All he said was, ‘Hello, son.’ It was Dad, and I knew at once from the way he said it on the telephone during the run of The Suicide that my mother had died. No actor could ever reproduce his tone.
I knew something catastrophic had happened: and I knew it was Mum.
She died of a brain haemorrhage while she was cooking both of them Sunday lunch. It was fairly quick for her, but terrible for him. She had always had problems with her ears, and with her head, but this was a normal Sunday, she was just preparing the lunch; he as usual was out in the garden; and then at three o’clock in the afternoon, after it happened, he was sitting there numb with grief, holding in his hand her rings and her watch.
I do not know how he survived it, or at the time how he would survive it. Anyway he did, for twenty years afterwards he survived it.
Richard, when he had been on tour in Norwich, had been informed first in England by Dad. He had phoned Cynthia, and then tried me without succeeding. Richard made sure the producers were waiting by the door when I was told by my father. They knew before I knew, and they were sensational in their generosity. They booked me on Concorde that day, it was a Sunday, and I flew back to London next day.
When the cast came into work on Tuesday for the evening performance they were told, ‘Show’s off, show’s gone!’ The death of my mum, which had happened all too unexpectedly, closed down my appearance on Broadway in The Suicide. In spite of them all losing their jobs, nearly everyone in that cast wrote Dad a letter of condolence, which was a very kind gesture.
Back in London with Dad, I was utterly shell-shocked by Mum’s death. I was so full of inconsolable grief that I couldn’t work. We were both trying to be the strong one for each other. We were together, paralysed, not knowing what to say, what to do, utterly lost, feeding each other’s grief, possibly feeding off it too, and after a time I felt we had to put some distance between us. But how could I leave Dad on his own? He and Mum had been joined at the hip, worked together, been in one another’s company 24/7.
By now it was coming up to Christmas, so Cynthia, who had been constantly on the phone, suggested, ‘Why don’t you come out to California for a while?’ It seemed a good idea, but what about Dad?
‘You go, son. I can look after myself. Don’t you worry about me. You have to get on with your life.’
He insisted I go, so I did. Richard was still on tour during December and somehow I wanted to be on my own.
The extraordinary thing was that after Mum’s funeral Dad and I never talked about Mum again. I couldn’t do this without breaking down; over the years Richard told me I should mention her more, bring her into the house, although she was no longer there, but make her part of our lives, but I never could. My grief was too great. Even now it is hard to talk about this.
Richard and I had been together for three years, but he had been away on tour, and this had not yet ended. Cynthia and I, while we were doing the play in New York, and in spite of her proposal, had become very close. I looked forward greatly to this visit, while she had high hopes of what might come out of it. Dale, her PA (and later business partner), was with her all the time, and while once I believe the two of them had been in more than a work relationship, she now generally ‘looked after’ Cynthia.
I made the trip out to California and during this we flew to stay in New York. One of Cynthia’s great chums in Santa Barbara was Judith Anderson, a very famous and formidable Australian actress. She was Dame Judith Anderson, and she had played Mrs Danvers in the Olivier film of Rebecca. One night Cynthia and I were going out to dinner, and I had been sent round to pick up Judith, who was to accompany us. We had a drink together in her hotel bar, and she said out straight, ‘I think you should marry Cynthia. She’s got all the money; you’re a very good actor, Derek, you’ll have no worries ever again. You’ll just work, you’ll just act: you’ll get on, you’re great companions, and at dinner this evening she knows I’m talking to you. If you could just give her a look, to suggest, you know, it’s going to be all right to ...’
Oh my God, this was just terrible! I was flabbergasted! I had to give Cynthia a look to suggest it was going to be all right between us? I knew what that meant!
I did not look at Cynthia all night. We left after dinner in the car to go back to the galleria on West 57th Street. In the car it was very, very difficult, because nothing was said. I felt acutely embarrassed once again.
Only much later did I realise she had planned every detail all along. I realised in my naivety I had been set up from the start, and Judith, as go-between, was only the final stage. I had been warned this was going to happen and taken no notice. I realised this powerful, wealthy lady was still making a play for me, and would accept Richard as part of the baggage or deal.
