Chapter Four

Sisters #2 and #3 (Zsa Zsa & Eva) Invade the New World

EVA

In Hollywood, Eva’s marriage to Erik Drimmer continued to deteriorate. With the arrival of Zsa Zsa in Hollywood, Eva hoped that her spirits, at least,would improve. Like her marriage, and even though she was booked as the female lead in a “B” film, Forced Landing (1941), her film career continued its downward spiral.

Directed by Gordon Wiles, it had a cast of “past their prime” (in Eva’s summation) actors—Richard Arlen, Nils Asther, and Evelyn Brent. “The only one in the cast with a bright future in films was a character actor, J. Carrol Naish,” Eva said.

The plot, in a nutshell, revolved around a Pacific Islands dictator who must compete with a military pilot for a woman’s affection. The ruler underhandedly dispatches the pilot on what he knows (but the pilot doesn’t know) is a suicide mission.

“The only thing I liked about my role was the name of my character, Johanna Van Deuren,” Eva said. “The director (Wiles) told me that I should fall in love with my leading man for greater chemistry on the screen. But Arlen gave off no sign of passion whatsoever. In spite of my acclaimed beauty, he shook my hand and treated me like an overused dishrag.”

A former pilot in the Royal Canadian Flying Corps, he was slick-haired, rugged, and solidly built, even though he had entered middle age at the time he met Eva. She’d seen him as a pilot in the Oscar-winning Wings (1927), in which he’d co-starred with Gary Cooper. As Eva admitted, “I was still coming down from my fling with Gary, but Arlen provided no insights into my Montana cowboy.”

“Arlen was a very desirable man when I met him and still married to the actress, Jobyna Ralston, who had also been in the cast of Wings. But I think our other co-star, Nils Asther, was panting after him more than I was.”

A Danish-born citizen of Sweden, the homosexual Asther had been called “the male Greta Garbo” when he’d co-starred with her in the 1929 Wild Orchids and in the same year The Single Standard. The year before, he’d played a socialite opposite Joan Crawford in that flapper epic, Our Dancing Daughters. He had also co-starred with Marion Davies and Pola Negri.

Garbo didn’t like playing love scenes opposite him, claiming loudly, “I don’t know where his mouth has been the night before.”

Asther told Eva that he’d been working in England during the previous six years because of an alleged breach of contract that had gotten him blacklisted by most Hollywood studios. Although he was hoping for a comeback,he would never regain his box office appeal.

[In 1958, Asther turned his back on Hollywood—“or rather, it turned its back on me”—and returned to Sweden nearly destitute. He died in 1981. His autobiography Narrens väg (“The Road of the Jester”) wasn’t published until 1988.]

In Forced Landing, Evelyn Brent, a legend of the Silent Screen, was cast in the fifth lead. She’d made her screen debut in 1915 and had become a WAMPAS Baby Star.

“She’d had a torrid affair with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., losing out to Mary Pickford,” Eva said. “She had also worked with that Nazi actor, Emil Jannings, and she’d been directed by Josef von Sternberg before he’d succumbed to the charms of Marlene Dietrich.”

“When I met her, Brentwas too mature for ingénue roles and was no longer desired by directors except in small parts: In time, she had three husbands, but was mainly known in Hollywood as a fixture in the lesbian colony. She came on strong to me when we shared a dressing room, and I soon learned not to take off my clothes in front of her.”

After helming her, Wiles accused Eva of having “the talent of a plate of goulash.” She accused him of “being an art director, not a real director.” He had won an Oscar in 1931 for Transatlantic.

As Eva relayed later in an interview, “Both Forced Landing and Mr. Wiles faded into oblivion, which was where I was going unless I got a break. I also thought the picture should have been called Crash Landing, which described most of the actors in it.”

***

Except for a cameo appearance, Eva’s last film at Paramount was the highly forgettable B-picture, Pacific Blackout (1941), which reunited her with her former lover, Robert Preston, who interpretedits title role—that of an inventor and engineer who is unjustly declared guilty for the murder of his partner. Eva was cast as the spy, Marie Duval. “I was no Mata Hari,” she recalled. “Greta Garbo didn’t have to lie awake at night worrying about my besting her in her famous spy role.”

The second male lead was Philip Marivale, an English movie and stage actor born in India. He’d launched his career in silent films. At the time Eva met him, he was married to the famous English actress, Gladys George. On the set, he befriended Eva, telling her, “Whereas you’re making this movie in an attempt to launch a film career, I’m appearing in this bloody awful disaster just to earn a paycheck.”

Eva actually nabbed the part ofthe second female lead. The lead was played by Martha O’Driscoll, who had trained to become a singer and dancer. She’d just appeared as Daisy Mae in the first screen version of Al Capp’s comic strip, Li’l Abner (1940). When not in front of a camera, O’Driscollappeared in radio and print commercials. She’s credited with introducing Eva, as a consumer of beauty products,to Max Factor Hollywood Face Powder.

By now, Eva had decided that Drimmer was cheating on her with increasing frequency. One day, he went to Palm Springs and stayed there for four nights with no explanation. “Two can play that game,” she wrote to both Jolie and Zsa Zsa.

One night when Preston opted to spend time at home, alone with his wife, Eva turned her attention to an extra on the film. He was Rod Cameron, who was playing a small role as a pilot.

As Eva confessed to Susan Hayward, “Perhaps I was still dreaming of Gary Cooper, but I found Rod very attractive. His name, Rod, was certainly appropriate for him.”

Born in Alberta, Canada, Cameron had drifted south to Hollywood, where he became a stuntman and a bit player at Paramount. Later, he became a household name throughout America for his roles in Westerns.

He was very tall, very rugged, and looked a bit like Fred MacMurray, with whom Eva had worked. In fact, Cameron was often the stand-in for MacMurray. “Rod was very virile both on and off the screen,” Eva said. “It was just a mild romp. We weren’t really serious.”

[Cameron later became notorious when he divorced his wife of ten years and married his mother-in-law. For doing that, his former director, William Witney, publicly acclaimed Cameron as “the bravest man I’ve ever seen.”]

There was one final attempt to turn Eva into a singing star. She rehearsed with a vocal coach for three days before making her singing debut in front of a director. “I knew I was no Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, but I thought I might do a good imitation of Helen Morgan. I draped myself seductively on the piano and warbled. After two minutes, the director got up and walked out the door without a word. End of singing career.”

Before Eva’s contract with Paramount ended, she appeared in a cameo role in Star Spangled Rhythm (1943). Filmed with an all-star cast, it was a musical film made during World War II as a morale booster.

She appeared in the film with an array of stars, the finest on Paramount’s lot. They included Betty Hutton, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Fred MacMurray, Ray Milland, Dorothy Lamour, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, Mary Martin, and Dick Powell.

“Two of my on-again, off-again lovers, Robert Preston and Rod Cameron, also appeared in the movie, as did my gal pal, Susan Hayward,” Eva said.

“Benito Mussolini,” “Hirohito,” and “Adolf Hitler” were also listed as characters in the film.

“If you blink, you’ll miss me,” Eva said. “The film cost $1,127,989. My $75 came out of that $89 tag end part.”

“My contract was over—no job, no husband. I entered one of the unhappiest periods of my life. I wanted to become a star, but my efforts were futile. I was awful on my appearances on the screen. I was also too immature when I married Erik. The marriage was all but over except for the divorce. Both of us had moved on to others.”

“As soon as Zsa Zsa arrived in Hollywood—well, maybe not immediately—I planned to file for divorce. I didn’t know who my next husband would be. ButI knew onething: He would be rich. Jolie was right: None of her daughters were meant to live as paupers. I planned to start dating aggressively. Within one week, I received seven phone calls from possible suitors, including one from David Niven. He’d met Zsa Zsa at a party, and she’d given him my phone number.

***

ZSA ZSA

Born in the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with fresh memories of the destructionof Europe permeating her brain, Zsa Zsa arrived in Hollywood. After her horrific four-month trip, she fell into Eva’s arms, sobbing and babbling in Hungarian.

Before taking her to her (temporary) new home—the apartment she still nominally shared with Drimmer—Eva, in her rustyccar, took her on a tour of thecstrange new world she’d just entered. It was unlike anything Zsa Zsa had ever seen before.

It was a land of palm trees, in which all the women seemed to wear slacks and high heels. Restaurants were shaped like derby hats, and advertisements as big as railways cars hawked the great American hot dog. Instead of goulash, the natives atehamburgers, some preferring a pineapple slice on top. She spotted at least three gingerbread-trimmed thatched cottages, looking as if Hansel and Gretel inhabited them. Some villas appeared to have been removed intact from Andalusia.

Zsa Zsawas shocked by Eva’s new look. Apparently, Hollywood directors liked their women pencil thin. As Zsa Zsa wrote, “I saw a girl so thin as to look emaciated. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyebrows plucked, her hair bleached platinum blonde, wearing a black satin dress, black patent-leather shoes, with red spike heels, a huge brimmed black hat trailing a long black veil.”

All the people she met spoke of only two topics—the latest fad diet and how to break into the movies.

Eva was still working for Paramount, a studio Mae West had saved from bankruptcy. Mae had immodestly told the press, “More people have seen me than saw Napoléon, Lincoln, and Cleopatra. I was better known than Einstein, Shaw, or Picasso.”

“Okies” from the Dust Bowl had flocked to California, “the land of plenty,” and the population there had vastly increased.

To Zsa Zsa, Los Angeles was obviously a city in transition. In just a few months, it would become a wartime center of West Coast defense plants.

As author Dudley C. Gordon aptly put it: “Having survived a long, leisurely pioneering infancy, and an uncouth adolescence characterized by intensive exploitation, Los Angeles had now blossomed into one of the major cities of the nation.

For Eva, or even for herself, Zsa Zsa knew that surfacing near the top as a movie star would be a formidable challenge.

The 1930s had given birth to some of the biggest female stars in history—Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Kay Francis, Loretta Young, Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Stanwyck, Katharine Hepburn, and Claudette Colbert.

Arriving at Eva’s small apartment, Zsa Zsa was shocked at how dismal it was. There wasn’t even enough room for her luggage.

Eva invited her to sleep with her in her bed, claiming that Drimmer could take the sofa—“that is, if he should ever decide to spend a night at home.”

Zsa Zsa found the cupboard so bare, she invited Eva to go with her to the market to stock up on food supplies.

Eva virtually demanded that Zsa Zsa use henna to make her hair more auburn in its tone. “One Gabor blonde is all Hollywood can digest,” she said.

Obviously, breaking into the elite society of Hollywood was going to be much tougher than it had been in New York. Then, she remembered a promise made to her by Lawrence Copley Thaw, a wealthy writer-photographer she’d met in Ankara, who was touring at the time with his wife, Peggy. As a personal adventure, and for a series of articles which later appeared about it in newspapers and magazines, they’d been following the ancient overland route to India taken by the silk caravans, traveling in a fifty-foot motorized “Land Yacht,” accompanied by a retinue of trucks and servants carrying their supplies. Despite the dangers of imminent war, their trip had begun in northern France in the summer of 1939, several months prior to their arrival in Turkey.

Belge and Zsa Zsa had accompanied them on a two-week expedition through the Taurus Mountains and had become friends. She enjoyed the warm-hearted, impulsive nature of the Thaws. By the end of the trip, she had promised to become “your friend for life.”

She suggested she might come to Hollywood some day. “After meeting you people, I think I would like Americans very much.”

He said she’d be most welcome, and he wrote down the name and address of Basil and Ouida Rathbone. “They are the ruling Duke and Duchess of Hollywood. An invitation to one of their parties is the most sought-after in Hollywood. I’ll write them to receive you when you come.”

Remembering Thaw’s promise, Zsa Zsa late one morning summoned her courage and put through a call, not knowing if Thaw had kept his promise of writing that letter after all.

