Hailing from Birmingham, Alabama, Fannie’s real name was Patricia Neal. Since that name was taken by one of the best in the business, her aunt suggested she use the name Fannie since it was lucky in show business, i.e. Fanny Brice. Of course, then Patsy embellished it and she became Frances Carlton Flagg.
Her momma still cooed “Patsy,” as did the rest of the family. A carbon copy of her flame-haired father, Bill, Fannie learned about the business hanging out with her daddy. A member of IATSE, he was the projectionist at one of the Birmingham theaters. Miz Neal, as she was addressed, doted on her lone offspring. Marion and Bill fought over Fannie or used her in their sniping contests. They were wildly funny even when being just awful. There was a lot I understood about Fannie without being told. Luckily, I had but one funny, though sometimes cruel, parent. Fannie shuttled between two. They also drank. The fuss escalated with the volume of alcohol consumed.
It wasn’t that they were overtly cruel to her but that she’d hear Momma’s side of the story, then Daddy’s. The first time I met Bill Neal he couldn’t wait to throw me in the car, drive me to the theater and tell me what a wretched life he had with the “beached whale” (Marion was fat). But when he walked back in the house, where Marion would be holding court in the living room, she’d purr, “Bill, honey darlin’, fetch me a cigarette,” and he would. “Bill, honey darlin’, I need me a cool refreshing libation.” He scurried for a drink with tinkling ice cubes. Then Marion turned her charms on Fannie.
“Patsy, precious lamb, climb up into the attic and get out the family albums. I want to show Rita Mae our pictures.” Fannie crawled into the stifling, airless attic and obediently fetched the albums.
Marion showed me each photograph, telling me every story, enduring interruptions from Bill as he rendered his version. She was amusing, imperious and in ill health when I met her. But then, how many southern women have used their delicate constitutions to run men ragged? Marion was many steps from death’s door.
I adored her, but then I wasn’t her daughter. She sent Bill on an errand, a wild-goose chase, so she could tell me her version of the marriage and how every single person who ever laid eyes on her beautiful daughter just knew she’d be a movie star.
Fannie loved and hated her parents. I think that’s true for each of us; the balance of the love and hate is what shifts, according to their behavior and our subsequent maturity.
Like Juts, Fannie’s parents generated electricity, laughter and an endless stream of commentary on the state of the world. Like Juts and Dad, they worked hard for a living, spurning handouts. To take money from the government even when falling on hard times was a shame no amount of later success could erase. They were southern to the bones. Juts was a Marylander to her bones, which is a restrained variation of the Alabama species. The only people who think they are superior to Marylanders are Virginians and certain species abiding in the Palmetto State, South Carolina. Marion and Bill, relieved of the hard work that snobbery entails, could be purely southern. They never mentioned the Duke of Buckingham or the Queen of England once. Aunt Mimi would have amused them, but then she amused me.
I first visited Mr. and Mrs. Neal after I’d known Fannie for six months.
Fannie did want to write. I worked with her as much as I could while scribbling away for Roger Corman. As with most of us from the South, her view of life was and remains anecdotal. Hysterical as the stories are, anecdotes don’t substitute for structure.
She’d say, “Well, I’ll tell the stories and you make it work.”
“No. You’ll never learn that way.”
Since Fannie is severely dyslexic, reading her pages nearly blinded me. She earned my respect for not whining about her disability, a genuine hardship for a writer.
We’d meet at her small apartment in Westwood or my house on Outpost. I asked for no money. In fact, I’ve never asked for money in helping a writer. Literature is a calling, like the priesthood. I’ll make money from my work but not from someone struggling to learn. Writing is bloody hard work so you’d better love it.
Fannie, original in her approach to material, truly had talent. I wasn’t blinded by love. Actually, I never am when it comes to whether a person has talent or not.
We’d worked together for two months. I knew nothing about her private life. She never mentioned anyone. She owned a house in Montecito but I hadn’t seen it.
One evening Arnie Reisman, who worked for WQBH, was in town from Boston and took Fannie and me to dinner. Emboldened by the presence of my friend, I decided to ask her direct questions once he left for the bathroom. But Arnie, enchanted with Fannie, had a cast-iron bladder. Finally I kicked him hard enough to raise a lump on his shin. He excused himself and went to the bathroom.
As he did, Betty White and her husband, Allen Ludden, sidled over.