And even so it seemed Cynthia was not going to give up. I had come back to England to rejoin Richard. Cynthia was visiting, for she came to London occasionally. We met again, and she invited Richard and me for a summer holiday – for five weeks. Her plan was that we would meet in New York, fly to Florida for the Fourth of July, and then to different places across America: Orlando, Disney World, then New Orleans, then the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, where the famous hotels had to be booked well in advance. Richard wanted to visit Mexico, and this would be fitted in, too. The script now was that we were all going to get on and be happy. Richard was accepted, there would be no more talk of marriage, and it was all going to be lovely, indeed fabulous. Foolishly we agreed and fell in with her plan.
We flew from London to New York. We did Orlando and Disney World – it was 4 July – and we then flew to New Orleans, after which it started to go wrong. Suddenly Cynthia wasn’t happy, and she started being vile to Richard. In front of others she called him ‘Derek’s bum boy’, and then I heard language come out of that woman’s mouth no navvy would speak.
I should have said, ‘Come on, we’re off!’ but I allowed it to happen. I will always castigate myself because I did not stand up for Richard nearly enough, and I have to admit I played it terribly badly. He had such a rough time but he never retaliated. If Richard had left me I wouldn’t have blamed him for a second. But he couldn’t drive, and anyway we were right in the middle of nowhere.
Overnight Cynthia changed the plans. We flew back to Los Angeles. She booked Richard and me into the Royal Suite in the Beverley Wilshire Hotel: two floors of it. She took another suite for herself, while Dale had a third. Then she disappeared, completely disappeared, leaving us totally in the lurch. We didn’t know what had happened to her or where she had gone. Next – this was now about two days after we had arrived in Los Angeles – Judy Shepherd, who was Louis B. Mayer’s granddaughter, asked me to a party in Malibu to introduce me to people in Hollywood and help me circulate. I was informed Cynthia was going to be there, and this was to be the reconciliation; but although she was there and we went along, it never happened.
By now we had made plans to come back home, and this desperately awkward lunch signalled the end of our closeness. Here I met Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, the idyllic Hollywood couple before Natalie mysteriously fell off her yacht and drowned. I sat on a balcony and chatted with Rock Hudson. It was such a heady world. I was quite smitten, but also disorientated.
Cynthia flew us back to New York, and that is where she left us. Richard and I boarded a plane back to London and saw little of her again. She and her producers put money later into the New York run of my Much Ado and Cyrano performances, and on my birthday in 1982 she threw a party for me on the Hudson River, the Circle Line, a generous treat. But when Richard another time attempted to take us out, the four of us with Dale, and insisted he foot the bill, she swore at him and refused to let him pay. She had no reason to hate him, and again she couldn’t bear it because he didn’t retaliate. She could have had a great friendship with the two of us, but perhaps control was more important.
She insisted over one weekend that I sit and watch all thirteen episodes of I, Claudius, which I had never seen. She also did this to Richard when he was out with me at Santa Barbara – he hadn’t seen them either. She and I went out to dinner and left him, which I should never have agreed to. Richard soon switched to one of the 800 other channels!
She had thought Richard was just a passing phase, but she was wrong. The last time I saw her was when I played in Breaking the Code on Broadway, and she came to the first night, and attended the dinner at Sardis afterwards. It was a very hot night and she arrived wearing a cashmere turtle neck with long sleeves; I could see she felt very cold inside. When she saw me arrive with Richard she sat with her back to me and we didn’t speak. Some six years later I heard that she had fallen very ill, with two brain tumours.
I was in San Francisco and Dale, with whom I remained great friends, was in touch: ‘I think she would like to talk to you.’ I called her and we spoke, but that was all: she died several weeks later.
Her mother had remarried some years before, to a Belgian whom no one liked very much. When her mother died the Belgian inherited the mother’s fortune, and when Cynthia died in the late 1980s the Belgian inherited her fortune too. He ended up with the lot.
I reflected that if I had married her I would certainly be worth knowing today – but I would have had ten years of absolute hell.