• 7 •

Everything in Life Is a Gamble

If I had known more about Sy Stewart at the onset, I might have seen the danger signals and averted them. I later told myself that I should have been prepared for what was coming. It was not as though I had never found myself hoodwinked by a man’s flattering attention or my hungry libido.

His full name was Seymour Stewart Schwartz. He grew up in New York wanting to be rich and famous. The problem was he did not have a great talent that might fulfill his ambition, although he did have style and a certain charisma. He was enamored by the entertainment business—music and films, by the lifestyles of the movers and shakers, the stars, the winners. The world according to Sy was made up of only two groups—winners and losers. Winning was important. He was good looking, quick thinking, and when he finally came to think about it, did have one talent: an ability to sell almost anything—especially himself. He had some early success in the music publishing business, which in the forties and fifties was centered in the Brill Building at 1650 Broadway where something like three hundred music publishers had offices, most with cubbyholes overcrowded with a piano, a bench, and maybe a chair. In these, songwriters performed their pop tunes to a publisher. If the song was bought, it was published. A song’s popularity was judged by how many sales the sheet music of it sold. Song pluggers were responsible for upping sales, getting bands and singers to promote them. In earlier times, the street the Brill Building was on was nicknamed Tin Pan Alley, as had its predecessor in lower Manhattan. Sy was able to make his way to the top people. “Always start with the big brass” was his motto. For him, it worked. What he hated about what he did was the stigma attached to the profession. Song pluggers were perceived as being “not too classy.” If there was one thing that Sy really wanted to acquire, it was “class.” Innately he did possess it. He dressed expensively but never looked flashy. He had an inbred instinct for what was good and admired, not just people who had made pots of money, but those who had achieved something of worth. His education had not included a college degree, but he was a fast learner, recognized knowledge that would be helpful, quickly processed it, and dispersed it with much authority. By the midfifties the song plugger had become outmoded. The recording industry had taken over. Now it was how many records were sold. Sy decided to take a crack at movies one-two-three: 1) find a script (a property), 2) get someone with a name (sales value) involved, and 3) pitch it to a backer (and end up with a fair percentage of the deal). What he was engaged in—promoting—was not exactly a profession. Still, he had the talent and the instinct for it and developed it into a profitable enterprise.

He was not political, although he was a liberal steeped in American values and the godlike memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by his Jewish immigrant parents. He had come to London because England was the place where films were able to be made much cheaper than in the States, a pool of talent was ever available, and Hollywood credentials were not required. Promoting on this high a level was not done in an office but during an expensive luncheon or dinner in a four-star restaurant (where the owners and headwaiters knew you as a good customer and big tipper). A clever promoter dressed well, had manicured nails, and was up to the minute on current film transactions and transgressions.

Two or three days after we had met at the Adlers’, he called. It was the au pair’s day off and maybe my kids could go somewhere with him and Laura. “Cathy doesn’t get home from school until after three, and Michael not until five,” I told him, adding, “Look, why don’t you bring Laura here about 3:30. She can stay for the afternoon and have an early supper. You could pick her up about seven.”

“I don’t want to just drop her on you.”

“It’s fine. Really. Three fifteen. Okay?”

They arrived twenty minutes early. “We had lunch and did some shopping and were through early,” he said, handing me a Fortnum & Mason bag. “Did I interrupt anything?”

“I usually work when the kids are in school. I’m a writer. But I was just set to quit for the day.”

Laura had already found, and was hugging, a giant teddy bear that Cathy had left in a chair, more as a decoration, having passed the stage of playing with stuffed animals. “Pooh Bear,” she said. I went over to her. “Not Pooh. A relative, like a cousin. Do you have a cousin?” She shook her head. “Well, like a friend. He can be your friend until Cathy comes home and then you’ll have two friends.” She seemed pleased with that idea and became involved in a low-voiced conversation with the bear. “Why don’t you leave Laura here with me and come back at seven?”

“I’ll stay for a few minutes to make sure she’s okay,” he decided, and sat down in the chair the stuffed animal had just vacated. “Kit Adler told me you are divorced.”

“That’s right.”

He craned his neck for a quick glance toward the front bedroom. “No one . . . you know.”

“I’m unattached if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Yeah. That was what I was getting at. What are you writing?”

“A television script.”

“No real profit in that. An original pilot, yes, maybe. You’d get a cut of that.”

“Well, it’s just a television assignment and I’m glad to have it,” I said with an edge.

“Sorry. It’s just that with your kind of talent . . .”

“How would you know about my talent?” I interrupted.

“Kit Adler.”

Laura picked up the teddy bear and placed it on his lap. He put it back on the floor and scooped her up on his knee. She slid back down and dragged the stuffed animal a short distance away. “I’m a little new to being a single parent,” he smiled. “Laura was in New York with her mother, my ex-wife, until a month ago when they arrived in London. Her mother left her with me for an evening and was gone. No explanation. No forwarding address. So I have Laura.” He sat watching the child—a pretty little thing, very feminine. “I love the kid,” he said with great feeling. “She got a bum break and somehow I want to make it up to her.” He suddenly changed his mood. “So this television script you’re writing—who’s it for?”