A maid summoned Ouida to the phone. A warm, lovely, inviting voice greeted Zsa Zsa. “That darling Larry wrote me all about you. I’m so anxious to meet you, and so is Basil. In fact, I’m having some people over tonight. I’m giving a party for Vivien Leigh and Larry Olivier before they go back to war-torn London.”

“Cary Grant will be here. He’s dating Barbara Hutton…you know, the five-and-dime Woolworth heiress. And oh, David Niven is also dropping in. If you wish, I’ll let Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., be your escort for the night.”

After the arrangements were made, Zsa Zsa hung up the phone in a state of elation. She was enthralled, but didn’t want to give Eva the details out of fear of making her envious.

She’d spent the afternoon making herself look more glamorous. Fortunately, she’d brought wardrobe and diamonds from the Old World to flash before the New World.

“The town is filled with great beauties, with more stunning women than anywhere else on the planet,” she’d been told.

“Somehow, someway, I’ve got to make Zsa Zsa Gabor stand out as a princess in a field of Cinderellas.”

***

“To say that I was the belle of the ball would be a vast understatement.” So said Zsa Zsa Gabor, summing up her appearance of the night before at the home of Basil and Ouida Rathbone on Bellagio Road in Bel Air.

The dashing, handsome actor, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., picked her up in his sleek new car at Eva’s modest apartment and drove her up a winding mountain road.

Debonairand beautifully tailored, he was the epitome of charm and elegance, although he spoke very frankly. She was not used to men saying what they thought, having become accustomed to the diplomatic climate of Ankara, where no man ever said what he meant.

En route to the Rathbone’s, Zsa Zsa expressed her sympathy about the death of his screen icon father, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., who had died in 1939, two years before the party.

“Dad told me that one swashbuckler in the family was enough,” Douglas said. “He didn’t want me to become an actor and trade on his name. When I was a kid, I didn’t play baseball. Dad called me ‘foppish’ and feared he was raising a homosexual until I started having affairs with all sorts of women. That led to my getting hooked up with Billie. Billie, I could tolerate, but when she became Joan Crawford around the house, it was a bit much. I told Joan that her ideal man would be a skilled butler during the day and a stud with a twelve-inch dick after midnight.”

Two years beforehis date with Zsa Zsa, Douglas had married Mary Lee Hartford, the former wife of Huntington Hartford, the A&P supermarket heir. But he often cheated on her. Before bedding Zsa Zsa later that night, hehad seduced some of the biggest stars in Hollywood and New York, including Tallulah Bankhead, Marlene Dietrich, Gertrude Lawrence, Lupe Velez, and Loretta young. Composer-playwright Noël Coward had a life-long crush on him and composed his hit song, “Mad About the Boy,” in his honor. In the 1930s, Douglas had a torrid romance with Laurence Olivier when he was married to his first wife, the lesbian actress, Jill Esmond.

When they arrived at the Rathbone’s party, after a butler let them in, “a handsome, plump woman” (Zsa Zsa’s words) walked across the foyer to welcome them. It was their hostess, Ouida Rathbone.

After kissing Douglas, Ouida complimented Zsa Zsa on her coloring—“a perfect peach complexion, hair a tawny red, hazel brown eyes that positively glow in the dark. I think I’ll name you ‘my pretty,’ the way the Wicked Witch of the West, Margaret Hamilton, referred to Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz.”

Ouida was right. In a crowd of “tennis court tans,” Zsa Zsa’s skin stood out as luminous.

The host, Basil Rathbone, was right behind Ouida. Born in South Africa to a father who was a British mining engineer, he was suave, imperious, and grandly self-satisfied. He spoke with a precise, confident speech pattern. When Zsa Zsa complimented him on his persona, he said, “It’s all a mask. After turning down the role of Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind, I have no more faith in my judgment. I told David O. Selznick, ‘Who would want to see a movie about the Civil War’?”

“To me, you are the eternal Sherlock Holmes,” she said. “No one makes a better detective than you.”

“It looks like I’ll be stuck with that character for the duration of the War,” he said. “There’s even a script coming up called Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman.”

“I’m sure I’d make a divine Spider Woman, especially if the species were the Black Widow.”

“We’ll worry about future casting tomorrow,” he said. “Now Ouida and I must share your beauty with my guests.”

Within a large room filled with A-list stars, Ouida escorted Zsa Zsa to Ethel Barrymore, the First Lady of the American Theater. Barrymore carried herself with dignity while seated in a large wing-backed chair. With a skeptical eye, she looked Zsa Zsa up and down. An authoritative, somewhat stern, presence, she could cut down an adversary with as little as a raised eyebrow.

“I’m so honored to meet you, Miss Barrymore,” Zsa Zsa gushed.

“I understand you were the First Lady of Turkey,” Barrymore said. “I’ve met many a First Lady, but never the First Lady of Turkey. Maybe had it not been for World War I, you and your dictator husband could have revived the Ottoman Empire and presided over it. I hope you fled from Europe with at least half of the Empire’s treasure.”

Barrymore may have been a great lady, but she was not particularly well-informed about Turkish politics and history, and Zsa Zsa had no intention of correcting her. “I only brought what I could fit into two dozen large suitcases,” she said.

The aging actress carefully studied Zsa Zsa: “Your face has the look of the self-enchanted. I suspect that you’re the type of a young girl who spends most of her day looking at her image in the mirror, singing, ‘I’m so pretty…oh, so pretty,’”

“It’s been such an honor meeting you, Miss Barrymore, but I just saw Lady Mendl enter the room. She’s a dear friend of mine, and I must rush over to greet her and welcome her to Hollywood.”

Zsa Zsa greeted Lady Mendl like a long-lost friend, with enthusiasm, telling her, “We must get together.”

“I’m so sorry, my dear child,” Mendl answered curtly. “I’m in Hollywood for such a short time, and my schedule is already overloaded. Perhaps some time in the future.”

Behind Lady Mendl, her friend, Cole Porter, was being wheeled in by Cary Grant. He was followed by the Woolworth heiress, Barbara Hutton.

Porter was much gladder to see Zsa Zsa than Lady Mendl had been, and invited her to dinner the following night. “Perhaps Cary could join us.”

Grant took her hand. “I’d be delighted.”

“You’re my favorite movie star,” Zsa Zsa said to Grant.

“But of course, my dear,” he said, jokingly. “Who else? I bet W.C. Fields provided me with stiff competition.”

Hutton was rather icy and only smiled when Grant introduced her to Zsa Zsa. Ironically, the heiress and the Hungarian would be competing a decade later for the same playboy lover.

Douglascame looking for his date of the evening, as a small band had begun to play dance music in the adjoining room, which opened onto a terrace. When he saw Grant, he kissed him on both cheeks. Apparently, they were old friends. Douglasretrieved Zsa Zsa just as Clifton Webb came into their presence. “Good evening, Clifton,”hesaid.

Webb immediately turned on his heels and headed in the opposite direction.

“You must have done something to offend him,” Zsa Zsa said.

“That mama’s boy is still mad at me. One early morning, I offered him a ride to the studio. En route, he confessed that he was in love with me and placed his hand on my thigh. At first, I didn’t know how to respond. Protest? Show anger? Dismiss him as a pervert? Finally, I decided to laugh the matter off and treat his proposition like a joke. When I did that, he exploded in anger and demanded to be let out of my car. Call it the affair that never was.”

In the adjoining room, Zsa Zsa waltzed around the room with Douglas as ifshe was the star of one of theVienna Opera Balls. “If only the cameras had captured us,” she later lamented. “We would have put Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to shame.”

She wasn’t allowed to catch her breath before Eric de Rothschild, of the banking family approached her. In French, he invited her to dance the tango à laRudolf Valentino. With panache, she rose to the challenge.

After the tango, he presented her to Igor Stravinsky, who chatted with her in French.

Her first lover, Willi Schmidt-Kentner, had introduced her to the world of the Russian-born composer, who had been famous since impresario Sergei Diaghilev had commissioned him to compose three ballets for his Ballets Russes. They had included Firebird (1910); Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913).

His father, Fyodor Stravinsky, was of Polish noble descent, and that gave Zsa Zsa an opening in which to pursue a conversation, as she told of Magda’s marriage to Count Jan de Bychowsky.

Stravinsky informed her that sincethe late 1930s, he’d been living in West Hollywood and that he planned to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. “As you probably gathered, Los Angeles is no longer the backwater it was. Because of refugees, it is becoming a great cultural city. Either living herenow or on the way are many European writers, musicians, composers, and conductors—Otto Klemperer, Thomas Mann, Franz Werfel, George Balanchine, and Arthur Rubinstein. In fact, Arthur is here tonight, and I’ll introduce you.”

“I’ve also found some good drinking partners who help me pursue my addictionto hard spirits, especially Aldous Huxley and Dylan Thomas. I’m going to write an opera withW.H. Auden. I’ll be conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonicat the Hollywood Bowl, andI want you to be my guest at one of the upcoming events.”

“I’m flattered,” she said. “Never in my wildest imagination did I think I’d have to come to Hollywood to hear the great Igor Stravinsky conduct.”

I assume you’re a confirmed monarchist like me?” he asked. “I loathe the Bolsheviks. There is Russian royalty heretonight. I’d like to introduce you to her, too.”

The talk quickly turned to Nazism. Zsa Zsa confessed that she’d met both Hitler and Goebbels in Berlinas part of her former diplomatic duties in Turkey.

Stravinskywas furious at the Nazis, who had placed his musical compositions on theirlist of Entartete (degenerate) Musik.

[Outlawed by the Nazis, music designated by them as “degenerate,”because of its Jewish, socialist, or homosexual originsalso included compositions by, among many others, Felix Mendelssohn, Arnold Schoenberg, Walter Braunfels, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Kurt Weill, Gustav Mahler, Paul Hindemith, along with most forms of modernist music and “Negro jazz.”]

“I’ve lodged a formal complaint (with the Nazis), informing Goebbels that I loathe communism, Marxism, that execrable Soviet monster, and alsoall forms of liberalism and democratism,” said Stravinsky.

“The downside of coming to America is that we often have to tear ourselves away from our lovers,” he said. “I’m sure you left strings of lovers in Europe. As for me, I left only one. My own true love, Coco Chanel.”

When Stavinsky took her over to meet the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna [born in Russia in 1890], Zsa Zsa curtsied and bonded with her at once. She was usually referred to as “Marie,” the French version of her name. Her paternal grandparents had been Alexander II of Russia and Maria Alexandrovna.

Until they were interrupted, Zsa Zsa and the Grand Duchess had a spirited chat.

“You’re the first person I’ve met in Hollywood who speaks my language,” Marie said. “The world I come from is so different from that of your typical Hollywood movie star.”

Stravinsky emerged from the crowd once again and tapped Zsa Zsa on the shoulder. Since Marie wanted to continue talking to Zsa Zsa, she invited her to be her guest at lunch the following day.

When Zsa Zsa turned around, Stravinsky introduced her to Arthur Rubinstein, one of the great pianists of the 20th Century.

“Leave it to Igor to gravitate to the most beautiful woman in the room,” Rubinstein said, taking her hand. “Go away now, Igor, and let me have a chance at this divine creature, the Rose of Hungary.”

Familiar with Rubinstein’s background, she was aware that he was a Polish Jew. In both German and French, they spoke with outrage about “the simultaneous rape of Poland” by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

“I’m giving America a second chance to appreciate my genius,” he said. “When I first toured America in 1906, I was not well received. I returned to Berlin destitute and desperate, with creditors pounding on my door. I even considered hanging myself in my room.”

“Hopefully, America will open its arms to you faster than it did for me. I’m in Hollywood getting work providing piano soundtracks for films. I assume you’re here to become an actress.”

