FORTY-FOUR

Peter and Patty flew from Los Angeles to Palm Springs on December 12, then drove to the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage. On the flight, Peter downed enough one-ounce bottles of vodka to get drunk. In the car, he wasn’t sure where they were going. When Patty told him, “Betty Ford’s,” he seemed pleased. “I’ve always liked Betty Ford,” he replied — and Patty realized he thought they were going to her house for dinner.

Once he arrived at the center, Peter understood where he was and why, and he agreed to go through a program designed to save his life. His first week there was a harrowing one of cold-turkey detoxification; his body sweated and shook and burned for more drugs, more alcohol. Once he got through it, he was far from a model patient. He rebelled against the strictures of the center, refusing to make his bed, vacuum his room, or do his laundry. (He had Patty do it when she visited him.)

His days were spent in group and private therapy, which he hated. He described his therapy sessions as “someone expressing an authoritarian spasm.” He finally began doing chores his second week there and played bridge during leisure hours with the other celebrities at what he called “Stalag 17” — Elizabeth Taylor (who knew nothing of his tip-off to the tabloid), Johnny Cash, and Desi Arnaz, Jr.

His therapy regimen included writing responses to questions about his feelings and attitudes. He expressed resentment over having been forced to move from Cory Avenue “because of lack of funds. It makes one rather frustrated watching one’s life going down instead of up — especially at my age.” In response to the question, “Who do you think you may have hurt by your drinking or drug use?” Peter replied, “I only hurt myself, not others that I am aware of.”

Another part of the therapy was to write letters to loved ones (dead or alive) that he may have hurt with his addictions and apologize for his behavior. Since he felt he hadn’t hurt anyone, he wrote only to Jack Kennedy and Sir Sydney.

The letters, long and chatty, detail his activities and ask about theirs. He tells Jack he wouldn’t like the Betty Ford Center because there was “not a pretty girl within miles.” He asks him if he has been elected president of anything — “you must be running something, knowing you.” He asks how Marilyn and Bobby are doing and asks Jack to give his best to Steve McQueen and Vic Morrow should he run into them.

Peter’s letter to his father is extraordinary in its affectionate tone; he calls him “you marvelous rascal!” In his letter to Jack Kennedy, Peter admits that he is in the Betty Ford Center because of his drinking, but to his father he writes only that he has been having liver problems. He apologizes to Sir Sydney for not having been able to say good-bye to him when he went on his “trip” and tells him that they will talk soon. He closes the letter, “I adore you — Peter.”

AN ALCOHOLIC OR DRUG ADDICT cannot be helped unless he truly wants to be, and Peter didn’t — as Patty soon learned. “Peter has a death wish,” she told one of the national tabloids. “There are days when I know he wants to destroy himself.”

That Peter was slowly committing suicide became clear from his American Express bills, from which Patty learned to her shock that Peter had paid for a helicopter to fly cocaine into the vast desert area behind the Ford Center. He would take a long walk, meet the helicopter, do a few lines of coke, and return to the facility. Apparently, he was never found out.

Peter did remain alcohol free for the five weeks he spent at the clinic, and Patty described him as “looking wonderful” when he returned home. Three days later Peter went out on an errand, and a few hours later Patty got a phone call. It was the bartender at a nearby restaurant; Peter was so drunk she would have to come and help him home.

It was like this often during the last year of Peter’s life; his deterioration proceeded with awful speed. Although he continued to try to work, no one would hire him. After Gene Yusem sent him to a producer for a possible role in a television pilot, the man called Yusem and asked him, “Have you seen Peter Lawford lately?”

Desperate, he took out a loan from the Motion Picture Relief Fund and sold the story of his treatment at the Betty Ford Center to a national tabloid for twelve thousand dollars. He set to work once again on his memoirs, this time on speculation. He worked with the freelance writer Wayne Warga, and Warga soon found himself frustrated by Peter’s inability to concentrate and his unwillingness to be frank about the Kennedys. “Jack was a wonderful person and a wonderful President,” Peter said later. “And I’m not going to blacken his name no matter how much I need the money.” As before, the project never got off the ground.