I told him.

“Second team!” he snapped. “What you need to do is come up with a big idea, one that can appeal to a star, fill a movie screen. I bet you have a dozen of them buzzing around in your head. You should grab hold of one and go with it. Natalie Wood’s in town. I saw her the other night at the White Elephant. Bet you could write a helluva script for her. Poor little rich American girl runs away to England and falls in love with an East End Alfie-type guy. The two worlds crash.”

Cathy came waltzing in none too thrilled, I suspected, at having a three-year-old to entertain. Like the good sport she always was, she pitched right in and led Laura to her room to show her some of her toys. Sy rose from his chair.

“Seven, you said?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

“Stretch it to eight. No, eight thirty. The au pair comes back about eight. I’ll bring her here. She can stay with the kids while we go out to dinner.”

“Wait a minute! I didn’t say—”

“You have another date?”

“That’s not the point.”

He was at the door. “Eight thirty. You been to the Tiberia? Best Italian in town.”

He opened the door then stepped back in. “It’s better if Laura doesn’t see me leave. Tell her I went on an appointment and will be back later.”

“You tell her.”

“Father knows best,” he said and closed the door after himself. I stood and listened as the lift could be heard descending.

That was how my affair with Sy Stewart—confessed promoter, part con artist—began. Oh, and by the way—gambler, big-time. I was asking for trouble and was likely to get it. But there was something about Sy that was genuinely appealing besides the sexual attraction. There was my incurable need to try to understand what made people tick, to get to the heart of the person. With all his bravado, Sy was a needy man. He was also fun, and that quotient had been missing from my life for a long time.

By 1959 a new wave of Americans had arrived in London and not for political reasons. London was fast becoming a hub of commerce for the international film and music industry. New restaurants were opening every week, it seemed. Italian trattorias were now all the rage. London’s nighttime scene was also glitzed by the number of high-end, glamorous gambling clubs that had opened or been refurbished. Yearly membership was required at a cost of anywhere from five hundred to two thousand pounds. The city had always had shops where bets could be placed on almost anything—horses, cricket games, election results. A gambling club was different. They were handsomely decorated, had splendid restaurants and pandering service. Patterned after the casinos in Monte Carlo and the South of France, they had rooms featuring roulette, chemin de fer, 21, and baccarat. The croupiers wore tuxedos. Chips clinked, dice rattled, and the smoke was thick. The clientele were well dressed. Mostly the men gambled while the women remained in the restaurant or sat quietly at the gambling tables as they were plied with drinks and food by the waiters in order to keep them happy.

Crockford’s, around since the mid-eighteenth century, had been a favorite of Edward, Prince of Wales. The Curzon Club boasted the best restaurant and highest fees (which would indicate wealthier customers). The White Elephant and the River Club (the two in which Sy had a membership) leaned toward a film and entertainment clientele. There were no singers or acts performing as in the French casinos. People watching was the divertissement. When dignitaries arrived from abroad, they were given guest privileges at the Curzon. When Hollywood personages of note were in the city, they were welcomed at the White Elephant.

I was not blind to the fact that once again I was involved with a gambler. On my second date with Sy we went to the White Elephant. The restaurant was downstairs. After dinner, Sy escorted me upstairs to the gambling room. What took place here would not have attracted the gamblers who had previously played important roles in my life. Horses had been my father’s undoing; dice (or craps) my ex-husband’s; and Jule—sports. The common link between them had been the slender thread of secrecy that held them to their obsession. They were secret gamblers (or thought they were), much as some people are secret drinkers. For them, gambling was not a social experience.

There were, of course, those in the room who were simply having a good time, “a bit of a go at it,” able to win or lose a few hundred pounds at the tables and call it an evening’s entertainment. They were seldom at the tables with the serious gamblers, Sy among them, who placed a mound of chips (each worth no less than ten pounds, and often were of one-hundred-pound value) on the 21 table and left them, plus his winnings, for the next deal. This kind of gambling was open, and often a display of confidence, bravado, or “swank” as the British called it—exhibiting that win or lose would not affect your bank balance. This last was not true for Sy, and probably three-fourths of the players. The perception was apparently worth the cost.

I discussed this later with Sy. “Everything in life’s a gamble,” came the same old routine reply gamblers gave. “You gotta know how to take the ups and downs if you ever expect to win.”

Shortly after our relationship began, I saw a psychoanalyst once a week. I needed to find out why I was drawn to gamblers before their addiction was revealed to me. Well, that was one reason. I also had other problems that required some counseling. My analyst, Phil, a wise older man in his midsixties, helped me to sweep out some of the cobwebs in my head, but I continued to see Sy.