“My sister, Eva, perhaps, but I have not made up my mind. I was attached to the most powerful man in Turkey, and I found that exciting. I’d like to find a powerful man in America and get him to marry me. I could be the power behind the throne, the way I was in Turkey. I know this is not a noble ambition, but it’s the truth.”

“It is so hard to determine what is truth,” he said. “My critics say I divide my time among wine, women, and song. That is such a gross lie. I devote ninety percent of my life to women. I am already under your magic spell.”

Months later, Zsa Zsa revealed that soon after she’d met him, Rubinstein propositioned her. However, she claimed that she rejected “his indecent proposals. I hadarrived with Douglas and I was determined to go home with him, or at least to his home, providing his wife wasn’t there. I feared Rubinstein would play Chopin to me all night instead of making our own music together.”

[Arthur Rubinstein contined to pursue women almost until his death in 1982. As late as 1977, at the age of ninety, he left his wife, Nela Mlynarska, a Polish ballerina, to go off with young Annabelle Whitestone, though he never got a divorce.

During the heyday of their marriage, “Nela and Arthur” became celebrated for their parties which, in time, became legendary. Zsa Zsa was the guest of honor at several of them. At the last party she attended, the great artist told her, “My offer of bedtime still stands.”

She kept turning him down, although proclaiming, “If he made love like he played the piano, it would be a symphony.”

He told her, “When you finally consent to become my mistress, and I know you will, you will find that my love-making, like music, blooms anew each time. The act is always the same, but each time it’s different.”

“Had I given in to him, he promised me that during the act, he’d play his 1910 recording of Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 10,” Zsa Zsa said.]

Rubinstein introduced her to Jascha Heifetz, who was widely regarded as the most influential violinist of the 20th Century. He was at the Rathbone party, with his wife, Florence Vidor, the silent screen actress and ex-wife of director King Vidor.

Zsa Zsa admired Heifetz’s talent. Although he was polite and talkative to her, he treated his wife rather rudely whenever she attempted to say something. Even his friends claimed he was “misanthropic.”

Zsa Zsa told him of her arduous journey to reach America. He shared a similar experience, having left Russia in 1917 and traveling by rail to the Far East and thence by ship to the United States.

Heifetz wished her good fortune in her future career, whatever that was. He also whispered to her one of his secrets. “America is teaching me to be more commercial. Not so highbrow. I’d hiding behind a nom de plume while writing this song. It’s called ‘When You Make Love to Me, Don’t Make Believe.’ I think I’ll ask Bing Crosby to record it.”

[The song, sung by Crosby, became a big hit during World War II.]

Heifetz asked Zsa Zsa if she were going to petition to become an American citizen, and she said that she was planning to do that. “I became an American in 1925,” he said. “The Soviets have attacked me for being a traitor to my home country. Perhaps Hungary will call you a defector, too.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “Although I love Hungary dearly, it is simply too small a country to contain a woman of my large ambitions. Only America is big enough for me.”

Douglassearched forher once again whenthe band began to play a Viennese waltz. In the middle of the dance, Laurence Olivier cut in. she found it thrilling to be dancing in thearms of Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights. He was just as smooth and graceful on the dance floor as Douglas.

At the end of the dance, he invited her over to meet Vivien Leigh. She found them a dazzling couple but rather eccentric.

Olivier told her that he and Vivien were planning to leave Hollywood and return to wartime England. “I don’t feel right staying here enjoying the debaucheries of Hollywood while London is being blitzed. If I stayed on, I think I’d be cast as a second lead, dancing aroundthe likes of Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth. I’d probably end up as a footnote in Hollywood history alongside Victor Mature and John Payne.”

[In the years to come, Zsa Zsa would frequently encounter Olivier. She once described him as “a dark, romantic hero, but a hero with a tragic flaw. He evoked a neurotic character in a Gothic novel. In many ways, he was the British version of my Turkish husband, Burhan Belge. Both men were isolated heroes in their own minds, wounded princes looking for a king whodid not exist. When I first met the Oliviers, they hadonly recently been married, butrumor had it that both of them still played the field. I soon learned that Larry was a bisexual going from the bed of a man (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) to a woman (Greer Garson.) As for Scarlett O’Hara, she was a great beauty, but certifiably insane.”]

At the Rathbone party, Zsa Zsa huddled briefly with Olivier and Vivien. “Before Larry and I leave Hollywood, we’d like to have you to our house for an adieu.” Vivien said. “We can even play my favorite parlor game. It’s called ‘Ways to Kill a Baby.’”

“What a bizarre name for a parlor game!,” Zsa Zsa said. “Surely you don’t mean that literally.”

“I do, indeed,” Vivien said. “The players have to concoct unusual and inventive methods of slaughtering infants. The winner is the one who comes up with the most gruesome form of infanticide.”

“I fear I would lose such a game,” Zsa Zsa said. “I adore babies, though not my own.”

At that point, another dashing, debonair Englishman appeared before Zsa Zsa. He was David Niven, a friend of the Oliviers. Hehad co-starred with Olivier in Wuthering Heights.

After kissing both the Oliviers on the lips, he asked Zsa Zsa if he could have the last dance. Searching the room for Douglas, she did not see him and therefore accepted Niven’s offer.

As the actor whirled her around the dance floor, he asked her to go to dinner the following night. “I’m not in town for very long, and I desperately need the company of one of the world’s most beautiful women.”

With many apologies, she turned him down, having already accepted an invitation from Cole Porter and Cary Grant.

“But I have a divine idea,” she said. “My sister, Eva, is free, and she’s even more beautiful than I am.”

“If that be true, then I’d be delighted,” he told her.

“Of course, she’s still married, but it’s all over.”

“I’m married too,” he said, “but in wartime, all those silly littlerules about fidelity are no longer in effect.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” she said. “My loss will be Eva’s gain.”

“Let’s make a date to begin a torrid affair when we blow Hitler into bloody bits.”

After the dance, Douglas finally located her. She’d accepted his invitation for a “nightcap” at someone’s guest cottage nearby. He avoided mentioning the owner of the Bel Air mansion on whose estate they would be temporarily (and anonymously) visiting.

As she was choreographing her exit from the Rathbone party, its host kissed her on the mouth. “You’re enchanting.”

His wife, Ouida, standing beside him, had a final word for Zsa Zsa: “With your beauty, you couldstorm a fortress and conquer it. My dear, you must come to all my future parties.”

***

In the luxuriously furnished cottage, Zsa Zsa began to relax with Douglas. He put her at ease, and she was pleased that he wanted to talk to her before rushing her into bed.

“My greatest thrill tonight was when the dancers moved back and let us take over the floor,” she said. “You: Hollywood royalty; me:a poor Hungarian refugee.”

“Don’t give me that crap. I think in a year—maybe two—you’ll own this town or marry someone who does. You’re slated for a life of elegance and luxury. You’re glamour personified. You have a warm and irrepressible personal style. And I want to be the first.”

“The first what?” she asked. “I’m no virgin.”

“The first Hollywood actor to seduce you,” he said.

“You will definitely have that prize.” She hesitated before adding, “But remember one thing, dahlink: I have just arrived in Hollywood and I’ll be dining with Cary Grant tomorrow night.”

“Don’t get your hopes up with that limey,” he said. “He’s been chasing after me ever since he first hit Hollywood.”

Zsa Zsa went on to confess that his friend, David Niven, had also invited her to dinner and that she was sending her younger sister, Eva, in her place because she had another commitment.

“I must warn you,” he said. “Niv is happily married but still highly susceptible to a beautiful woman,” he said. “A few months ago from London, he sent me an eight-page letter, describing in hilarious details an uninhibited amorous adventure he had experienced in the back seat of a car onenight. It happened when the city was blacked out during a heavy bombing raid from Göring’s Luftwaffe. Niv left nothing out. Every detail of every moment of their mutual lechery was carefully detailed.”

“That’s just what Eva needs after a marriage that has gone stale,” Zsa Zsa said.

She went on to tell him that his father, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., had been her mother’s favorite actor. “She never missed one of his movies.”

“I’ve always been plagued by comparisons to my father,” he said. “He never wanted me to call him Father or Dad, but demanded that I call him ‘Pete.’ I don’t know where he came up with thatname. Later, hetold me he regretted naming me Junior, resenting sharing his name with me. He also said he wished he’d named me something like Ralph, John, or Henry. He said there was room for only one swashbuckler in the family—and that was it. For years, I turned down big money by refusing to play swashbuckler roles.”

“When I did break into the movies, Elinor Glyn, the gossip journalist who created the term ‘It’ for sex appeal,with the understanding that ‘It’ was vital for the success of any movie star, told me I didn’t have any.”

“I’ll be leaving Hollywood very soon,” he told her. “President Roosevelt has appointed me as aspecial diplomatic envoy to South America. But when war comes to America, I plan to seek a commission as a reserve officer in the U.S. Navy. My dream is to be assigned to Lord Louis Mountbatten’s Commando Staff in England.”

“My time in England was too brief,” she said. “But I adored it and its people.”

“Joan Crawford–I called her Billie—and I went on a delayed honeymoon to England. We were entertained by Noël Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Bea Lillie, and Prince George, the Duke of Kent. It was a glorious time.”

“I think there’s a danger here, at least for an actress’s career in Hollywood,” she said. “Myrna Loy told me that she plans to abandon her career. Right now, she’s at her peak. But what will she be five or six years from now, if the war drags on that long?”

“What went over big with audiences in 1939 could be passé in 1945 or 1946, whenever the war ends. Myrna might appear like a grandmother to the young boys returning home after the war. They’ll obviously prefer someone much younger.”

“That’s a very valid career concern. Niv is also aware of the danger of his running off and signing up. Other foreign-born actors like Cary Grant and Errol Flynn told me they have no intention of joining the service, and plan to stay in Hollywood and make movies.”

Finally, as the champagne bottle got emptied, he gave her a long, lingering look. “I was just wondering,” he said, “Do I get lucky tonight?”

“I thought you’d never ask. ButI have a certain fear. Joan Crawford and Marlene Dietrich are tough acts to follow.”

“They were both so different, Joan—or Billie—being more the sexual athlete. Marlene was more self-possessed.”

“I fall somewhere in between those categories,” she said.

Fairbanks guided her with his usual grace from the sofa to the bedroom.

She didn’t arrive back at Eva’s apartment until six o’clock the following morning.

“Some party!” Eva said.

Zsa Zsa had almost nothing to say and talked instead about Eva’s upcoming date with Niven.

***

Zsa Zsa’s luncheon with the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia would mark her life-long fascination with royals-in-exile. Although before coming to America, she had known two kings, Zog of Albania and Farouk of Egypt,the Grand Duchess would mark a milestone in her courting of royal exiles, particularly those who had fled to America.

At their noonday meeting, Marie had advised her “to marry a title,” maintaining that a mere movie star had little social standing. It would take Zsa Zsa almost a lifetime before she got around to following the advice of the Grand Duchess.

[Throughout the rest of her life, in the United States, England, and France, she actively pursued men and women with titles, some largely pretend at that point. George Sanders called her a “monarchist who always hoped that Prince Philip would divorce Queen Elizabeth and marry her.”

Zsa Zsa’s continuing fascination with royalty was revealed on the opening page of her first memoir, My Story, co-authored with Gerold Frank and first published in 1960. Theopening scene shows her installed at the Plaza Hotel in New York, preparing to fly to Rome for the filming of her seventeenth movie in just eight years. She is writing farewell letters. “One, to the Duke of Marlborough, in Palm Beach to regret that I can’t dine with him when he arrives in New York two days from now; another to Prince Parenti, in Capri, to say I will be delighted to attend his party next week;the third to ex-King Farouk, in Monte Carlo, to thank him belatedly for his birthday greeting; and the fourth, to Sir Percy Loraine, in London, who has been my father confessor for twenty years.”]