Betty, who has a sharp sense of humor, gives as good as she gets. When Fannie said, “Betty, you have such beautiful skin—and there’s so much of it,” Betty howled. She and Allen left, and within two minutes a gaggle of street people rushed in, crowding our table and asking for Fannie’s autograph. Betty had sent them, making certain the maître d’ was in on the joke.
By the time Arnie returned, I was helpless with laughter but I still knew nothing about Fannie other than that she had graduated from Ryder High School, did a funny impersonation of Lady Bird Johnson and now worked on Hollywood Squares.
We lingered over dessert. When we’d finished, Arnie rose to collect our coats.
Quickly I said, “Fannie, do you ever go out with women?”
She cocked her head. “Of course, you silly twit.”
She didn’t say she’d go out with me and I didn’t ask but she invited me to her home in Montecito the next weekend.
Baby Jesus liked Fannie. For me, that was a strong recommendation because B.J. loathed humans. This isn’t to say she’d leap into Fannie’s lap; she wouldn’t even leap into mine. But she wouldn’t curl her lip when Fannie arrived to work in the library. A few times she sat on her papers, a good sign.
Fannie never made light of my passion for horses or regaled me with stories about the one time she rode a horse. I don’t know why people do that but they do. Her friend Brett Somers prowled Santa Anita with her former husband. Jack Klugman, so Fannie had heard horse talk. She herself didn’t ride and didn’t want to, but she thought they were beautiful animals.
She mentioned there were horses in Montecito. I knew about the polo.
When I drove up to her house, a beautiful white frame house surrounded by large trees, the scent of eucalyptus swept me away. Montecito, serene, secure and spectacular, is rich in eucalyptus trees.
Two crazed Dalmatians bounced out, one black-spotted, one liver-spotted, followed by a hollering Fannie.
“You come back here!”
The dogs vaulted onto me, which was fine. That’s what dry cleaners are for.
The interior of the house was cozy, unpretentious and impeccably done. A gorgeous sofa in a floral print commanded a sitting room overlooking the pool. It really was a beautiful house and not the least bit garish.
Kate O’Reilly, not her real name, greeted me. She’d been a star in a long-running TV program and had left to take a prominent role in a film. Almost white-blonde, with a heart-shaped face, blue eyes and a great figure, she appeared every inch a woman ready to become a major movie star. She had looks, talent and drive. What she lacked was the ability to kiss ass. Just when her career should have rocketed it began to drop to earth. Approaching forty added to the tension.
Hollywood has never been kind to women who directly command their fates. Mary Pickford, the first international celebrity, directed, starred, produced (she was a fabulous producer) and got away with it because her mother, Charlotte, was the hatchet lady. So Mary maintained that outward femininity so important to the men of film. I don’t know why they can’t deal with women who are direct. Other men have learned how.
Kate, minus a hatchet lady, couldn’t have hidden behind one anyway. She is a fundamentally honest person, a decent one.
Word got about that she was difficult. That was amended to “difficult dyke.” It wasn’t too long before she languished in her beautiful shared Montecito home wondering what the hell had happened.
Were Kate at the same career fulcrum today, she’d have a fifty-fifty chance of swinging up. In the mid-seventies, she had no chance. Today she’s back on television.
Because she didn’t marry to play the game, she might as well have announced that she was gay. Other people announced it for her. She kept silent but stiff-armed any attempts to create a bogus heterosexual life. She and Fannie had been together for eight years. The cracks in their relationship widened under the pressure.
Every relationship experiences rock and roll. A straight couple may elicit support from their community. A gay couple toughs it out in silence. Many of Kate and Fannie’s friends knew they were lovers, but many didn’t. The isolation, under the circumstances, had to have been extremely painful for Kate.
My heart went out to her. After my initial visit, the three of us palled around together. The more I knew Kate, the more I liked her.
Fannie admitted being attracted to me and not just to me but to Kate, which says something about their relationship.
Kate talked it over with me. She knew she was losing Fannie and she was bighearted enough to know if it hadn’t been me it would have been someone else. She loved Fannie.
Fannie loved her, too, but Fannie would say, “I can’t live with her anymore.”
If there had been a way for the three of us to live together, I would have tried it because I grew to respect Kate and to value her for the generous and kind person she is. Like her Irish forebears, she engaged her crisis with good humor and the hope that she’d learn something.
Fannie hated Los Angeles. She’d figured out how to mask her beauty behind comedy. She hid her feelings, second nature to her given her childhood.