Sidney Buchman was the other person on whose intelligence I relied. He never pontificated. Sidney cared, not just about me, my kids, his family, but about why we did things, patterns, the people who could not help themselves, those who made a mark in the world with a little help. “In real estate it’s location, location, location,” he insisted. “In life it’s education, education, education.” He was always helping someone out. Perhaps his guilt was a result of his little sister’s death. If it was, I hope it eased his pain, for Sidney Buchman was one of the finest men I ever knew. “You can’t really be in love with this Sy Stewart,” he told me over coffee in the apartment, after we had spent a good part of the day working on a story proposal. “You must see that you are living two quite separate lives. He is not a part of your family life, any more than he is of his own. Nor are you sharing with him what means most to you—your writing. Does he even know—or rather did you tell him what you were currently working on? What is on your mind? In your heart? You see his friends. How many of yours have the two of you spent time with?”

“The Adlers.” I stopped there. Sidney’s words struck deep. I had made no effort to combine our worlds assuming, probably correctly, that it would not work.

“Women have hormones, men a sex drive. They equate to much the same thing. I don’t say deny them. But, sweet girl (a name he sometimes used, which did not seem demeaning to me), don’t confuse sex with love.” He smiled broadly. “Of course, if you have both, cherish it.”

Within a short time, Sy’s ex-mother-in-law arrived in London, a lovely lady of middle-European background. She took a flat near Hyde Park and Laura moved in with her grandmother.

Sy and I were seeing each other two or three times a week. If we stayed together, it was at his apartment on South Audley Street. He was often surrounded by a small entourage of men who viewed him as a leader and were always trying to be helpful or discussing “deals.” I left as soon as they arrived. Often on a Sunday we would plan something that involved all three children. Meanwhile I saw my old expat friends on my own whenever I could. What had begun to disturb me was how many of us no longer were socially conscious—that is, to the point of doing something active about it. This seemed especially curious as we had all been so hepped up about the chaos at home, in England and abroad in the first years after we had arrived. Many of our members had turned their original anger at the Committee and Hollywood into self-pity, which I found especially troubling. Sidney called it “a transient madness.” None of us had forgotten the violation of our rights we had experienced, so why weren’t we more concerned for others who were now in the same place? That is not to say that nothing was expressed or done, it simply did not go deep enough.

I had not been rich and famous in my Hollywood years. However, I had been young enough to start anew. Where, though, had I lost my zeal for protest? As a young woman I had carried picket signs in labor disputes, organized letters of protest to Congress decrying the conditions of our farm laborers, and lobbied in passing bills to aid the veterans of our wars. I had put my pen to paper to develop stories that pointed up injustice and man’s inhumanity to man and woman. Maybe that was one reason I clung to, and so admired, Sidney. Every script he chose to work on seemed worthy (his current project, The Mark, dealt with England’s harsh laws against practicing homosexuals).

I could not speak for the others, but in my case there was a living to be made and there was no market for idealistic stories, even if I did carve out time to write one. More devastating was the cold truth that no such story had fired my imagination. I had folders filled with starts and spasms, but none that I was able to bring to completion.

In the spring of 1960, Judy Garland came to London to recuperate from a serious and mysterious illness that for three weeks had put her on the critical list at New York’s Doctors Hospital. She was experiencing severe pain, her body had swollen monstrously, and her voice become a raspy whisper. Her condition was finally attributed to hepatitis, but I don’t believe that was ever a proven fact.

Judy’s life had been reaching the extremes of up and down from her youth. Now only thirty-eight, she was in a severe state of depression. Her marriage to producer/promoter Sid Luft—her third husband and father of two of her children—had become a living nightmare. Though few outsiders knew it, Sid had encouraged her dependency on pills to keep her performing. He would withhold them before her entrance on stage, and stand in the wings, refusing to give them to her until after she took her bows. (“Like a trained dog who does tricks,” she once told me.) Despite the critical acclaim for her “comeback” film A Star Is Born, it had not been a financial success. (“Whaddaya mean, comeback? I’ve always been here!” she cried one time.) Sid did not curtail his lavish expenditures, and Judy was deluged with bill collectors and pressed on all sides for money she did not have.

She was led to believe that her time in London would be work and stress free. Luft had collected a $35,000 advance from Random House on the promise that Judy would cooperate in the writing of an autobiography. However, he had been privately negotiating for her to return for an engagement at the Palladium where, in 1954, she had been a sensation. The deal he made was for her to do two solo concerts called An Evening with Judy Garland. When she found out there was little she could do to stop it, the advance from Random House had been spent and no work had been done on the autobiography. Bills were piling up daily and there were Sid and their two children to support.