Her luncheon with the Grand Duchess lasted for more than three hours, as these homesick exiles talked lovingly of their homelands. Marie consumed an extraordinary amount of vodka and told Zsa Zsa an amazing story she’d never forget:

“It was obvious that the love of her life had been her brother, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavolvich of Russia. Their mother, Alexandra Georgievna of Greece, had died giving birth to Dmitri.”

“I grew up with Dmitri and spent twenty-four hours a day with him,” Marie said. “We did not speak Russian for years, as all governesses spoke English. I loved him dearly. He was the light of my life. Sometimes, we would spend hours in each other’s arms, hugging and kissing.”

“My greatest disappointment came on December 17, 1916, when I learned that Dmitri had participated in the murder of Grigori Rasputin. I begged Emperor Nicholas to reverse his decision to send Dmitri to the Persian front. But the Czar refused. In a way, it was fortunate. Because of his being stationed far from Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Dmitri escaped murder by the Bolsheviks in 1919.”

“I fled from Russia and reunited with dear, dear Dmitri in London. We financed our lives with the jewelry I had smuggled to Sweden before my flight from Moscow. Later, we moved to Paris, where I opened a sewing and textile shop.”

After that luncheon, Zsa Zsa claimed she’d made a new friend in the Grand Duchess. She truly liked Marie, and they made plans for a later rendezvous. “There’s some big gala being planned in my honor, and I want you to come as my guest. We’ll be in touch, my dear.”

Before saying goodbye, Zsa Zsa made a rash prediction. Perhaps she’d had too much wine at lunch. “I think Stalin and his men will not be able to control Russians after the war. They may rise up and revolt and demand a return to the monarchy. For all I know, you’ll be summoned back as the Czarina of Russia. A 20th century version of Catherine the Great.”

“Just because we’re in this dream factory called Hollywood, let’s not let our imaginations run wild. But if that happens, I’ll make you my first lady-in-waiting.”

“Like Queen Catherine’s lady-in-waiting, or so I read, that means I’ll have to audition all your suitors before they go to bed with you, so you won’t end up with a man who’s a waste of your time.”

“You understand your future duties so very well,” the Grand Duchess responded.

***

That evening, Cole Porter and Cary Grant escorted Zsa Zsa to Romanoff’s Restaurant. There, Grant introduced Zsa Zsa to “Prince” Michael Romanoff, who ran this Beverly Hills restaurant which was popular with movie stars in the 1940s, most famously so with its nightly patron, Humphrey Bogart.

Treating Zsa Zsa like royalty, Romanoff bowed before her and welcomed her, saying, “Iwas born Prince Michael Dimitri Alexanderovich Obolensky-Romanoff, nephew of Czar Nicholas II.”

After he’d left, Grant, at table, told her, “He just pretends to be a royal prince. Actually, he was a former pants presser in Brooklyn.”

“Everybody in town knows Mike isn’t a real prince,” Porter said. “But it hardly matters. Hollywood is peopled by pretenders.”

She thanked Porter for supplying her with tickets to Panama Hattie on Broadway “And my escort, that Baron de Rédé! What a man!”

“I saw the show, too,” Grant said. “I loved it. In fact, I’m still humming my favorite tune, ‘Let’s Be Buddies.’” He turned and gave Porter a knowing smile. “I’m sure I inspired the lyrics to that one. Cole and I go way back. Oh, those wild nights at Cerutti’s in Manhattan.”

[Back in the 1930s, Cerutti’s was one of the most popular gay bars in Manhattan, even though such bars were technically illegal at the time. Cerutti’s was the favorite watering hole not only of Cole Porter and Cary Grant, but also of “Black Jack” Bouvier, the father of First Lady Jackie Kennedy.]

“This divine creature was known as Archibald Leach back then in the days when I could walk.” Porter looked suggestively at Grant. “And do other things.”

She suddenly realized that they had once been lovers.

“The show’s a big hit, no thanks to John O’Hara,” Porter said.

“I don’t know him,” she said.

“He calls himself an author. But he’s a shit-kicker. He mocked the sentimentality of my show and attacked my songs, not only ‘Let’s Be Buddies,’but ‘My Mother Would Love You.’ He claims that my decline as a songwriter began with my riding accident.”

“Dahlink,” she said. “Take comfort in the fact that you’re the King of the Box Office. Success, is, after all, its own reward.”

“At least two studios are talking about making a movie based on my life,” Porter said. “I told them that I’ll refuse unless Cary is cast as me.”

“Your true story could never be told on the screen,” Grantsaid.

“Neither could yours, you darling man,” Porter said. “If you can’t print the legend, then hawk the fiction, I always say.”

[As improbable as it seems, the so-called life story of Cole Porter finally reached the screen at war’s end by 1946. Honoring the composer’s request, it starred Cary Grant, and it contained absolutely no references to homosexuality.

The female roles went to Alexis Smith (a lesbian), Jane Wyman (Ronald Reagan’s straight wife), Eve Arden (a sometimes lesbian), and Mary Martin (a lesbian).

Director Michael Curtiz later complained, “I made the movie with this homo, Cary Grant, and a cast of dykes.”

Within the movie, Curtiz pointedlyincluded Porter’s musical number, “You’re the Top,” knowing that gay audiences would immediately recognize its double meaning.]

Porter informedher that a movie version of Panama Hattie with Red Skelton and Ann Sothern would soon be released. “But from what I’ve seen, I’m not pleased.”

“It’s being released by MGM,” Porter said. “I expect to do better at Columbia with a picture called You’ll Never Get Rich, starring Fred Astaire and that lovely redhead, Rita Hayworth. Harry Cohn rules the roost at Columbia. He’s known for taking advantage of beautiful women who work for him.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Zsa Zsa said. “Perhaps I should goand surrender my body to him.”

“I tried that,” Porter said. “I told him I would put up no resistance if he seduced me. He didn’t like that. To punish me, he forced me to try out my songs on his staff—you know, telephone operators, secretaries, janitors. All of them loved my numbers, especially ‘Since I Kissed My Baby Goodbye.’”

[Porter’s optimism about “You’ll Never Get Rich” faded afterthe movie’s release. Later, he conceded that it was “A bad score and an even worse picture. But Rita never looked lovelier.”]

Grant thanked Zsa Zsa for putting Porter in a better mood. “He’s been depressed and irritable. I try to avoid his company, but got trapped into tonight.”

“I’m in pain,” Porter said. “I think I have to have surgery again on my left leg for the removal of bone growths.”

“I’m so very sorry,” she said. “I wish you the best.”

Grant had an impish look on his face. “Ask Cole about his sex life. That topic always sparks him.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” she said. “He might ask me about mine.”

[Years later, author Truman Capote recalled, “Cole liked to describe his sex life in great detail. It excited him to talk about it.”]

At Romanoff’s, Porter told Zsa Zsa that he resented his critics calling him a practicing homosexual. “That is a vicious lie. I’d say I’m perfect—not practicing.”

“These days, I’m more of a voyeur than anything,” he confided. “Except for Cary here and a few other white boys, I’m fond of black flesh. In New York, I visit this house of male prostitution in Harlem. It’s staffed by good-looking, well-endowed Negroes. I sit in an adjoining room and watch the action in the next room through a peephole. Perhaps when you’re in New York, you’ll join me some night. I’ll take you to Harlem.”

“It would be my pleasure,” she said. “I have never seen a black man nude, much less having sex.”

“Unlike me, Cary here is trying to go straight again,” Porter said. “He’s given up Randolph Scott and plans to marry Barbara Hutton. The press calls them ‘The Odd Couple’ and ‘Cash and Cary’”

“I first met Barbara in 1939 sailing on the Normandie,” Grant said. “Wekept encountering each other in London, Paris, New York, and Palm Beach. One night at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco, our relationship became a little more serious. But Hedda and Louella don’t give our upcoming marriage a chance.”

“Dahlink, my dream involves marrying a rich man,” she said. “I believe the sexes should be treated equally. There’s nothing wrong with the reverse: A poor man marrying a rich woman.”

“I’m not exactly a pauper,” Grant said. “I’m now making $300,000 a picture. But there’s a downside. The bloody reports have made Barbara and me the two most famous people on Earth except for Hitler and Mussolini. The other night, the only way I could escape from the press rats involved taking Barbara by boat to Catalina Island. There, in the Casino,Tommy Dorsey’s orchestra was playing, and he had this skinny Italian singer who looks twelve years old, a guy by the name of Frank Sinatra. Barbara thought he was ‘a greaseball blessed with a beautiful voice.’”

Before the dinner ended, Zsa Zsa felt outclassed. Grant and Porter were famous men doing important things, and she had little to contribute to the conversation. She had not yet developed the persona for which she’d eventually be famous—the one which seemed to transcend any accomplishment she might have made, and which could talk to any person from any walk of life—movie star, king, dictator, playboy, U.S. president—on somewhat equal footing by the sheer force of her effervescent personality.

Before the end of their dinner together, she accepted Grant’s invitation to a Sunday night dinner at Buster Keaton’s mansion, behind the Beverly Hills Hotel.

“Barbara rented it for the season,” Grant said. “Keaton told me he had to take a lot of pratfalls to pay for the dump. I’m choosing Sunday because Barbara’s staff is off that night. My guests do their own cooking and washing dishes. I hope you know how to cook.”

“I make the most divine goulash,” she said.

“I spoke to David Niven today,” Grant said. He’s bringing your sister, Eva.”

“I hope she doesn’t upstage me,” she said. “She’s trying to break into the movies.”

“Forget about her for the moment,” Grant said. “What can we do to help you break into the movies?”

“I must warn you: I can’t dance, I can’t sing, and I can’t act,” she said.

“In that case, you’re destined to become a big star in Hollywood,” Porter quipped.

“I’m not even sure if I want to become an actress,”she said. “It seems so much easier to marry into wealth. I could seemyself reigning over Hollywood as a divine hostess. Of course, I’d have to dethrone that adorable Ouida Rathbone.”

“In that case, I can help you right away,” Grant said. “I’ll ask Greg Bautzer to take you to the Sunday night bash. He’s the richest attorney in Beverly Hills, and is an aficionado of beautiful women. He’s also better looking than any movie star out here. Not only that, but from what I saw in the locker room at this golf course, he hangs all the way down to Honolulu.”

“My kind of man,” she said. “Dahlink, please call this divine creature and summon him from Mount Olympus to my boudoir. Tonight.”

***

The sudden appearance of David Niven in Hollywood on the eve of America’s entry into World War II remains something of a mystery. He’d been the first of the British actors in Hollywood to volunteer his services to his native England when that country declared war on Nazi Germany.

In 1940, he’d become a British army lieutenant stationed in the south of England. To Laurence Olivier and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., he had written that during one of his leaves in London, he’d found himself “a tall, Danish blonde model who is an enthusiastic nymphomaniac.”

In his autobiography, The Moon’s a Balloon, he claimed that he took only four weeks off to film a propaganda movie, The First of the Few. But his military records reveal that he was “released for civil employment” for a period of five months in 1941.

It was during this leave that he showed up in Hollywood. His presence there became known to several A-list party-goers, including Laurence Olivier, Douglas Fairbanks, Zsa Zsa, and Eva, who dated him.

Niven was always a bit reluctant to discuss what he did during the war. He was rumored to have participated in espionage for producer Alexander Korda, who functioned as Britain’s chief spy within the United States. Niven had made a number of propaganda broadcasts for England.

During the months Niven returned to Hollywood, the United States was still officially neutral. “The town was crawling with both German and British agents,” he later said. Korda had been instructed by British Intelligence to avoid the scrutiny of both the F.B.I. and the U.S. Senate. Technically, because of America’s neutrality, a British agent could have been arrested for spying.