Fannie made a good living in television, but the growing sense of emptiness frightened her. It was rotten luck for Kate and Fannie that they reached career crises at the same time. Their relationship probably would have survived otherwise, but each was so exhausted by her individual worries there was little left over for the other. And to make matters worse for Kate, when the roles dry up, so does the money.
A time came when they decided to sell the house, which saddened me. Had I the money, I would have pitched in because that house suited them. It was too beautiful to lose. I wasn’t making much, enough to pay my mortgage and groceries but not enough to hoard a stash for moments such as this.
The house sold in the twinkling of an eye. They rented a place in the Beverly Hills flats but the strain wore them down even further.
During this time my house was robbed. The thieves backed up a moving van and cleaned me out of everything except my books (thank God), the huge sofa I’d hauled off the streets of New York, and my dining room table. Everything else was gone: clothing, cutlery, everything. Luckily I had stored a few things in Virginia.
The police were great. My insurance company, however, was not. They argued that because I lived in Hollywood Hills the danger was higher. I got zero. The saving grace in all this was that what few family heirlooms we had remained with Mom. They only got what I’d bought.
Now you might wonder what my neighbors were doing when the van pulled up. This is Los Angeles. People move in and move out almost hourly. It didn’t seem strange.
Since whoever robbed me knew my routine, I was pretty sure one of the men who built cabinets in the house must have been in on it. If not him, someone like him. They knew precisely when I would leave and precisely when I would return. And may they experience as much pain as they inflict. That’s my wish for anyone like that.
Fannie refused to come to the house. She was sure they’d return to kill me. Since they had everything, I couldn’t see why they’d bother to come back.
She shopped with me to buy clothing, a task I hate and she loves. I don’t think I’ve ever looked as good as I did when I was with Fannie. She has a great eye for how something on the rack will look on you. I know how I’ll look in Levi’s and a white T-shirt and cowboy boots. That’s it.
Kate helped out, too. She gave me some sweaters and odds and ends.
Fannie missed Montecito, so we rented a tiny bungalow not far from the ocean. She spent time in Los Angeles with Kate and time back in Montecito with me. I loved the place. It was quiet and I could write. Even better, we had rented it from Virginia Cherrill, who’d played the blind girl in Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights and had been Cary Grant’s first wife. She was Virginia Martini now, having married a World War II ace flying for the Free Polish. That was after she ditched the Earl of Jersey, her second husband. Mrs. Martini must have been in her seventies, but retained her beauty. She wasn’t one to yak about her past life, as are so many old people. But if you asked, she would answer.
Since the silents are my favorite period of film history, I bristled with questions. She liked Chaplin but felt he had taken too much on himself. Making films became more of a burden than a joy for him. As for Cary Grant, of him she would say only, “He has the first dollar he ever made.” Her stories of England during World War II were poignant and fascinating. She told me many times, “You don’t know how lucky you are to be an American.” I believed her.
I flourished with the solitude and my occasional chats with Mrs. Martini. Fannie would arrive for weekends and it would become a three-ring circus. Fannie tends to fill up a room.
Then there were her experiments. One time she decided she was spending too much money at the beauty parlor. She’d wax herself. Well, that was tedious and boring, so she thought she’d singe the hair off her legs. However, she dropped the match and I was treated to the spectacle of Fannie, her crotch in flames.
Another time she decided she had to have a Nash Rambler. None could be found. She bought a Pacer, another American Motors vehicle, without a doubt one of the ugliest cars ever built. She loved it. Out went the black-on-black 450 SL.
By now I’d sold the Rolls. I have a knack for knowing what cars and property will appreciate. I figured that a life in the arts is dangerous enough as it is, and I’d better learn how to make money in other places. I leased a car since I didn’t want to tie up money right then.
I wanted to rent a Porsche. I love Porsches and think today’s 911 Turbo widebody one of the greatest road cars ever manufactured. But Fannie hated the stick shift. I rented a 450 SL, a very good car indeed, and we knew she could drive it.
Kate would visit the Montecito house and roar with laughter. She didn’t know how we could stand such a teeny place. My workroom was at one end of the house and Fannie’s bedroom/workroom at the other. The cats dashed up and down the hallway between us, sometimes running out to the lemon grove next door.
Paintings by Oliver Messel—he was the famous art designer from the 1930s—hung in the living room. He’d given them to Mrs. Martini. I brought nothing personal to the place, nor had Fannie. Her stuff was in the Los Angeles house.
It was odd, living in a place that held nothing of your own, but I learned that wherever my books and cats are, that’s home.