The media coverage of her presence in London stirred up strong memories in me. As a child of five I had been a member of the Meglin Kiddies, a booking agency for child acts. Judy and her two sisters were also Meglin Kiddies. Luckily, I did not have a stage mother. In fact, Marion had been extremely vocal against my pursuing a career at such an early age. This was, however, in the darkest days of the Depression. Mother and I were living with my uncle Dave and aunt Theo in a small house on the fringe of Beverly Hills. My aunt Theo convinced my mother that I should at least be given the opportunity to try it. Child performers were the current rage on the stage and in the movies. I sang (I was not very good, but I sang loud, a definite advantage as few theaters had microphones), had a good memory for lines and lyrics, and—if not beautiful, was eye catching with my red hair and long legs that looked good in tights (especially for a child of my tender years). Aunt Theo’s best friend from their “chorine” days was the tap dancer Ruby Keeler, now married to the star performer Al Jolson and on her way to movie stardom. Ruby came over and gave me tap lessons in the kitchen of the house (I had to dance around the old wood icebox and learn how to bow with one leg behind me—as if I were being presented to a king). Aunt Theo thought I should use the stage name Anne Louise, my full name being Anne Louise Josephson and a bit of a mouthful. My mother agreed and it made little difference to me. I thought dancing was fun, took to it naturally, and was happy to believe that I was pleasing the people I loved.

Judy was five years older than I and when we were together at auditions or at the Meglin studio, she was extremely protective. I quit show business at age nine, after going from the Meglin Kiddies to Gus Edwards Kids (which is when I was renamed Anne Edwards), and ended up tap-dancing on a radio program (how crazy was that!) where the host was Jan Murray. Judy had been signed to an MGM contract. In 1943, at the age of sixteen, I auditioned for a role in the film musical Best Foot Forward. I did not get a speaking part but was hired as one of the two dozen or so young students attending the school that was the setting for the movie. A show was planned when a visiting star (Lucille Ball) shows up on campus (too complicated to explain why she was there!). Judy, now twenty-one, was on the lot shooting Presenting Lily Mars. She had just divorced her first husband, the considerably older composer/arranger David Rose. At lunchtime in the commissary one day, I noticed her seated alone at a table in a far corner of the room and went over to speak to her.

“Remember me? Anne Louise.”

“Anne Louise! My, how you’ve grown!” she laughed. “Sit down! Sit down!” She seemed genuinely glad to see me and asked me all about myself. I told her I had given up performing but was working on Best Foot Forward, as kind of a one-off experience, never having been in a movie before. I told her I saw most of her movies and asked about her two sisters and her mother. She leaned across the table and in a lowered, rushing torrent of words filled me in on all the difficulties in her current life. Her mother was stealing from her. The studio overworked her and had people sneaking around behind her. Her life was not her own. I felt a deep empathetic pain for her. She still looked as vulnerable as she had when we were children; the throbby voice, trembling with emotion, had not changed. Finally, I rose to go. She grabbed my hand and held it tightly. “No! Don’t go!” she said. I sat down again, and she leaned back in her chair and started to tell stories about our younger days. She was very funny, suddenly, a changed person until two men came over and told her she had to go back to the recording studio with them.

MGM was like a small town with many buildings and streets that led to them. There was a lot of walking done, from office buildings to structures for makeup, cutting rooms, stages, sets, recording studios, wardrobe, and the back lots where city streets, foreign and domestic, had been constructed. In the next three weeks that I was on the lot I saw Judy a number of times. She always stopped, no matter who she was with, and talked to me, hugging me to her before we separated.

I would never appear in another movie. However, two years later, having just graduated from high school, I had the incredibly good fortune to be chosen by an MGM scout who had seen a school musical that I had written the book and lyrics for (Mark Sandrich Jr., a school friend and son of the director of the Astaire/Rogers musicals, composed the music—later he would write the score for the Broadway show Ben Franklin in Paris) and asked me to join the studio’s newly instituted Junior Writer Program. It was a dream come true, as by then I knew that writing was what I wanted most in the world to accomplish. Judy was now remarried to Vincente Minnelli and was on the lot making the nonmusical The Clock under her husband’s direction. (Fred Zinnemann had started as director and Minnelli had taken over after a disastrous beginning.)

Judy and I met again on the lot, and she displayed the same graciousness and affection toward me. Once she took hold of my hand, pulled me aside near the Writers’ Building, and in a dead serious voice said, “Anne Louise, don’t let them own you!”

She had thought I was acting in films, not writing, so I explained to her what I was doing.

“Oh! How wonderful! That’s something I always wanted. To write. I do write sometimes—poetry.” She invited me to come on the set whenever I had time. I never did, thinking it might be an imposition. Now, here she was in London. No one could escape the tons of media coverage of her illness, her depressions, her weight and financial problems. There had been no mention yet, however, of a return engagement at the Palladium. I decided to write a little note to tell her I hoped she was feeling better after her hospital stay. I signed it—Anne Louise (Edwards)—and wrote my address and telephone number beneath my signature. A few days later my telephone rang and when I answered it Judy said, in a dramatic, declaratory voice, “Anne Louise, I hope to hell you followed my advice!”

She called often, not always at the best hours. She was having an ugly time with Sid Luft. I don’t know if everything she said was true, but if only 10 percent was, Luft was pretty much a villain. She kept talking about writing her memoirs herself. “But you know, Sid owns everything. I can’t die without his permission!”