Apparently, Niven provided assistance and performed servicesfor Britain’s Special Operations Executive (also known as the S.O.E., or “Churchill’s Secret Army,”). His exact duties and accomplishments within its ranks have been lost to history.

Eva knew none of that when Niven escorted her to Cary Grant’s party within the rented estate of Buster Keaton. She’d done everything she could to learn about his private life. She knew that he was married at the timeto Primrose (“Primmie”) Rollo, the aristocratic daughter of a British barrister, but that didn’t seem to matter.

Actually, Niven had seduced Barbara Hutton before Grant did, and he’d bedded an even richer woman, too: Tobacco heiress Doris Duke. A Hollywood Lothario, he’d also seduced Norma Shearer, Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard, Merle Oberon, Ginger Rogers, Alice Faye, Hedy Lamarr, and Paulette Goddard. He’d even seduced Mae West. In his future loomed Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, and Loretta Young.

Eva had heard stories that Niven and priapic Errol Flynn used to stage weekend orgies aboard his notorious yacht, Sirocco, during its cruises to and around Catalina Island.

Shefound Niven the most articulate and sophisticated actor in Hollywood. He wasn’t as handsome as her husband, Erik Drimmer, but Niven had his own style of male flash and charm.

He told her, “Hollywood is hardly a place for intellectuals. It’s a hotbed of false values, harboring an unattractive percentage of small-time crooks and con artists.”

She knew before the end of the evening that he’d take her somewhere and seduce her. She’d already shared that anticipation with Zsa Zsa. Her older sister had warned her, “Doanything to move out of the orbit of that husband of yours. Him and his damn massages.”

At Grant’s Sunday night cook-out, Barbara Hutton did not come down from her boudoir to attend the A-list party at which she was the hostess. She stayed in her room all night.

After welcomingNiven and Eva, Grant told them they could locate Zsa Zsa in the estate’s (very large) kitchen.

There, Eva found her with an aproncovering her gown, making enough goulash to feed a battalion. Eva was introduced to her sister’s handsome date, attorney Greg Bautzer, who was showing actress Jean Arthur how to mix martinis.

Eva turned to Niven. “I didn’t come to this star-studded party to spend all night slaving in the kitchen. Let’s work the room.”

Within the enormous living room, Niven seemed to know virtually everyone. Rushing to some emergency in the kitchen, Grant quickly told Eva, “You’re better looking than Zsa Zsa. But I’d better be careful: When I told Joan Fontaine that she was better looking than her sister, Olivia de Havilland, that nearly got me blacklisted in Hollywood.”

Holding court in a corner, Louis B. Mayer was surrounded by an entourage, mostly actors who wanted to be cast in MGM pictures. Most often called simply “L.B.,” he was credited with having created the star system.

Niven whispered to Eva, “Don’t be nervous around him. Before heading MGM, he was in the scrap metal business in Brooklyn.”

When they eventually worked their way to Mayer, where Niven introduced her, he said, “You’re very pretty. I’ve heard of you. Are you surprised? I know everything going on in this town, businessbig and small. Paramount has you under contract, hoping you’ll become the next Madeleine Carroll.”

“My contract’s almost up,” she said. “Paramount isn’t going to renew.

“Perhaps Metro might consider you,” he said.

“I’ll call first thing Monday morning,” she said, sounding too eager.

“Don’t do that,” he said. “I have to think about it. If I decide we want you, I’ll call you.”

Later, Niven introduced her to Constance Moore and her husband, Johnny Maschio, who at the time was arguably the hottest agent in Hollywood. Hisclients included Fred Astaire, Claudette Colbert, Henry Fonda, William Holden, Lana Turner, and John Wayne.

Eva had never heard of the couple. Iowa-born Moore, who was both a singer and an actress, was a minor star, having appeared in a Buck Roger’s serial and also with W.C. Fields in You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man (1939). She would become better known in wartime musicals.

Maschio seemed fascinated by Eva’s look. She didn’t know if his interest was sexual or professional. He implied thathe might find another niche for her in the aftermath of the loss of her Paramount contract.

“I used to represent Jean Harlow, bless her soul,” he said. “I might introduce you to Howard Hughes. He’s been searching for years for a replacement for Jean, and your hair is already dyed platinum.”

“I saw Hughes’ Hell’s Angels in Budapest,” she said. “I thought Harlow was stunning.”

“If you’re willing, I’ll arrange a meeting beween you and Howard,” he said.

“That would be thrilling,” she answered.

He reached into his coat pocket and removed a small red book. “What’s your phone number?”

After that, as she glided across the room with Niven, she told him, “Dahlink, you may have already helped my career.”

“Okay, but when you meet with Hughes, don’t wear panties.”

“What on earth do you mean?” she asked.

“You’ll just have to take them off,” he said.

Suddenly, a man appeared before them and kissed Niven on the lips. “Eva, this is Charles Greville, the 7thEarl of Warwick.”

He kissed her hand. “Let’s step out on the terrace.” He turned to Niven. “I just heard you’d slipped into Hollywood and you haven’t even called me yet.”

On the moonlit terrace, she was somewhat shocked to learn that the Earl of Warwick wanted to become an actor. Under the stage name of Michael Brooke, he’d appeared in Dawn Patrol with Niven and his best friend, Errol Flynn.

She found it hard following their conversation since it was too personal, but the Earl kept glancing at her, seemingly admiring her beauty.

After half an hour, heasked her to accompany him to a gala receptiona few days later. “Louis B. Mayer is throwing it for me and I need a date.” He turned to Niven. “Of course, I don’t want to move in on your turf, ol’ boy, David, but Errol Flynnand I believe in sharing.”

“She’s all yours,” Niven said. “Besides, I’ll be leaving in two days, taking that long, turbulent trip back to England and dodging—I hope—Nazi U-boats.”

After the party, Niven, in someone’s borrowed car, did not take Eva home, but drove her to a dimly lit residence in a neighborhood of Los Angeles that was unfamiliar to her.

Without telling her whose house it was, he invited her inside. He had his own key, although the house obviously wasn’t his.

In its living room, she spotted a perfectly tanned and “absolutely gorgeous” [her words] Errol Flynn. “It was Captain Blood and Robin Hood in one marvelous package,” she recalled later to Susan Hayward.

To her, as a devoted movie fan, he was the Knave of Hearts, the Hollywood Swashbuckler, and, according to press reports about his private life, the greatest rogue of them all. She’d heard rumors that he had prematurely aged because of all the booze, drugs, and debaucheries, but he was one of the most handsome men she’d ever met. Not only that, he was charming and suave and spoke with a slight British-Australian accent.

As he stood up and looked down at her shorter frame, she was dazzled by his eyes, just as he seemed mesmerized by her stunning beauty. “His eyes were a beautiful brown flecked with gold,” she said. “They twinkled as he spoke.” Taking her hand, he smiled at her, revealing his pearly white teeth. He bowed slightly and kissed her hand, and seemed reluctant to return it to her.

“Do my eyes deceive me?” he asked. “Or am I staring at thenew Hungarian version of Lana Turner? Niv told me he was bringing you home tonight.”

“For the first time in my life, I’m at a loss for words,” she said. “How could I, an unknown daughter of a Hussar, find myself in Hollywood with its two most devastatingly charming men? Perhaps this is all a dream.”

“Let’s have a drink and return toreality,” Niven said. “My hours in Hollywood are numbered, and I want to take advantage. “

“As always, Niv, my home is yours to do with as you wish,” Flynn said.

“That’s what I love about Errol,” Niven said. “When we lived together, there were no boundaries, no rules. Love was made to be shared.”

“I fear that even in Budapest, we’re not that sophisticated,” she said.

Over champagne, Niven told Eva, “When I first met Errol, I thought he was rebellious, randy, and a bit too arrogant and aggressive for my taste. But we found we had a mutual interest in booze, mischief, and women, and we became soulmates and fuck buddies.”

Niven had first met Flynn at the hotel, Garden of Alla, named for its original owner, actress Alla Nazimova. “He was dating Lili Damita, the actress. Lili and I were sharing Marlene Dietrich at the time.”

Nivenlater described Flynn as “a great athlete of immense charm and evident physical beauty, crowing lustily atop the Hollywood dung-heap.”

“When we first met,” Flynn said, “Niv and I sniffed each other like twodogs, each thinking the other was a fag,”

“We got to know each other better when we worked together when I was given a part in one of Errol’s movies, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936),” Niven said. “It was directed by Michael Curtiz, who hails, of course, from your home town of Budapest.You should have been hired as a translatoron the set. Errol and Curtiz fought all the time. After one dispute, Errol told Herr Director, that he was ‘as thick as a pig-shit bowl of goulash.’ Curtiz shot back, ‘You lousy faggot bum, you think I know nothing! Well, let me tell you something, I know fuck all!’”

Niv and I moved in together at this house on North Linden Drive, just off Sunset Boulevard,” Flynn said. “A black-and-white faux Tudor place that became the rowdiest address in Hollywood—marijuana, orgies, and hot and cold running babes.”

“Errol was generous in sharing the pretty girls, but tight with the purse strings,” Niven said. “I had to pay for all the booze and groceries.”

“But I was adorable, was I not?” Flynn asked.

“At least you knew where you stood with him,” Niven said. “He was always dependable—He let you down every time. Actually he was a bloody shit, but you must overlook the faults ofyour dearest buddy. Guys like Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy didn’t let stardom go to their heads. But Errol always let fame go to his head.”

“Yet I’m always great fun. Admit it,” Flynn said.

That you are, my dear, prince of a man,” Niven said. “Except you have some bizarre habits. Errol is always interested in the size of other men’s penises. He believes in taking measurements and comparing them with his own. One night I was in his bed, pounding Carole Lombard. He rushes into the bedroom and pulls me off her when I’m my most impressive. Right away, he measures me.”

“As you gathered, life with me is never a bore,” said Flynn.

[Marlene Dietrich told biographer David Brett that Carole Lombard was a frequent visitor when Niven and Flynn lived together. “Carole was a very good friend of mine who spent much of her time with these twilight boys,” Dietrich said. “One morning when I went over to Flynn’s house, I found him in bed with David Niven. They maintained that theywere not gay in the conventional sense, but just fooling around for fun. None of us thought that was such a big deal, though. Lots of actors slept with each other if there were no women around.”]

After the three of them (Flynn, Niven, and Eva) had finished off a bottle of champagne, Flynn offered to open another. But Niven stood up and took Eva’s hand. “My dear friend, we must retreat to your boudoir,” he said to Flynn.

Flynn kissed Eva good night on the lips.

Niven took her hand andled her to the master bedroom, thescene of countless seductions and orgies. “Come, dear girl,” he said. “It is time to reveal to you why Merle Oberon fell madly in love with me and wouldn’t leave me alone.”

Unknown to Eva at the time, Flynn was watching all the action through a one-way mirror.

***

Eva didn’t return home until around eleven o’clock the following morning. Zsa Zsa was there, but Drimmer had left for work. Zsa Zsa was eager to know what had happened. “Did you and Niven do the dirty deed?”

For reasons of her own, Eva decided not to tell Zsa Zsa what had transpired that morning after Niven had departed for his flight to New York.

She would later share those lurid details with Susan Hayward.

“Well, tell me,” Zsa Zsa demanded. “What was Niven like in bed.”

“Have you ever been fucked by a beer can?” Eva asked. “You must try it sometime.”

***

ZSA ZSA

Zsa Zsa’s experiences at Cary Grant’s Sunday night party were completely different from those relayed by Eva. She had been accompanied by “the most dashing lawyer on the planet,” as he was called: Greg Bautzer. She had “poached” him from Joan Crawford, who had in turn stolen him from a teenaged Lana Turner.