The Dalmatians stayed with Kate, a good thing, since the girls had never bothered to train them. I was up to the task but I hadn’t the time because I was working steadily, thank God.
A large Saddlebred stable run by Cynthia Wood and her mother was on Ridge Road not two miles away. I enjoyed watching the horses get worked and I especially loved going over to the polo matches. I considered picking up my old line of work, hot-walking horses, but Fannie thought I was beyond that.
I met Margaret Mallory of Mallory Steamship Lines. Old by then, smart as a whip, she taught me a great deal about art. Her house on Ridge Road had more incredible paintings in it than many museums. She had a John Singer Sargent that almost made me cry when I studied it. He has been underrated until recently, and part of that is because of how he blends beauty with suppressed emotion. That’s been out of fashion. People are painting the insides of dead sheep.
What I learned from Margaret was that my favorite area would be sporting art. Figures.
Margaret would give teas on her patio. We’d listen to the ships out in the Pacific and watch the lights on the oil rigs come on as the sun set. She was companionable, lonely and a sparkling conversationalist.
She used to say, “Well, no matter what, I haven’t turned into Doris Duke!” Then we’d goad her into telling Doris Duke stories or Betty Hutton stories or Mable Dodge Luhan stories. She knew everybody.
Kate began dating. She was pulling out of her decline and started making plans again. She bought a lovely small house of her own.
The big house had sold at a big profit. I told Fannie if she blew that money I’d strangle her. She put it in a savings account. Fannie is terrible about money; it burns a hole in her pocket.
During this period, Fannie and I were never seen together publicly. She had a holy horror of anyone thinking she was a lesbian. Why in God’s name did she fall in love with me?
The only time we were seen together was with Kate or with a few old friends in Montecito and Santa Barbara. The gay ones were lovely but everyone was in the closet. Deep in the closet. I considered buying them oxygen masks.
Since no lesbian in Hollywood would speak to me, Montecito didn’t feel any different. No one wanted to be seen with me, except one gay man, Brad, a realtor. He was a joy.
My friends were straight. Which matters little because I don’t pick my friends based on race, class, gender or gender preference. If I like you, I like you, and if I don’t, I don’t. I don’t give a fig about your bank account either.
But my persona mattered to everyone else who was gay.
That Fannie felt that way, too, hurt. I said nothing. I’d heard her arguments about how she’d be ruined in Hollywood, and watching Kate get stabbed in the back made the point.
After a while, though, I wondered what I was doing in a business where people jumped at their own shadow. I think of life as a foxhunt. If there’s a fence in front of you, go over it. Who cares how you look doing it? If there’s snow, go through it. If there’s a ravine, lean back and move along. Go.
One bright morning I drove my rented 450 SL, painted metallic bronze with cream pinstripes, to the travel agent. I pulled in next to an XKE in good condition.
A tall, pretty woman came out to the car as I closed the door to mine.
“Nice car, Rita Mae.” She recognized me and held out her hand. “Muffin Spencer-Devlin.”
We became friends for life. Muffin, a golf pro, was on the road a lot. Fannie worried about her. Might she be too gay? Aren’t all female athletes gay? Etc. Mostly I lunched with Muffin alone when Fannie was in the city during the week. I learned a lot about golf, although I didn’t try to play, and I learned a lot about Muffin, who suffers from manic-depression. She battles her illness with a distinct lack of self-pity.
Montecito was jammed with interesting people. I met Robert Mitchum once at a cocktail party and Jane Russell, knitting, happened to sit next to me at a literary gathering in town. Jane Russell has the most extraordinary face. It’s more than beautiful: it’s lived-in and real. Not that the stars would remember me, but what I remember about them was what quiet people they were. If fame had ever turned their heads, they had gotten over it.
Dame Judith Evans lived up the road but I never met her. As she was one of the greatest actresses of her generation, I wished I had.
Fannie still lives in Montecito. She bought the bungalow a few years later.
Much as I loved Montecito, I felt the colors slowly draining from my skin. If I was going to be the lesbian bogeyman, then I might as well be that bogeyman at home, where real stories were, where people talked about something other than “the deal,” and where I could hear English, lyrical, majestic, quirky English. I felt as though everyone in southern California talked mush. Not that they weren’t smart, far from it, but too few of them had a love of the language.
In Dixie we love the sweep of the sound as well as what we’re saying. Of course, many’s the time we aren’t saying anything, but who cares?