She did two concerts and left tickets for me at the box office for both. Sy was in Paris, so I took Lester for one performance (we were working together on a first draft script for Carl Foreman) and Doris Cole Abrahams to the second. Judy was superb at both performances. The audience went wild. As much as she believed that Sid owned her—onstage, on those nights, Judy owned the theater and everyone in it. When Doris and I went backstage after the last performance, there was a gaggle of people in the hallway outside her dressing room. From inside came loud voices. Sid and Judy were engaged in a terrible row. Doris and I decided to leave.

Around Christmas, I had one last call from her. “I’m leaving Sid,” she cried. “He’s going to kill me if I don’t.” She departed for the States on New Year’s Eve, flying back alone almost immediately after a record blizzard—snow and wind like London had not experienced in over fifty years. Later, on air, she would tell TV talk show host Jack Paar, “I went for a walk in the snow [during the blizzard]. Suddenly, I realized I didn’t give a damn about him [Luft] . . . for a few hours it was difficult—like being shot out of a cannon. It was really terrifying.”

“The blizzard?” Paar asked.

“No, leaving Sid. I thought he might come after me.”

Sy had returned. I remember that he brought me a huge bottle of my favorite perfume from “Freddie’s,” the duty-free shop in Paris that everyone with a passport and air ticket visited before leaving Paris as the prices were so good. We went to the River Club after dinner. It was late, maybe eleven p.m. The River Club, which was on the shore of the Thames, was not the best place to be in the freaky, freezing weather and winds that January. The wind howled, the premises shook, and the lights flickered, but it did not seem to impede the gamblers at the table where Sy was playing.

At first he was losing but he kept on playing. It got to be three a.m. I considered calling a taxi and leaving. “Not when I’m behind,” he whispered in my ear and then ordered the waiter to bring me a chicken sandwich. Suddenly, his luck turned. He was winning big. Pale light came through the seaside windows. The storm had passed and it was almost morning. By five a.m. a large mound of chips were stacked beside him. I made a rough guess that he had won something in the neighborhood of fifteen to twenty thousand pounds. When the next hand was dealt he pushed the entire pile into the center of the table. He was betting all he had on one draw. He lost the game, giving no evidence in his attitude that this affected him in any way. At the start of the evening he had given me chips that amounted to one hundred pounds. He now asked for their return and handed them to the dealer as a tip, made some small talk with the other players, and had the staff call us a taxi. We rode in silence for a few minutes. Then he said, “Keep the weekend open. Maybe we’ll go to Paris.”

I called him the next day to say I wouldn’t be going and that it would be best if we didn’t see each other for a while (my decision made after a session with Phil).

“For a while? You mean you want to break up?”

I told him it just wasn’t working. There was too much disparity between our lifestyles. I needed mental stimulation, perhaps more than sexual satisfaction. I loved the theater, ballet, the opera, the concert hall, not celebrity gathering spots and gambling casinos. And maybe, I loved him. At least felt strongly about him, cared for him—and Laura. I added that this was not an easy decision for me. But my kids came first before anything or anyone else. And most important, I needed to be in control of my life, to keep my identity as a working writer, and somehow in our relationship I was losing ground and feeling more like an attachment than a separate person.

“This is it, then?” His voice had hardened.

“Yes.”

“Your spin,” he said. “It was good while it lasted.”

“Yes, it was,” I agreed.

“I guess there’s nothing more to be said.”

“Nothing.”

He cleared his throat and after a moment signed off.

I had not told him that I was pregnant.

I needed some time to think. So, instead of Paris, I flew to Switzerland and boarded a train for Klosters to visit my friend Salka Viertel. I first met Salka when I was a junior writer at MGM. She had been a noted actress in Poland in the days of silent film. She married the Viennese director Berthold Viertel and they both immigrated to Hollywood in 1929. Salka would find fame in American films, not as an actress, but as a scriptwriter, whereas Berthold would not do well in the transition. Salka was quick to learn to speak English and would write the screenplays for many of Greta Garbo’s most celebrated movies—Queen Christina, Anna Karenina, and Conquest among them. She and Berthold led separate lives. She had a house in Santa Monica where she hosted a fabulous French-style salon every Sunday afternoon where intellectuals and well-known artists comingled.

I had been introduced to Salka on the MGM lot by William Fadiman, the head of the story department and my boss when I was a junior writer. He said some small complimentary thing about my talent and writing potential. Salka made a passing remark that I should come to one of her Sunday afternoon gatherings. This was followed up with a note that requested my presence the following Sunday. I was honored and in wonder at being invited. I was, after all, only seventeen years old.

One particular afternoon remains vivid in my memory. Gathered in Salka’s front parlor and dining room, furnished in grand European style were Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin (Salka’s great friend), writers Thomas Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger, and Stephen Spender. Chaplin came with his elder son, Charles Jr., just two years older than I. Being the youngest in a group of about thirty people, we naturally gravitated toward each other. I would have two or three dates with him after that. I recall him as being a highly emotional young man, not very happy although creating a facade of being so. Salka knew I was an ardent admirer of Thomas Mann, and she made a point of carting me over to where the great writer and his wife were standing and then introducing me. For I believe the one and only time in my life, I was tongue-tied. He was kind and said a few words to me and must have been relieved when someone else approached to demand his attention.