Zsa Zsa later recalled, “Every big name actress in Hollywood except for Katharine Hepburn wanted Greg, and many of them—including Ingrid Bergman and Ginger Rogers—were also his clients.He also represented men such as Howard Hughes. He was once engaged to that sarong girl, Dorothy Lamour.”

Appearing on her doorstep, Greg Bautzer, in Zsa Zsa’s words as she later recalled,was “just too dreamy to be true. He was perfect-looking—his handsome face, his courtly manner, those Chiclet white teeth, that physique, that cultured voice. Surely after midnight, he stalked Hollywood as a serial killer. I have learned that any man who looks perfect really isn’t.”

“When he arrived at our little apartment, I’d already heard that he had been seen at a premiere with Joan Crawford the night before,” Zsa Zsa said. “I was worried that that oversexed bitch had worn him out, but he seemed as fresh as the Edelweiss in spring. I practically swooned like a schoolgirl at the sight of him. It wasn’t just his looks, but his magnetic personality.”

“If I had been on a jury and he was defending a murderess who’d been caught red-handed with the bloody axe, I would have found the defendant not guilty. I would have taken him to the minister right away, although I’d been warned that he was not the marrying kind.”

Although a pauper, Zsa Zsa also dazzled Bautzer, wearing a Chanel gown from a Paris fashion house, paid for by Burhan Belge. She wore what diamonds and rubies she’d rescued from Eastern Europe.

At the party, Bautzer introduced Zsa Zsa to Frank Rothman, whoThe National Law Journal once definedas “a legendary litigator” and which included him several times on its list of the 100 most influential attorneys in America. In the early 1950s, he would become one of the key attorneys in Bautzer’s law firm before resigning to run Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios.

“When Greg was dating all those Hollywood beauties, he was already on the way to becoming a Hollywood legend known for his sexual prowess,” Rothman later said. “He could even satisfy Joan Crawford, and very few Hollywood studs could do that.”

“Bautzerwas a triallawyer through and through,” Rothman said. “If a movie star happened to murder someone, she contacted Bautzer even before she called the police. Of course, his fast living and heavy drinking got him into trouble now and then. There were a few drunken driving charges.”

“Because of his looks, Bautzerwas often asked to sign a movie contract, but he turned down all film offers, although Louella Parsons suggested he was a combination of Clark Gable, Cary Grant, and Robert Taylor, with a touch of Errol Flynn and a dash of Tyrone Power for good measure.”

An hour later at the Buster Keaton estate, Zsa Zsa found herself wearing a pink apron with red valentines. She was instructing some of the other guests in the art of preparing a genuine Hungarian goulash.

Having been warned in advance that the guests had to do the cooking, and not knowing what she’d find inBarbara Hutton’s larder, she had brought along theingredients which were essential for the concoction of “Jolie’s Hungarian goulash.” They included Hungarian paprika she’d hauled all the way from Budapest, chicken fat she’d purchased at a Jewish deli, caraway seeds, and even gingersnaps. Regrettably, her cooking assistants were more skilled in front of a camera than in front of a stove—Mary Astor, Lucille Ball, Joan Bennett, and Claudette Colbert.

After dinner was served, Zsa Zsa was introduced to Louis B. Mayer, who told her he’d met her sister, Eva. “Obviously, beauty runs in your family. Your mother must have been the Bombshell of Budapest.”

“That and more,” Zsa Zsa said.

Bautzer discussed with Mayer what he considered a legal coup. He’d arranged for Joan Crawford, a single mother, to adopt a baby girl, whom she’d named Christina Crawford.

“Crawford willmake a lousy mother,” Mayer said.

“But I secured affidavits from Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, and Margaret Sullavan attesting to Joan’s wonderful motherly qualities.”

“As if those bed-hoppers would know a god damn thing about motherhood,” Mayer said.

After Mayer, more introductions followed, beginning with actress Rosalind Russell. Grant told her to try to watchthe screwball comedy—His Girl Friday (1940)—he’d previously made with Russell.

Before meeting Russell, Bautzer gave Zsa Zsa the inside scoop. The actress had just married the Danish American producer, Frederick Brisson, son of a famous actor, Carl Brisson. “Freddy and Grant had been lovers. Cary grew bored with Freddy and passed him along to Rosalind. It’s a lavender marriage.”

“I adore the color, but I’ve never heard it applied to a marriage,” Zsa Zsa said.

“That’s when a male homosexual marries a lesbian to cover up their true sexual preferences. Sometimes a homosexual will marry a straight woman who, shall we say, is ‘understanding.’Hollywood is filled with such arrangements. That guy Mayer, whom you just met, hates what he calls ‘faggots.’ Nothing can destroy a Hollywood career out here faster than being identified as a homosexual.”

Zsa Zsa enjoyed talking to Russell, who was pleased to have worked with Grant in My Girl Friday. “Before that, I was afraid I was being cast as a clothes horse, a sort of hothouse orchid in a stand of wildflowers. An impeccably dressed lady is always viewed with suspicion when she struts out onto the screen with beautiful clothes and charming manners. The audience immediately senses she’s in a position to do the hero no good.”

“But if I ever become a movie star, I’ll insist on being a clothes horse,” Zsa Zsa said. “To me, that’s what it’s all about.”

As Bautzer and Zsa Zsa worked the room, he spotted Dolores Del Rio. “Let me introduce you to her.”

“She’s stunning,” a jealous Zsa Zsa said.

Bautzer seemed to know all the sleeping arrangements of Hollywood stars. “In addition to countless men, she’s also been the lover of Greta Garbo. In fact, her beauty has been considered in a class with Garbo’s but when Dolores opens her mouth, she sounds more like Minnie Mouse.”

Del Rio had been hailed as “the female Rudolph Valentino” when she shot to international fame as a star of the Silent Screen. A cousin of former matinée heartthrob Ramón Novarro, she was called “The Princess of Mexico.” At the time she met Zsa Zsa, she was engaged in a torrid affair with her “toy boy,” Orson Welles, who told people, “She is the great love of my life.”

But Bautzer explained to Zsa Zsa that they weren’t appearing together in public as a couple.

At Grant’s Sunday night cook-out, Del Rio was accompanied by the German novelist Erich Maria Remarque, who had gained fame in America for his 1929 novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, which had been made into an anti-war movie starring a young Lew Ayres.

“With Orson unavailable, Marlene arranged for Erich, her lover, to escort Dolores, who is her dear friend,” Bautzer said. “I spoke to Marlene today. She was entertaining Edward G. Robinson at four this afternoon and George Raft after ten o’clock. All three of them have made a movie together called Manpower(1941).”

“Surely Dietrich doesn’t trust her man to a woman as glamorous as Del Rio,” Zsa Zsa said.

“That’s not the point. Of course, Marlene expects Erich and Dolores to fuck tonight. Welcome to Hollywood.”

Face to face with Del Rio, Zsa Zsa thought her skin looked like it had been dipped in porcelain.

“You must tell me the secret of your beauty,” Zsa Zsa said.

“I sleep sixteen hours a day and I appear only in moonlight, never in the harsh sun,” Del Rio answered. “My most ardent fans tell me I have better legs than Dietrich and better cheekbones than Garbo. You, too, are beautiful, my dear.”

“I imagine you’re on a special diet as well,” Zsa Zsa said. “I eat too much chicken fat myself.”

“At lunch, my maid serves me an orchid omeletand at night I consume a plate of perfect gardenias on a silver platter.”

“I’d better try that myself.”

Bautzer told Del Rio that Zsa Zsa wanted to break into the movies.

“Oh, señorita, you’ve arrived in Hollywood too late,” Del Rio said. “I’m sure you’ve read that I’m box office poison, and I’m in good company—Garbo, Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Mae West, and Katharine Hepburn. The traditional glamour of the 1930s is giving way to the dirty and exhausted look of Vivien Leigh fighting the Civil War. Also, the public is bored with the Latin temperament and all those exotic, two-dimensional parts I played. Real glamour is dead.”

“But I was planning to promote myself as a super-glamorous figure, the rival of Dietrich, who is not as young as she ought to be.”

“Forget it,” Del Rio said. “With the war coming up, Mayer thinks Hollywood will be promoting the girl-next-door type, the guys the servicemen will have to leave at home.”

“That cuts me out,” Zsa Zsa said. “I would look like the girl next door only if the neighboring address was the Palace of Versailles.”

Zsa Zsa envied her beauty, little knowing that in the years to come, Del Rio and Zsa Zsa would be sharing some of thesame men—Erich Maria Remarque, Porfirio Rubirosa, and—before the decade ended—Welles himself.

Suddenly, the famous German writer, Erich Maria Remarque, came into Zsa Zsa’s field of vision, as he returned with a drink for Del Rio. She introduced him to Zsa Zsa, and the author of All Quiet on the Western Front addressed her in German. She found him “devastatingly alluring.”

While Del Rio and Bautzer chatted, Remarque discussed Nazi Germany with her. She was aware that Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda minister, had publicly condemned and burned the novelist’s works.

“You may have Jewish blood in you,” he said. “Actually, I don’t. But Goebbels claims that I’m a descendant of French Jews and that my last name is Kramer. Goebbels also lied and said I did not see active service during World War I, and he revoked my German citizenship in 1938. Sometime in this decade, I plan to become an American citizen.”

Out of hearing distance of their escorts, he asked her if she would give him her telephone number. “I always need a beautiful woman on my arm when I arrive at a party. Marlene is often occupied, and your escort tonight, Greg, is the most overbooked stud in Hollywood. All the big name actresses want to date him.”

“As I’m well aware,” she said.

“I’m married,” Remarquesaid. “To an actress, Ilsa Jutta Zambona. We first married in 1925 and that was for love. I remarried her in 1939, not for love, but as a means of protecting her from being deported from Switzerland and repatriatedto Germany, where she’d have faced death from the Nazis. Even during our first marriage, we continued to see others.”

“All the best marriages allow that,” she said, being deliberately provocative. “I’d be honored to be seen on the arm of such a celebrated author.” Before coming to the party, she’d written her phone number on two dozen pink cards. She reached into her purse and handed him one.

“I can’t wait until our first rendezvous,” he said, smelling the card. “A perfumed card. How very alluring. Up to now, I always thought only Marlene did that.”

“I’ll wait for your call,” she said. “There’s an old Hungarian saying: There’s a time to love and a time to die. I’ve just arrived in Hollywood. This is my time to love.”

Ironically, the title (in English) of Remarque’s 1954 novel was A Time to Love and a Time to Die. Did Zsa Zsa provide the title for thatnovel more than a decade before he wrote it?

A fewhours later, Bautzer was added to Zsa Zsa’s lengthening list of lovers.

“Unlike many men, particularly some of those who play great lovers on the screen, Greg lived up to his reputation,” Zsa Zsa said. “He not only possessed the equipment, but had a finely honed technique. No surprise. He’d been practicing ever since he turned thirteen. I could easily fall in love with him, but I dared not. To love him would only invite heartache. He was one rooster who had to sample every hen in the barnyard.”

***

EVA

With Zsa Zsa’s help, Eva packed her possessions, especially the chic wardrobe she’d acquired in Budapest, in preparation for her move out of the apartment she shared with Drimmer. Zsa Zsa had found another small apartment within a ten-minute drive. It was barely large enough to contain their wardrobes, but they decided to move in anyway, since it was all they could afford.

Zsa Zsa had told Eva, “It’s amazing…We have almost no money, yet invitations are coming in from some of the biggest names on the coast. I’m so grateful we escaped from Europe with enough jewelry and clothing to look like rich sisters. Ethel Barrymore, for one, thinks I made off with the treasury of the Ottoman Empire. In Hollywood, appearances are everything. If peoplethink you’re rich, they invite you. Of course, being beautiful also helps.”

