private guests he wanted, away from the prying eyes of the press. Liberace continued to send him “only the most prized of specimens.”
Whereas some of his neighbors, including Kim Novak and Jean Arthur, tended to be somewhat reclusive, others, such as Clint Eastwood were genuinely friendly and accessible to him. Another neighbor, Jane Wyman, remembered Merv “from the old old days.”
Whenever he needed “arm candy,” Merv enrolled Eva Gabor, or perhaps Barbara Mac-Farland, who dealt in valuable antiques in a shop in Carmel. The paparazzi snapped dozens of pictures of Merv and Eva attending Eastwood's premier of The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing. They were accompanied by the film's star, Burt Reynolds, who at the time was deep into his affair with an older woman, Dinah Shore.
Clint Eastwood had introduced Merv to Transcendental Meditation, which fascinated him. Merv later cited TM for removing stress from his life, and he started meditating twenty minutes in the morning, followed by another twenty minutes at sunset. Years before, as the cameras rolled, he had interviewed the leader of the TM movement, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. That episode of The Merv Griffin Show was credited with attracting almost fifty thousand converts to TM.
Merv's friendship with Clint had begun back in the 1960s, when Merv joined Clint as a resident of Carmel. An icon of macho, Clint was an unlikely candidate for the role of one of Merv's best friends. As owner of two homes within the region (one in Pebble Beach and one in the Carmel Valley), Merv supported Clint when he successfully ran for mayor of Carmel by the Sea. “We share the same political views,” Merv told reporters.
Merv loved hearing Clint's stories of his early days in Hollywood, going back to when he was a contract player at Universal International. Just before firing him, a director said, accusingly, “your Adam's Apple is too big.” That same director, that same day, also fired another contract player, Burt Reynolds.
It is presumed that Clint knew Merv was gay. If he did, that was hardly a problem for him. He once said, “The most gentle people in the world are macho males, people who are confident in their masculinity and have a feeling of wellbeing in themselves. They don't have to kick in doors, mistreat women, or make fun of gays.” Clint served as mayor of Carmel from 1986 to 1988.
Dirty Harry
Clint Eastwood
Growing up in Northern California, Clint had been a fan of Merv's long before he actually met him. Dirty Harry He recalled listening to him on radio KFRC, broad Clint Eastwood casting from San Francisco. The two men launched a tennis tournament at Pebble Beach that for years brought in a lot of celebrities. When Merv died, Clint noted that he had been a loyal friend to a lot of people, and recalled a dinner at his house in Carmel Valley that included Cary Grant, Lucille Ball, and James Stewart. Clint also revealed that Merv in later life became a close friend of Johnny Carson, their sometimes bitter rivalry for latenight ratings a thing of the past.
Even though they developed some semblance of a friendship later in life, Merv said he never really approved of Carson. “He was sad, depressed, probably in need of a shrink. He cheated on his wives. He stayed at this penthouse at Caesars Palace with a private pool. He'd invite all the beautiful showgirls up for skinny dipping, some two dozen on a good night. He had many of them. A real Sultan in his harem. He never visited his son when he was confined to a mental hospital. He was just as cold as his mother, who, or so I heard, was colder than any icicle in Nebraska in February.”
***
In his converted black military helicopter, Merv traveled the trafficsaturated 130 miles between Los Angeles and his elegant, 240acre spread, La Quinta Ranch, which he'd purchased with his newly acquired millions. The sprawling ranch stood in the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs.
The compound's airy, Moroccanthemed main house was modeled on Yves St. Laurent's mansion in Marrakesh, Morocco. The estate boasted horse barns housing some fifty thoroughbreds; a manmade lake, Lac Merveilleux; a private racetrack, and some 3,000 cultivated roses.
Like Merv himself, Cary Grant was also a closeted homosexual, and during his late middleaged years, he occasionally visited La Quinta. “Why would you ever want to leave this place? It's Shangrila.” Cary stood at twelvefoot high French windows, opening onto a panorama of a fiftyfoothigh geyser spouting from the waters of Lac Merveilleux.
The next morning Cary joined Merv for breakfast, traversing one of the world's biggest Persian carpets, set atop floors crafted from purple and white marble, within a living room decorated with Moroccan rifles inlaid with ivory and silver.
Working on a crossword puzzle, Merv sat on his terrace under a mammoth umbrella painted with sunflower yellow butterflies and pink flamingos. He was eating oatmeal and smoking a lot of cigarettes.
Over breakfast, the two superstars spoke of retirement and their upcoming deaths. “To me, death is retirement,” Merv told him. “I'll never retire. On the way to my grave, I'll be devising some new TV game show. I'm still working. After breakfast, I'll be on the phone reaching out to my empire. It keeps me alive. Why don't you go back to work?”
“There are no good scripts anymore,” Cary said, “and at my age I don't do nude scenes.”
Out of earshot of Cary, Zsa Zsa had called Merv. “They keep telling me what a great lover he is, but you can't prove that by me.”