Rumors proliferated in Hollywood (squashed by the ever-vigilant studio publicity corps) that Salka and Garbo were lovers. I do not know that as fact. I was often in both their company in Klosters in the fifties and sixties where Garbo was the frequent guest of Salka. They were most certainly close, dear friends—to that I can attest. They put on no airs with each other. Lesbian lovers? Quite honestly that was beyond my ken to discern. Even at the age I was during that time, I had little knowledge of lesbian relationships beyond what I had read in books of fiction. I pretty much thought what I still do today: physical love between two adults is a private matter and a love strong enough to bond them, whatever their race, color, religion, or sex should be respected. Also, when I visited Salka in Klosters, both women were in their sixties and I saw nothing of a romantic nature pass between them. They were two women of a certain age who had mutual interests and had shared important events of their lives.

Wherever Salka lived she established une maison Cocotte of the most interesting and celebrated of artists living or visiting Switzerland who eventually made their way to Klosters. This visit was my third or fourth. Later, I would have a chalet in Klosters. In earlier times, such as followed my breakup with Sy, I stayed at the Chesa Grischuna and brought Cathy with me as Salka had a grandchild, the daughter of her son, the writer Peter Viertel. She lived with Salka when she was not at her Swiss boarding school. Michael had remained in London as a guest of the Adlers.

The Chesa was a special hotel, set well, looking up to the awesome crest of the Gotschna, the Swiss Alps. It was January and the height of the skiing season. The small town was crowded with skiing groups moving in a solid parade to and from the slopes. If warmly dressed I got used to the cold, which was much dryer than London winters, and on most days shafts of sunlight would cut through the clouds and I could sit on the terrace of the Chesa drinking hot chocolate and feel the warmth of the sun lay its hand on my back.

The interior of the Chesa smelled sharply of the fragrant wood used in its construction. There was a great fireplace in the wood-beamed dining room. Meals were included, and you had the same table for the duration of your stay. The rooms were small, cozy, low ceilinged, the beds covered in thick down quilts. Despite the season there were geraniums in the outside window boxes in full bloom, a phenomenon that never ceased to fill me with wonder.

Salka had been blacklisted. She was, it seemed, no longer writing, her life for the time being wrapped around her granddaughter, whose mother had tragically died in a fire caused when she had fallen asleep on a couch with a lighted cigarette. Salka’s house was across the road from the rear of the hotel. I recall Garbo and the writer Irwin Shaw (who lived in Klosters for part of the year) being at Salka’s the first afternoon of my arrival. Garbo was very relaxed around Salka, dressed in a heavy sweater and wool pants. Salka’s secretary, Marian, was also present. The two young girls had gone off into another part of the house.

A French couple were also visitors, as was Irwin who was speaking to them in their language but was receiving puzzled looks. “Speak to them in English, Irwin,” Salka demanded. “No one can understand your French!”

Garbo left Klosters the day before I was to depart. “Something’s troubling you,” Salka told me on the telephone. “Come for lunch.”

Marian took charge of the girls and we lunched alone. I took Salka into my confidence about my current condition and that I was considering going to an abortionist.

“That is a very personal decision,” she said, pausing for a moment. “Tell me, are you a member of any organized religion?”

“No. I don’t believe in them.”

“How do you feel about this man? Do you love him?” she asked feelingly.

I thought carefully about it. “Not deeply.” I remembered Sy saying one night after we had spent the evening with the Adlers, “We have much more together than they have.” I knew that we did not but kept silent. “I would never marry him and I cannot even contemplate the idea of having a child at this time in my life,” I finally replied.

“Well, darling, you seem to have made up your mind.”

“Yes . . . yes, I have. There is one thing, however.” She leaned in closer and took my hand. Her deep-set eyes were fixed on me. I could see how beautiful she must once have been, those amazing eyes, the fine-carved bones of her face. One could not help but note the grace with which she used her hands. “I’m not going to tell him either that I am pregnant or that I plan to have an abortion,” I finished.

“Do you think he would stop you if he knew? Or maybe wish to do—the right thing?”

“No. Neither. I just want the relationship to be cut clean. Nothing left open for further discussion. Do you think that’s wrong?”

“Who can say what is wrong or right in such cases? A woman’s body is her own to do with what she chooses. If you were married it would be another matter—perhaps. Or, perhaps not. I think, perhaps not. It is not my business, of course, but how are you going to pay for this?”

“I have the money. I’ve been working steadily for the last few months. I was saving it for a trip back to the States to see my mother. But this seems more pressing.”

“You must promise me—no back-alley operation?”

“No, no. A good doctor. Not ethical—but reliable and used by the studios.”

“Ummm. I know the kind. We had one like him at MGM. Married to Louella Parsons, I believe.”

When Cathy and I were leaving, Salka gave me a fond hug. “You’ll call?”

“I promise.”

Within a week after my return from Klosters, all the arrangements had been made. Since the doctor’s name was not a secret in the industry, I called and made an appointment, citing another minor ailment, and went to see him.