Eva’s final goodbye to her husband “was without passion, violence, or denunciations,” as she’d later tell Zsa Zsa and write toJolie. “We had no money and nothing to divide, so that was the easy part. The initial physical attraction had worn off after a few months. He was still as beautiful as ever, but Hollywood was filled with beautiful men, some of them rich. He agreed that I would file for divorce. He would not contest it. I suspected he’d fallen in love with another woman. Or perhaps he just wanted to play the field. Many women, I realized, desired him…even homosexuals because he was so handsome.”

Ashe was heading out the door for thefinal time, she asked him, “Would you like to kiss me goodbye?”

He turned and looked at her. Without hesitating, he said, “I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”

“And that was that,” she said. “In time, my divorces would become routine.”

“Knowing that her access to the tiny but emotionally charged apartment would soon be over, she was determined to have a final cup of coffee, and a final contemplative moment or two, in what had been her living room. As she sat in the otherwise stripped-downroom, sipping her coffee, she heard a knock on her door. Thinking Drimmer had returned, and as she had surrendered his key to the landlord, she answered. As she did, she encountered a very troubled Greta Garbo.

“Miss Garbo…” She didn’t know what to say to the great screen diva.

“Forgive the intrusion,” she said. “My name is Garbo. I’m a screen actress.”

“I know who you are, Miss Garbo,” Eva said. “Won’t you come in?”

“I really don’t want to intrude, but thank you.” She stepped inside, with great hesitation.

“Oh, you’re moving out…I had hoped to find Dr. Drimmer here. I have been unable to reach him. This morning I seriously injured my back lifting something, and, of all the doctors in Hollywood, he seems to be the only one to bring me relief.”

“He left this morning,” Eva said, nervous over being in the presence of such an august personage. “He may have told you: We’re getting a divorce. He said his address is uncertain.”

Eva invited Garbo to sit down and join her with a cup of coffee. To her surprise, Garbo accepted. “I know you and he are planning to separate. In fact, he has proposed to me that I become his second wife. I’m not in love with him, and I turned him down. He stormed out of my house, and I’ve been unable to reach him since.”

“I don’t need to tell you,” Eva said. “Swedish men can be very stubborn. And in my country, Hungary, the men can become violent toward women if they don’t get their way.”

“You’re a Hungarian!” Garbo said. “I like Hungarians. They have the soul of the gypsy. I don’t want to become Erik’s wife, but I want to retain him as a friend and as a doctor.”

“He knows where I’m moving today,” Eva said. “Perhaps he’ll contact me. If so, I will tell him how urgently you need him.”

As they sat across from each other, Eva intently studied Garbo’s fabled face. The older actress wore no makeup except for some mascara, and she was attired in a dull brown jacket and slacks.

Sipping her coffee, she said, “I have come to view Erik as a friend, and friends are very scarce. I hate to lose even one, although eventually I have had to shut the door to many. I am so tired these days, and in such pain with my back.”

“Making movies must be very tiring,” Eva said.

“That’s true, of course, but it is the movies which have become tired of me,” Garbo said, “Particularly with the war, when so many off my fans in Europe can’t see my films. There is another point to make. The so-called loose morality of the 20s and 30s is dead and gone. Mayer told me that during the war yearsto come, MGM will turn out mostly wholesome, patriotic pictures featuring the typical American girl next door. That obviously excludes me.”

“Are you really through with films?” Eva asked. “If you change your mind, I’d love to appear in a movie with you, even the smallest part. I’d even play a prostitute.”

“Thank you for the offer,” Garbo said. “Mayer wants me to make this silly movie, post-Ninotchka. This time, I’ll be playing a Russian resistance fighter in a film called The Girl from Leningrad. I found the script depressing, and I’m rejecting it.”

“Your absence from the screen will be such a loss,” Eva said. “The screen has never known such a glamorous image. With your face and talent, I thought you’d be performing in films into our 80s. You are a timeless wonder.”

“Images, images,” she said, sighing. “I was always being shaped and molded by someone else. Masseuses worked me over; designers tried clothes on me like I was a department store mannequin; makeup people shaped my face; different hairdressers came up with curls, bangs, no curls. I bit my nails and sobbed. I shouldn’t confess this, but I once considered suicide.”

“You may be leaving the movies, but I’m desperately trying to break into them,” Eva said. “My contract at Paramount wasn’t renewed. I don’t know what look to adopt.”

“Dear one, war is coming to America,” Garbo said. “For as long as it lasts, five or six years, there will be roles for you. I predict you could play a glamorous blonde Nazi spy in picture after picture, which will surely deal with espionage. Trust Mata Hari here.”

“That’s a wonderful idea, and I am fluent in German,” Eva said. “Of course, that means I’ll end up getting arrested by the F.B.I. and never in the arms of the leading man.”

“My mother always told me that a half-slice of cherry pie is better than no pie at all,” Garbo said.

“I was shocked to hear you say the war could drag on for five or six years,” Eva said. “That would mean millions of lives being sacrificed.”

“I know that, and for that very reason, I know how to end it if only I had the courage,” Garbo said.

“How could you end such a thing?” Eva asked. “You’re only one person—and a woman.”

“I don’t know if I should tell youthis…” Garbo paused for a long moment. “But I feel you would understand. I have this daydream. I know that Hitler adores my acting, and Camille was one of his favorite movies. He wants me to return to Berlin and make German films. He told Goebbels and others that I am an extraordinary specimen of the Nordic race.”

“If you make Nazi films, how would that end the war?” Eva asked.

“I would only pretend to agree to make films for Goebbels,” Garbo said. “It would just be an excuse to meet Hitler. I would carry a revolver in my purse. During our meeting, I would assassinate him. Of course, that would mean ending my own life.”

“An incredible scheme,” Eva answered. “It’s so crazy, it might even work. You’d become a legend, ranking up there with Cleopatra and Catherine the Great.”

“Instead of those two ladies, I more or less saw myself as a heroine like Joan of Arc,” Garbo said.

“I could never do something like that,” Eva said. “I’m such a coward, more like a screaming Madame du Barry being hauled off to the guillotine in Paris.”

“You are a very lovely young woman, and as long as your beauty lasts, you will always find a way to support yourself, even in a world being engulfed in war.”

“My parents are still in Hungary, and so is my sister Magda,” Eva said. “I fear for their safety.”

“Personally, I think that both my native Sweden, neutral for now, and Hungary will be overrun by the Nazis,” Garbo said.

“I keep urging my parents to escape from Budapest,” Eva said.

“Good advice,” Garbo said. “But there may be no safe place to run to.”

Garbo rose slowly, her face reflecting her back pain. “Please try to find Dr. Drimmer for me.”

“I will,” Eva promised, although Imay have seen him for the lasttime.”

At the door, she reached for Garbo’s hand, who seemed a bit reluctant tooffer it.

“Forgive me for being so bold,” Eva said. “it’s not like me—but I’d love to meet with you again. I find you fascinating.”

“Most people who meet me claim that I’m boring,” answered the Swede.

“Not me, believe me,” Eva said.

‘Your offer of friendship is most kind and rather rare these days,” Garbo said. “I’m not sure what the daughter of aViking warrior, whose soul is swept by Arctic winds and endless snow, would have in common with a Hussar’s daughter fighting off the Turkish invaders.”

Sensing that Garbo was about to exit, Eva sought to say something to retain her presence a bit longer. “It seems we do have something in common other than Erik. Both of us are ending one way of life and trying to figure out what the next chapter will be.”

“At least for theduration of the war, I’ll find a house with a garden behind a walled compound in Beverly Hills where I can work in my garden during the day and walk at twilight along the Pacific shore,” Garbo said. “I want a refuge from the world. I want nothing to be expected of me. I will be drifting. I don’t want anything to upset my routine—no husband, no other women, no children, nothing but silence and an escape from the world. As you see, my dear creature, I would have nothing to offer you.”

To Eva’s surprise, Garbo then gave her a long, lingering kiss on the lips.

And then she was gone.

When Eva eventually settled into her new apartment with Zsa Zsa, she wrote Garbo a letter with her new address. “I adored your visit, the memory of which I will treasure for as long as I live. We talked of images. I finally figured out who you are. You are Frigga, the wife of Odin, the Norse goddess who appears in the Arctic sky only when the moon is at its most luminous.”

Her note was never answered.

***

Over lunch the following day, Eva revealed to Susan Hayward, her new confidant, what happened on the night David Niven took her to Errol Flynn’s home. Eva hadn’t dared give Zsa Zsa the complete story.

“David had an early plane to catch, and he woke me up to kiss me goodbye with one of those ‘we’ll meet again’ promises. I’m sure he says that to all the girls.”

“You mean you were left alone in the house with Errol Flynn?” Hayward asked. “This sounds raunchy.”

“And it was,” Eva said. “At around ten that morning, I sensed some presence in the bedroom. When I opened my eyes, Errol was standing over the bed with an impressive erection. He didn’t demand sex, or even ask for it. He just took it.”

“Lucky girl,” Hayward said. “I bet you fought him off like a fierce tigress before submittingto his manly charms.”

“That really wasn’t what happened,” she said. “I found him irresistible,” Eva said. “What would you have done? One of the world’s major heartthrobs, the dream of millions of women around the globe, comes to your bed and wants sex. You’re going to resist? Not likely.”

“Did he live up to his reputation?” Hayward asked.

“Not only that, but it was one of the most glorious fucks that I may ever experience. I learned his sexual secret. He powders the head of his penis with cocaine before insertion. It drives a girl wild.”

“You’re getting me hot and bothered and I’ve got to return to the set,” Hayward said. “Are you seeing Flynn again tonight?”

“Perhaps,” she said. “I’m going to that Louis B. Mayer reception for the Earl of Warwick. His Lordship has invited me as his date.”

“Hot damn!” Hayward said. “You’ll meet more stars than there are in the heavens, as Mayer so loudly proclaims.”

She was right: As the Earl of Warwick escorted Eva into Mayer’s compound, she felt that nearly all the major MGM stars, and lots of minor contract players, had turned out for the bash.

“I don’t think any of them could afford to rejectan invitation from Louis B. Mayer,” the Earl whispered to her.

At least ten acres of flowers must have been felled for the gala. In case of rain, large tents had been placed on the grounds. All the men, mostly actors, wore smartly tailored tuxedos, and the actresses were attired in stunning haute couture gowns. The MGM orchestra provided music, and Beluga caviar was washed down with French champagne. Lobster was the meat of choice. “Everybody seemed to kiss everybody else on the lips,” as she remembered the event.

As the event’s guest of honor, the Earl of Warwick got special attention from Mayer. He also seemed to remember having met Eva, but at this event, no mention was made of anypossible contract.

Mayer ushered them over to meet one of his relatively recent “discoveries.” Eva and Lord Warwick were introduced to a stunning, sultry brunette, Hedy Lamarr, whom Mayer was loudly acclaimingas “The most beautiful woman on Earth.”

When Lamarrspoke to Eva in her lilting Viennese accent, she claimed that she had become “vonderful friends” with Zsa Zsa during her stage appearance in Vienna. Lamarrasked Eva for Zsa Zsa’s phone number, claiming that she had been trying to get in touch with her.

During the time Lord Warwick, Lamarr, and Mayer stood talking together, Eva seemed completely left out. Zsa Zsa may have liked Lamarr, but Eva was very jealousof her. “It seems that Gentlemen Prefer Brunettes,” Eva later said.

Later in the evening, after a bit too much champagne, Lamarr joined Eva in the powder room. She’d switched to speaking in German. “Mayer doesn’t know what to do with me,” she complained to Eva. “He assigns me the wrong roles. He doesn’t know how to handle a blue blood. He’s better at making stars out of chorus girls like Joan Crawford.”

“At least you’re getting to work with Clark Gable and Robert Taylor,” Eva said.