Cary and Merv discussed opportunistic hustlers who might try to expose them. “Of course, when we're dead, all the books will write about our homosexuality. But at least we can suppress it while we're still alive.” He warned Merv never to go to court on a sexual harassment or alimony charge. “Anything can happen before a jury,” Cary said. “Some son of a bitch could get millions.”
Privately he told Merv, who in turn told Eva, that he'd once been arrested going down on a young sales clerk in the men's room of a department store in Los Angeles. “Howard Hughes intervened for me and paid off the cops. I was released and the matter was hushed up.”
“Another, somewhat similar case was instigated by a woman,” Cary said. “She claimed I picked up her teenage son along the highway and made advances toward him. Once again, Howard came through for me. He'd faced similar incidents himself.”
/> Before parting, Cary gave Merv one final piece of advice: “Always wear women's nylon panties when traveling. They're easier to wash and hang up to dry.”
***
Jolie Gabor, mother of the three most famous living courtesans in the world, took delight in Merv, even though, despite her urging, he constantly refused to marry her daughter, Eva.
“My God, Jolie,” Merv said in protest. “Between the three of them, your daughters have already had twenty-one husbands. You really don't need to add me to the list.”
Sometimes, Jolie cooked dinner for Merv, using lots of paprika and sour cream. But one night he found hot dogs in her stew. “Her stuffed goose neck, though, was the world's best,” Merv said. Jolie always asserted that Merv loved her goulash. “As anybody can see from the looks of him, he could never get enough of it.”
Confessions from
a men's room:
Cary Grant
Merv would annoy her by constantly pestering her to reveal her age. “I am a timeless wonder,” she told him. “Ageless. An enchantress.”
Merv could sit and listen to Jolie for hours as she told tall tales about her remarkable life. He didn't know if they were true or not. Did President Dwight Eisenhower really make a pass at her?
“I don't think it would have done any good if I had accepted,” she told Merv. “I heard he was impotent. Poor Mamie. I failed with her too. I constantly tried to get her to cut her bangs and adopt a new hair style, but she refused.”
One night over wine Jolie confided to Merv that Zsa Zsa and Eva wanted as their escorts men with money. “And, God knows, you have money, Merv. Everything you touch turns to gold. Midas would be jealous. I, however, always followed my heart, and that's why I fell for Edmund de Szigethy of Transylvania. He had no money but he wanted to marry me even though I was an older woman. God, I detest that expression. He had only twentyseven dollars when we went out on our first date. Twentytwo of those dollars he spent on roses for me. After that gesture, I had to marry him.”
“Oh, that Conrad Hilton,” Jolie told Merv one night. “He was such a louse. Zsa Zsa had a poor divorce settlement with him. She should have taken him for millions, and she should have gotten free accommodations at Hiltons for the rest of her life, even a permanent suite for her at the Plaza. Whenever Zsa Zsa stays at a Hilton, she has to pay. Stupid! Ridiculous!”
“But Zsa Zsa got even with Conrad,” she claimed. “She slept with his son Nicky and told me that he was a much better lover than her husband, his father. Of course, you'll have to check with Elizabeth Taylor for the low-down on Nicky.”
“I don't need to check with anybody about Nicky Hilton,” Merv claimed.
“Oh, I see,” Jolie said, raising an eyebrow. “I have a theory about notorious womanizers. To them, all cats are gray at night.”
“Zsa Zsa's great love was Porfirio Rubirosa, and I desperately wanted him to be my soninlaw,” she said. “He was suave and sophisticated and knew how to treat a lady. But he dumped Zsa Zsa for Barbara Hutton instead. After all, she was one of the richest women in the world. Once, I spirited Rubi away from news reporters by dressing him in drag.”
“Rubi in drag is a bit much for my meager mind to conjure up,” Merv said.
“I've never told anybody this before, but once, at a formal dinner, I sat next to Rubi,” she said. “At one point he discreetly took my hand and placed it over his genitals. I had never felt anything like that in my life. Surely he rivaled any bull. Rubi told me, ‘That's what keeps Zsa Zsa as contented as a cow.’”
“Unlike my daughters, I have never pursued men with large penises,” she claimed. “Four or five inches are adequate for me, though three is too small. What about your tastes? What do you consider as the ideal penis size for a man?”
“Eight and a half inches,” he said. “Anything above that and you're a showoff.”
“Magda and Zsa Zsa had to double up on that rogue, George Sanders,” Jolie said. “I called George ‘The Deep Freeze,’ although I was tempted to go to bed with him myself just to see what sex appeal he had that enthralled my two daughters so much that they married him. Eva told me George once tried to seduce her as well, but thank God Eva had enough sense to avoid him.”
“Clark Gable also asked me to marry him, but I said no,” she confessed. “Too many women told me how inadequate he was in bed. He also had a homosexual side, believe it or not.”
She used to brag to Merv that in 1939 she had arrived in New York from Hungary with “only one hundred dollars and a diamond ring. I later ended up owning a jewelry shop on Madison Avenue. Even Elizabeth Taylor came to me in those days to buy her diamonds.”