His office was on Harley Street where most of the private practices (those not a part of National Health) were located. There remained numberless British citizens of the upper brackets who could afford private care and desired to do so. It could have been a class issue. But I had so far found the National Health excellent and could not have hoped in my past experiences for better care. National Health, however, did not pay for abortions, nor could a doctor in the scheme perform one unless the mother’s life was in critical danger. I was perfectly healthy.

When I arrived at the doctor’s suite in an elegant Harley Street building, I was led into a private anteroom to wait. The magazines in the rack left to amuse patients while they waited were Majesty, and others to do with horses, cricket, and golf. I did not have to fill time for I was almost immediately ushered into the doctor’s private—and extremely well-furnished—office. The doctor was of tolerable good looks, extremely fit for a man of his age (I assumed he was in his midfifties) and possessing considerable charm. His hair (dyed dark) had begun to thin and so he combed it forward, much as Raymond did. He wore a well-tailored, expensive business suit and sapphire links on the French cuffs of what appeared to be an expensive Sulka shirt.

The story I had heard about him was that not being from an affluent family, he had been performing abortions while attending medical school to help with his tuition and lifestyle. He had a definite pride in what he did, believing himself to be something of a humanitarian as well as an expert. Someone high up in the Rank Organisation had found need for his discreet services, and so his career had taken wing. He also performed such services as procuring pills for addicted patients—performers, sports figures, and scions of famous or titled families. A recurring rumor was that he supplied the former Duke of Kent (King George VI’s youngest brother who died in an air crash in 1942) with drugs for his habit.

He verified that I was seven weeks pregnant, asked a few questions about my past health history, and then in a faintly condescending manner added, “I am in private practice, you know. There will be a fee. Is the gentleman . . .”

I interrupted. “I will be responsible for the cost. How much will it be?”

“Five hundred pounds. Cash,” he said, very straight and clear. “Before . . .”

“I understand.”

“Fine. Fine.” He looked through an appointment book on his desk and suggested a date and time for the following week. I asked him questions on how long the medical procedure would take, what were the possible complications, and what should I do before and after.

“You will be able to go home directly after. But you should have someone of a discreet nature to accompany you. If you change your mind, please ring and simply state that you have to cancel an appointment.” He walked me to the door and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Not to worry. You’re in good hands now,” a declaration that did not entirely reassure me.

I took my time to decide who I could ask to accompany me. Not Sidney, nor Kit, nor Doris, each of whom might try to dissuade me. No one from the expat colony, either, for news was shuttled between them with amazing speed. And certainly not Raymond, who was the only Englishman I knew whom I would not turn to in an emergency. I finally decided on Stanley Mann, an American film writer who had come over with the new wave of Americans and Canadians. He was currently working with Sidney on a screenplay (The Mark) on which Raymond was one of the producers. We had met socially and rather hit it off. Stanley was a capable and sympathetic person. Very sensible. I called and asked if he could meet me for lunch at a Chinese restaurant on Kensington High Street. Over a Mongolian hot pot we discussed the situation—or rather, I talked and he listened.

“This is rather new to me,” he said, hedging.

“I would understand if you don’t feel you can do it.”

“And the guy? Where is he in all this?”

“It’s over and he doesn’t know.”

“Have you told Sidney?”

“No. I’ve told only one friend and she lives in Switzerland.”

“What do I do if things—well—if you need . . .”

“I guess at that point you could call the Adlers.”

He agreed to take me, but I could see he was not pleased with the idea.

The procedure took no more than a half hour. I rested for a while and then Stanley drove me home. The whole thing had transpired between the time the children had left for school and the time that they returned.

On a Saturday afternoon about two weeks after the abortion, Cathy and I had gone food shopping at Harrods as I was planning to cook Sunday lunch for some friends. The clouds were gray, rain constant by the time we came out loaded with packages. There were no taxis at the taxi rank. We stood under the canopy waiting for the doorman who was trying to hail one for someone ahead of us in the queue. Suddenly I sighted a free taxi coming toward Brompton Road (where we were) from a side street. Switching to a “New York mentality,” I grabbed Cathy’s hand and took off at a run for the cab, hoping to reach it before the doorman saw it. The street was slick with rainwater. I made it just past the curb, let go of Cathy’s hand, and went flying through the air having totally lost my footing. I landed badly, my right leg (my weak one) underneath me. The pain set in immediately. The doorman came running, cars to a screeching halt, whistles blew, and a crowd was gathering. Cathy leaned in close to me.

“Mommy,” she said softly, “pull down your skirt.”

That day I had decided to wear a dress (I was going to Harrods, after all, and must look proper), and in the fall my coat had flown open and my skirt beneath it risen to my hips, revealing my undergarments. What could I do but laugh? At least two things were certain. I had been raised as a genteel young lady and heeded my mother’s oft-said advice, “Always wear a clean pair of panties when venturing out.”