“Both of them are here tonight,” Lamarr said. “If you’re so interested in them, I’ll introduce you. Talk about miscasting: Mayer has assigned me to a picture called White Cargo (1942). I’m to play a South Seas native girl—withbronze makeup, of course—namedTondelayo. Can you imagine such an outrage?”

[Ironically, the same Hollywood miscasting would be repeated withEva in 1949 when producer Sol Loesser cast her, a petite blonde with a Hungarian accent, as a raven-haired Polynesian temptress, with bronze makeup, in a forgettable picture called Love Island.]

Exiting fromthe powder room, Lamarr kept her promise and walked Eva over to meet Clark Gable. He was talking with singing star Jeanette MacDonald, with whom he’d co-starred in the 1936 San Francisco.

He chatted about working with Lamarr on the set of Boom Town (1940), which had also co-starred Spencer Tracy and Claudette Colbert.

“I had this fight scene with Spencer,” Gablesaid. “We rehearsed it with some sparring matches. He’s always been jealous of my star billing. He landed a punch in my million-dollar face that broke my upper plate of false teeth and busted my lip.”

[Other sources maintain that it was Tracy’s stand-in, not the veteran actor himself, who landed the punch.]

“That’s not all,” Gable said, “With my temporary dentures, I came back onto the set two days later for a kissing scene with Claudette. She kissed me so hard she broke my temporary dentures. Production had to be shut down until I got new teeth. Now Hedy here knows how to kiss without breaking a man’s teeth.”

Both MacDonald and Lamarr soon drifted off, leaving Eva alone to talk to Gable. False teeth or not, she found him an awesome, magnetic personality, “oozing masculinity.”

Even without his star role in the 1939 Gone With the Wind, he was hailed as the King of Hollywood, coming from a rough-and-tumble life that had included working the oil fields of Oklahoma during the 1920s.

“With Hedy, I never got into trouble with Carole,” Gable told Eva, referring to his wife, the blonde actress Carole Lombard. “She told me that she knows the type of women I like, and Hedy wasn’t it.”

“But I suspect little blondie here might be the one,” came a voice coming up behind Gable. It was Lombard herself. “If you don’t mind, cutie, I’ve come to rescue my husband. I’ve already had to assign Lana Turner her walking papers tonight. I don’t need another dumb blonde moving in my territory. We Indiana cunts like to protect our property. My former husband, William Powell, is here tonight. He goes for blondes. Chase after him. Now, get lost.”

Eva was horrified at Lombard’s rudeness and potty mouth, and she’d never heard a woman call herself a cunt.

She was rescued by her date, Lord Warwick, who had encountered some true European bluebloods, whom he wanted her to meet.

Perhaps he wanted to show her off, because all night, she’d been the object of leering glances from many of the males. As she glided across the room—“Like a swan,”—she’d recall—she spotted Robert Taylor surrounded by an entourage of adoring males. She decided she would never be able to break through to him. Besides, hewas married to Barbara Stanwyck, not that that mattered in Hollywood to those seeking “big names.”

Lord Warwick introduced her to Eric de Rothschild, who had danced the tango with Zsa Zsa at a previous party. Eva also met the Baroness Renée de Becker (néeRothschild)

“Renée was a darling,” Eva later said. “But her claim to fame was that she once possessed the most expensive piece of furniture in history.”

[Eva was referring to the console table once owned by Marie Antoinette. It was made in 1781 by Jean-Henri Riesener, Louis XVI’s ébéniste (cabinetmaker) who delivered it to the Palace of Versailles. The elegant console stood on tapered legs encrusted with gilded bronze mounts in the form of lacelike garlands, tassels, and fringe.

After a series of owners, including the Baroness de Becker, it was acquired by the British Rail fund. It was later auctioned off, in 1988, by British Rail. A private collector in London purchased it for nearly $3 million.

“Imagine being famous for owning a piece of furniture,” Eva said.]

A far more memorable aristocrat Eva met was the Baron Hubert von Pantz, who was known in international society for his torrid romance with French fashion designer Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel.

He was the owner of the 15th-century summer palace of the bishops of Salzburg. In need of cash, he’d converted it into a vacation retreat where celebrities such as Cole Porter mingled with royalty who included Juliana, the future Queen of the Netherlands, who spent her honeymoon there.

The baron told Eva that when the Nazis annexed Austria, his castle was confiscated. “It is now a private hideaway for the Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler and SS officers,” Von Pantz lamented. “I feel a kinship with you. After all, I as an Austrian and you, as a Hungarian, were once part of the samegreat empire. If it wouldn’t infringe on Lord Warwick’s territory, I’d like to invite you to a party so I can talk with you some more.”

“Lord Warwick and I hardly know each other,” she said. “There is no ownership here, no commitment.”

“Good,” he said. “I need a lovely lady to accompany me to this gala atthe home of Countess Dorothy di Frasso.”

“I’ve heard of her,” she said. “She and Gary Cooper toured Europe together. I’ve met Mr. Cooper.”

“She now has a boyfriend even more intriguing than Mr. Cooper,” he said.

“I’d be delighted to go with you,” she said.

As they were making the arrangements, Eric de Rothschild emerged as the band struck up the music for atango. She accepted his offer to dance with him.

She’d later tell Zsa Zsa, “Eric, your Rothschild banker friend, can dance the tango better than Valentino in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But it’s the Baron von Pantz whom I find intriguing.”

[Zsa Zsa had been boasting to her younger sister of her links to royalty, and Eva enjoyed retorting with some blue-blooded name dropping herself.]

“What did you and the Earl of Warwick do after you left Mayer’s party?” Zsa Zsa asked.

“Oh, nothing much,” Eva said, being very non-commital. “He drove me back to this dump we’re living in. Perhaps a kiss on the cheek.”

“I don’t believe a word you’re saying,” Zsa Zsa told her. “Unlike me, you were never a very convincing liar.”

In just a few days, Eva would have a very different story to tell Susan Hayward over lunch.

***

ZSA ZSA

A few weeks after her arrival at Eva’s apartment in Hollywood, Zsa Zsa assessed their situation. “We have no money and we’re living in this rat’s nest. Of course, we have our clothing and what jewelry we’ve managed to acquire. What we don’t have is money. Tomorrow, I’m going to try to launch my career in films. If that doesn’t work, I suggest we continue our party going and that each of us latch onto an American millionaire sooner rather than later.”

And so they did.

Eva

“I had two strikes against me when I co-stared in Forced Landing (1942),” Eva claimed. Both of my male co-stars, Richard Arlen(left) and Nils Asther(right) were has-beens.

Nils was hot for Richard, and no one was hot for me.”

Paramount didn’t get rich on the 1941 movie, Pacific Blackout. In the middle photo are three of the movie’s stars, Martha O’Driscoll(left), Robert Preston(center), and Eva Gabor(right).

“It was an espionage potboiler, and I was supposed to be a spy. I was delighted to be back in Bob’s arms,” Eva said.

“I won’t pretend that Rod Cameron(pictured above) was my first seduction by a cowboy,” Eva said. “I had already rolled in the sagebrush with Gary Cooper. But Rod was appropriately named.”

Zsa Zsa

Sári Gabor was not your typical wartime refugee when she sailed into New York Harbor in 1941. “Within three hours I had conquered New York. Everybody wanted me.”

Actor Basil Rathbone and his wife Ouida were the King and Queen of A-List Hollywood.

It was they who introduced Zsa Zsa to the movie colony...”and to all the hot men,” in Zsa Zsa’s estimation.

Ethel Barrymore, the über-matriarch of the American Theater, always turned a skeptical eye toward the latest sexpot in Hollywood, which in this case was Zsa Zsa.

“The name will have to go,” Barrymore told her.

Draped in mink, Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe) didn’t seem to have much time for Zsa Zsa on their second meeting, this time in Hollywood.

“There are so many important people out there demanding to see me,” Lady Mendl said.

“We European refugees pouring into Los Angeles are giving this cow town some class and adding some culture,” said composer Igor Stravinsky.

“You’re a classic and elegant beauty, not one of these Popcorn Blondes invading Hollywood,” he told Zsa Zsa.

In Los Angeles, Zsa Zsa immediately bonded with a lonely and alienated exile, Russia’s Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna.

In the upper photo, she’s seen during her younger days as a member of the Imperial Court. In the lower photo, she appears in Hollywood, where she was celebrated as a “royal deity.”

Pianist Arthur Rubinstein hailed Zsa Zsa as “The Rose of Hungary” before putting the make on her.

He told her, “I may not be the most beautiful man in Hollywod, but women gravitate to me.”

“Jascha Heifetz was God’s Fiddler,” Zsa Zsa claimed. Both of them shared horrors of their arduous journey from bowels of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe to reach America.

They were two English beauties unaccustomed to the glare of the California sun when Vivien Leigh (Gone With the Wind’s Scarlett O’Hara) was photographed with her new husband, Laurence Olivier, who’d been a big hit as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights.

When Zsa Zsa met them, they were not just movie stars, but British spies.

Prior to the U.S. involvement in World War II, Zsa Zsa was too busy to fit David Niven into her social calender, so she set him up for a blind date with Eva.

Unknown to her (and to most of the film community), he was one of the mysterious players within the underground espionage and propaganda activities of the Brits in Hollywood and elsewhere during World War II.

In happier days, Joan Crawford was married to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

In bed with Zsa Zsa, he shared one of Crawford’s beauty secrets:

“Just before you appear on camera, ice the nipples of your tits. They’ll stand up more.”

Still in love with Randolph Scott, Cary Grant married Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton on July 10, 1942.

Their fascination with each other soon wore thin.

MGM’s Louis B. Mayer, having emerged from a ghetto in the Ukraine, became Hollywood’s “merchant of dreams.”  

When Eva met him, he was ruthless, brilliant, mercurial, and a keeper of secrets, protecting Greta Garbo while she was a secret agent for the Allies, and getting Clark Gable off on a manslaughter charge.

Playacting at war, David Niven(left) and Errol Flynn(right) appeared on screen together in Dawn Patrol (1938).

Offscreen, they became “fuck buddies,” or so they told Eva when she was seduced by both of them before the rooster crowed.

Zsa Zsa

“Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor,” Greg Bautzer, was a movieland Don Juan, and handler of shady deals among the stars, legal authorities, and in some cases, the Mob.

He was known for his legal talent and for his prodigious talent in the boudoir of stars who included Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, and Ronald Reagan’s Jane Wyman.

When Zsa Zsa met the reigning diva of Mexico, the exotic Dolores Del Rio, she didn’t know that the great Latina beauty had already seduced her future husband, George Sanders, Del Rio’s co-star in Lancer Spy (1937).

“Every part of her was beautiful-—even her toes,” said her escort for the evening, Erich Maria Remarque, the novelist.

The handsome and stylish novelist, Erich Maria Remarque, a German-born intellectual who was seriously involved with Marlene Dietrich, was always a man of mystery to Zsa Zsa. She planned to move in on him.

She’d heard that this platinum-heeled wanderer was attracted to lots of vodka, dangerously fast cars, and spectacularly beautiful women.

Eva Gabor poses for a publicity still for Paramount in 1942. Eva’s ambitious mother, Jolie, had wanted to be an actress, but the dream eluded her.

In spite of her disappointing beginning, Eva was determined to act. Until she grew disillusioned with the comparison, she fancied herself as “The Next Garbo.”

Carole Lombard and Clark Gable posed for a publicity still in the 1930s at MGM, when they were first falling in love, although both actors had other entanglements at the time.

“I knew he was going to plug me,” Lombard said. “But when, god damn it?”

Hubert von Pantz as he looked in 1986. Eva met him in 1942, when he was younger and much handsomer.

Arriving in America after a torrid romance with Coco Chanel, von Pantz lamented the loss of his 15th-century Palace of the Bishops in Salzburg. Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler and his SS officers had turned it into their vacation retreat.

Zsa Zsa