In July, Peter complained of stomach pains; before long his abdomen became distended and he coughed up blood. Patty took him to UCLA Medical Center, where he was diagnosed with a severely bleeding ulcer. He underwent emergency surgery, during which thirty-five percent of his stomach was removed.

While he was hospitalized, he wrote out a will in longhand, leaving “any and all belongings, possessions or assets owned and held by me” to “my common-law wife/companion Patricia Ann Seaton in the event of my demise.” The next day, he and Patty were married in his hospital room by a justice of the peace in a ceremony witnessed by a nurse, Peter’s lawyer, and the patient in the next bed, who vomited throughout the ceremony.

Patty wore white, and Peter insisted on standing next to her in his hospital gown despite the fact that he could barely stand and had IV tubes stuck into his arms.

Home again after the surgery, told never again to touch drugs or alcohol, Peter needed almost constant care. He had to be fed through a tube every ninety minutes around the clock, had to have his dressings changed every few hours and be helped with his bodily functions. There was no money to hire a nurse, and no one but Patty to take care of him. Finally, she spoke to Peter’s children about putting him into a home where he could be cared for by professionals around the clock. According to Patty, they didn’t feel that that was necessary.

Peter’s condition worsened. When the doctors removed the gastric tube, he began to bleed uncontrollably; they discovered that his damaged liver had stopped secreting an enzyme necessary for optimal blood clotting. The bleeding was stemmed, but now he was suffering from coagulopathy, a potentially fatal blood clotting disorder. The next day, he bumped his arm and within minutes it swelled to twice its normal size. Three days later, blood came to the surface of the swollen arm as though it were perspiration; he spent another three weeks in the hospital.

Peter made a slow but steady recovery, and by November, he was again well enough to join Elizabeth Taylor at her house for dinner. She had used her influence to get him a small, two-day role in a television movie she was about to begin, Malice in Wonderland, in which she would play Louella Parsons, and Jane Alexander would play rival gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. Peter was to play an agent, and Taylor warned him that she had gone out on a limb for him and she didn’t want him to “screw up.” He laughed and teased her about her highly publicized new sobriety. “You used to have a personality,” he told her. “You used to be interesting.”

As the day approached for Peter to film his few scenes in the picture, he grew nervous. He didn’t want to let Elizabeth down, and he wasn’t at all certain that he wouldn’t. He started to drink heavily again and reestablished some of his drug connections to obtain marijuana and cocaine.

Within a few days, he collapsed and was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. There, doctors used various treatments, including vitamin therapy, to cleanse his body of toxins and help his failing liver function. He rallied once again and was released from the hospital on the morning he was due to appear on the Malice in Wonderland set.

The night before, Milt Ebbins had paid him a visit. “I brought him some éclairs, which he liked, and I was with him for about two hours. Pat Seaton wasn’t there. I sat with him and he said, ‘You want to go over some lines with me?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ He seemed to be in pretty good shape, pretty lucid.”

Ebbins showed Peter his lines, and Peter said, “No, these are the wrong pages.” He turned to the pages he wanted to read, and after Ebbins told him that his character wasn’t even on them, he kept insisting they were the right sides. Finally Milt convinced him and they started reading, but Peter didn’t know where he was on the page. Ebbins thought to himself, He’s never gonna make it.

They stopped reading and sat silently for a few minutes. Then Peter said, “Milt, I want you to do me a favor. Please talk to Patricia.” Ebbins hadn’t spoken to Patty for months but he promised he would try to make it up with her. As Ebbins was leaving, Peter walked with him out to the elevator bank. When they got there he patted Milt on the cheek and said, “Milt, you’re a good friend.” Ebbins responded, “Hey, we’ve always been friends and we’ll always be friends.”