An ambulance was quick to the scene. I was taken to St. George’s Hospital, about five minutes or less away. My leg was broken badly in two places. After a week in the hospital (the children had stayed with the Adlers) with my leg in a cast from groin to toe, I was brought home in a wheelchair by ambulance. Two burly paramedics got me into the lobby of our building and then were confronted by that narrow, boxlike lift. There was no way that even one of the men could ride up with me. They tried fitting me and the wheelchair in, the idea being that I would ride up alone and they would walk up the four flights of stairs and take me out when I arrived at the top. However, I could not bend my leg because of the cast and had to extend it straight out. The door would not close. No way to go but for the men to carry me up the four flights. They decided it would be a lighter load if I was out of the wheelchair and so up the three of us went with Michael heading the progression by walking backward and holding up my leg.

It took several months before the cast came off. During that time those same two paramedics came twice a week to take me to St. George’s for x-rays and therapy, carrying me up and down the stairs. Once the cast was removed and I was on crutches, they picked me up and delivered me with the same gentle care.

The children were so wonderful. I know there cannot be better kids anywhere in the world. I hired a lady to come in for a few hours a day during the week, but Michael and Cathy insisted on doing the cooking and serving of meals. The first efforts were rather disastrous. I remember a charred-almost-to-cinders stew that Michael (now twelve and quite a young man) cooked (he would not let Cathy touch the stove), toast for breakfast that made the burnt toast at the Basil Street Hotel pale by comparison, and eggs that were like small curds. Nonetheless, every meal was served to me on a tray with a pretty doily and a flower in a glass.

By mid-May, I knew I was not well and must make some sort of plan to get myself back on my feet—literally—for my leg was healing slowly and I was seriously anemic. Summer break was coming up, which meant no school. My parents had reunited (at least they were living together part-time) in Miami Beach, Florida, where they had a small house near the beach. Decision made. We three would fly to Miami and stay with them for the summer. With Marion in charge, I knew we would all be well taken care of. I made all the arrangements, bought our flight tickets, contracted the movers to pack up our things to be returned to storage in Hammersmith, and gave notice to my landlord of the date we would be departing. We would simply have to relocate on our return in September. Finding a flat in London was never difficult and this time I wanted a place with either no stairs or a proper lift.

Two days before our departure, Cathy ran a high fever. The morning we were to leave she was covered with red spots. She had the measles. That was a harrowing morning; I did not want Michael to catch them so it seemed the sensible thing was to have him take the flight as planned, and as soon as Cathy was better (the pediatrician said that in ten days she would be fit for travel) we would follow. I changed the tickets, called my mother, and then asked Doris Cole Abrahams to take Michael to the airport and see him off (which she seemed pleased to do and as she had a chauffeur it was no problem). My landlord, a terrible prig, was another matter. The flat had been let, the lease to begin the weekend following our originally planned departure. He had a contract and could not change it. Desperate (and not high on funds) I offered to double the rent for that week’s extension and he finally agreed.

All did not go great. Michael’s plane hit severely bad weather and had to turn back and land in Shannon, Ireland, where he was put up in the airport hotel for the night, quite an adventure for a twelve-year-old. More telephone calls back and forth to the States and to Michael, with long-distance calling steep in those days.

Came the day that Cathy and I were scheduled to leave and she was still covered with red dots—slightly faded, but quite visible. What to do? Even though the doctor had assured me she could no longer pass on the disease, I doubted that the airline would let her board if they thought she had a communicable disease, and I just could not figure out how we would manage another delay. So I sat her down at the dressing table (which I had used as my desk), got out my makeup bag which contained my old faithful Max Factor pan(chromatic) makeup that I had used since I was a child performer. It was a staple for most performers as it covered up any blemish that might suddenly develop. A singular blemish was one thing. Cathy must have had twenty or thirty marks on her face and neck. I carefully applied a thick covering of Max Factor on each one. Then I took regular makeup and smoothed it over her face and neck, and lastly powdered them. She looked extremely odd for a child her age. But the spots were hidden. I pulled some colored stockings of mine over her legs and held them in place with rubber bands so that no spots on her legs would be visible. The intrigue of it had gotten to Cathy, and she was quite enjoying herself.

We received some strange looks as we boarded the plane but I was certain no British Airways employee would dare such a comment as, “Madam, your child looks odd.” Indeed, we made it past passport inspection and onto the plane. Now I had to worry about our landing. It was the law then that a health inspector would come on board an overseas plane’s arrival and go up and down the aisles. It had always seemed ridiculous to me before. Now, I understood. I took Cathy into the toilet and once again went to work reapplying my Max Factor. We made it through inspection and customs. We were home free.

Within a few days all of Cathy’s measles spots had vanished and both children were enjoying the beach. On the other hand, I took an immediate dislike to my environment. Miami Beach was as unreal as those recreated towns on the back lot of MGM with facades and nothing behind them. I adored my mother and was relieved that my father was not around all that often as his presence always changed the atmosphere into one of stored-up hostility. There was no work for me until I gained back my strength. London and the close community of friends I had left behind were always on my mind. Still, I was not at all well and was most grateful for Marion’s tender, life-restoring care, and was especially forbearing in listening to her Christian Science homilies.