When Merv visited Jolie at her modest home on Oscalete Road in Los Angeles, he was amazed at how she'd glamorized the place. “I like to make from nothing a something,” she told him.
Over the years, Merv concocted many schemes to bring Jolie onto his show, including once when he wanted to have all four Gabors on at the same time. “Jack Paar called me years ago and proposed the same thing,” she told Merv. On another occasion, Merv wanted to bring out five mothers of famous daughters for a gabfest. “Sounds more like a bitchfest to me,” Jolie countered.
Months before Jolie's death in 1997, Merv paid her a visit. “I found her disconnected from reality,” he later said. “She didn't remember that Eva, her youngest daughter, had died on July 4, 1995. I certainly didn't tell her. And at that point, I'm not sure if she even knew who Eva was.”
When Jolie died at Rancho Mirage in California on April 1, 1997, Merv was saddened and sent a huge bouquet. He noticed that many newspaper accounts listed her age as ninety-six, but Eva had told Merv that Jolie was actually an astonishing 104.
The world's oldest
living courtesan:
Jolie Gabor
“My beloved mother lived in an era when women lied about their age,” Zsa Zsa said. “She always told me that a woman should lie by decades, not just five or six years. It's easier to remember dates that way if you lie by decades.”
Jolie's final advice to Merv, back when she was still coherent, was “pawn a diamond if you have to keep the champagne flowing. Life's a gamble. You must know how to play it—and you sure did play it more than anybody else I've ever known. Kings and royalty I have known were often penniless. They still have the title and no money. You have no title and lots of money. Zsa Zsa still loves titles, and even I married a penniless count myself. But I have decided in the end that it's money that is more important than worthless European titles of long ago.”
Asked to comment on Jolie's death, Merv told his aides, “If she hadn't trod on this Earth, Dominick Dunne would have had to invent her. Jolie was Euro before the word Eurotrash was invented. Her emeralds may have been flawed or faux but Jolie Gabor was the real thing.”
***
At least five months before he died in 1987 at the age of sixtyseven, Liberace knew he had AIDS. He summoned Merv to his side. Slipping into Palm Springs, Merv drove himself to Liberace's elegant estate, The Cloister.
Merv later revealed to Hadley that he almost wanted to scream when he saw Liberace's wasted body and gaunt face. “He was a shadow version of himself, almost ghoulish. In his eyes I noticed this terrible fear. It was heartbreaking. He didn't want to talk about the present, only the past, only the good times around his pool, which had once been peopled with the most beautiful boys ever assembled. Oh, those pool parties of his. Rock Hudson with all his beautiful boys could never give pool parties like Lee. I never knew where he found all those guys. No one has ever seen the likes of Lee before—and perhaps never will again.”
A correspondent for Newsweek, Bill Barol, summed it up best when he reviewed a Liberace event at Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall. “Liberace flew in from the wings suspended on a wire; introduced his valet/chauffeur; put on a purple sequined and feathered robe; took it off; played Chopin on a Lucite piano with lacework trim; did a soft shoe; bestowed a selection of gifts on a audience member; shamelessly plugged
his new book and Las Vegas restaurant; drove onstage in a red, white, and blue Rolls Royce; peeled away a red, white and blue sequinedandfeathered robe to reveal red, white and blue satin hot pants, and grabbed a red, white, and blue sequined baton to lead the Rockettes in ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever.’ This was all before intermission.”
Sitting up in bed, Liberace told Merv that, “A lot of those gay libbers are writing pestering me, demanding that I finally come out of the closet and admit I'm gay. I'm not going to do it, and I don't think you should do so either. Admitting I'm gay in my final hours would destroy what I've worked for for more than four decades. More than being an entertainer, I was this ethereal concept. I pleased everybody, offended no one. You should do the same. Besides, I'm not a crusader. Let Paul Newman or Marlon Brando do that. You and I should forever remain in the closet, although I have no doubt that biographers will Out us after we're dead. It's inevitable.”
When Merv complimented Liberace on the black lace negligée he was wearing, the entertainer asserted, “I've always liked drag. As a teenager, I was a student at West Milwaukee High. Every year we dressed up in costumes of famous people. I came as Greta Garbo. Slinky gown. Blonde wig. Heavy makeup. I won first prize.”
Liberace was so tired and ailing that he managed a dialogue with Merv for less than an hour before he told him he'd have to leave. “I want you to go now, dear old friend. But I don't want you to remember me as a pathetic old queer dying in bed of AIDS.”
He asked Merv to go out into the garden and then return to the living room in fifteen minutes. A male aide came in to help Liberace out of bed and slowly walk him to the living room, where he seated himself at his piano.
After his interval in the garden, Liberace told him, “I'm going to play my theme song, ‘I Don't Care,’ and I want you to leave and not look back. Just walk out the door to the sound of my music.”
Merv Griffin- A Life in the Closet Page 64