The next morning, Thursday, December 13, Patty went to the hospital to pick Peter up. When she got there she discovered that he had already been discharged. Worried, she began to look around the hospital grounds for him. Then she saw him walking down the street, “happy as could be.” He had gone to a convenience store and bought several one-ounce bottles of vodka.

Milt Ebbins met Peter on the Malice in Wonderland set at eleven that morning. Next on the filming schedule was Peter’s first scene in the picture, in which his character was to introduce himself to Hedda Hopper, and the two men waited in his dressing room. Ebbins was concerned that Peter appeared so lethargic. “It seemed to me like he had taken some kind of drug. At lunch he lay down and I thought, This man is dying. Peter looked at me and saw the concern in my face and said, ‘I’ll be okay.’”

Ebbins asked him if he wanted some lunch. “They’ve got lamb chops, roast beef,” he said. “Let me get you a plate of roast beef and mashed potatoes and some of that ice cream that you like. And I’ll get myself some, too.” He got the plates, but when he returned to the dressing room Peter’s eyes were closed, his face ashen. Ebbins didn’t want to disturb him, so he ate his lunch on the set.

About one o’clock, an assistant director knocked on the dressing room door and called out, “Mr. Lawford, we’re ready for you.” Peter replied, “Okay,” got up, and put on his blue suit jacket. He could barely walk. Milt helped him out to the set and he took his mark to begin the scene with Jane Alexander. The director yelled, “Action!” and the cameras began to roll. When the time came for Peter’s first line, he mumbled the words inaudibly. “The whole set could tell what was happening,” Ebbins recalled. “Jane was very concerned. She just looked at him.” Finally the director called out loudly, “Peter, please speak up a little. We can’t hear you.”

He said his line again, but still no one could hear him. And again, the same thing. The director yelled, “Take five,” and began to huddle with some of the crew members. Then the assistant director came over to him and said, “Peter, I want you to lie down. We’ll do the scene later.” But Peter never did do the scene. He left the soundstage in midafternoon and went home.

AROUND NOON ON THE following Sunday, Patty returned to the apartment after running an errand and found Peter on the kitchen floor, bleeding and nearly unconscious. She called 911, then decided to take Peter to the hospital herself to save time. As she was leaving, the telephone rang. It was the producer of Malice in Wonderland, Jay Benson, with the news that Peter would have to be discharged from the film.

Peter was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in grave condition. His liver and kidneys were failing, and his coagulopathy made surgery extremely risky. The doctors put him on life support systems and once again tried to detoxify him, but it was clear that this time Peter’s chances of surviving were slim.

As his kidneys failed, Peter’s skin turned yellow from the buildup of uremic toxins. Friends and relatives were notified that he was close to death. His children flew in to visit him, then left for Jamaica and a planned Christmas holiday. Elizabeth Taylor spent two hours holding Peter’s hand, then left to spend her Christmas in Switzerland. Some old friends came to visit; others, like Molly Dunne, couldn’t bring themselves to. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle seeing him like that,” she said.

Patty remained at the hospital most of the time, sleeping in a room provided her. She read to Peter, tried to get some response from him. Jackie Gayle came in and did his stand-up comedy routine, trying to get Peter to laugh. Nothing worked to rally him. On December 19, he fell into a coma. He lingered in that condition for the next four days, and Arthur Natoli spent the night of December 23 with Patty at the hospital. She asked him to go out to a nearby store and bring back flowers and some champagne, which they drank together.

At eight-fifty the following morning, Peter stirred for the first time in days. His muscles contracted and his upper body rose jerkily, involuntarily. Suddenly, blood spurted from his mouth, his nose, his ears. Then he fell back onto the mattress. He was dead.

ON CHRISTMAS DAY, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner ran a banner front-page headline, “Peter Lawford Dead at 61.” The secondary headline provided an epitaph that would have caused Peter, with his self-deprecating sense of humor, wry amusement: “Kennedy in-law was last to speak to Marilyn Monroe.”