I kept working with Marchesi until I left for the holidays. I arrived in New York on December 22, 1938. Paul met me, and we drove immediately up to the Vineyard to be with my mother and my darling sisters for Christmas. Paul went on to the coast to be with his mother for New Year’s, and to see his sons. I stayed with my mother and sisters for three wonderful weeks, and then joined Paul in Los Angeles. It was time for me to meet his mother.
Mrs. George Franklin Getty was in her late eighties when we first met. She was a woman of medium height and a strong personality. She was gentle, yet firm of manner, and she greeted me with the natural appraisal of a woman concerned with her son’s happiness. She too had been married to a man obsessed with business, and I could see that she was hopeful that Paul had finally made a permanent attachment to someone he not only loved, but someone who loved him enough to put up with his way of life.
I believe it helped quiet her fears knowing we were only engaged and not yet married, and that I was seriously pursuing my own career in music. She smiled when I told her this, and when she smiled, her whole face lit up and her eyes twinkled—just like Paul’s.
Several afternoons, we had tea alone together in her upstairs living room, and it was over tea that Mrs. Getty startled me by asking, “Has Paul mentioned your signing a prenuptial agreement before you marry?”
“No, he hasn’t,” I replied. “Why?”
“Because his lawyers have made it clear that it is necessary this time. You must realize you will be his fifth wife. In case you divorce, you will already know what to expect in the way of support.”
“Oh, but Mrs. Getty, I’ve supported myself ever since I left home, and Paul has already given me all that I need—his belief in my accomplishing the goal I had already set for myself, long before we met.”
“Then you will sign? I think it is important for you both.”
“Then I will.”
“Good,” she replied, looking greatly relieved.
Mrs. Getty lived at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and South Kingsley Drive in the same lovely English Tudor that she, her husband, and Paul had called home for many years. At our last meeting, she asked me to drive with her to the Getty beach house in Santa Monica, and then up the coast. We passed the Miramar Hotel, overlooking Santa Monica Bay, and drove down the ramp to the sea, with palisades on one side and the wide expanse of the blue Pacific before us. At the base of the ramp, a row of fine-looking houses hugged the curve of the shoreline all the way to Malibu. The whole scene was so beautiful I could only hope that one day I’d return.
Driving along, we spoke to each other as two persons who loved the same man. I wanted her to know how much I cared for Paul, how much he meant to me. “Please, don’t take my son from me,” she pleaded.
I reached over and took her hand in mine. “I couldn’t take your son from you, Mrs. Getty. What I want for both of us is to be here with you,” and I leaned over and kissed her cheek.
We returned to her home, and as I left, she pressed an envelope in my hand. I slowly walked down the stairs and said good-bye to Paul’s cousin, Ruth Richardson, who lived in the house with Mrs. Getty as her companion.
Once on the sidewalk, I opened the envelope. A check for $25 was enclosed, with a note. It read:
My dear Teddy:
This is just a small token of my affection and good wishes for you. Buy some little thing for yourself in New York. I am wishing only the best for you always.
My love,
Sarah Getty
Paul was waiting for me across the street in his fabulous green classic Duesenberg, with its mahogany and silver dashboard. We took Sunset Boulevard all the way to the beach. Then, just as the sun disappeared below the horizon, we turned south. As we passed his beach house, he pointed out the elegant homes of Marion Davies, the Jesse Laskys, the Sam Goldwyns, the Louis B. Mayers, and the Darryl Zanucks. This was the Gold Coast, as it was known in those days. Only a few of those grand estates remain today.
Suddenly, the lights on the Santa Monica Pier loomed up out of the approaching darkness and, drawing nearer, we could hear the sounds of the organ coming from the merry-go-round grinding out the strains of “The Skater’s Waltz.” A mile farther on we turned seaward and ended up at Jack’s at the Beach, a famous eating place.
After ordering dinner, Paul turned to me. “Teddy,” he said, “there’s something important I must discuss with you.” His voice sounded so serious that for a moment I felt like a child who had misbehaved, and inwardly I panicked.
“What is it?” I asked defensively, wondering what I’d done. This made him laugh out loud and he leaned down and kissed me.
“Don’t worry, darling,” he said, putting his arms around me. “It’s just that I want some very important people in the music world to hear your voice, and I’ve arranged for you to sing for them at the Temple on Wilshire Boulevard. It’s the largest hall I could find. If you can fill that auditorium, you can fill any opera house in the world.”
“When will I sing?” I asked.
“Tomorrow at ten in the morning.”
At ten the next morning I stood dead center on a very large stage, looking out over miles of empty seats, and then at the faces looking up at me. In the center of the auditorium sat several formidable critics—Valentin Pavlovsky, accompanist for the great cellist Gregor Piatigorsky; Dr. Edouard Lippe, Nelson Eddy’s voice coach, who had once told Paul he would be delighted to train me before I chose London; four members of the editorial staff of the leading music journal Musical America; several important men from the music department of MGM; and California’s greatest impresario, Lynden E. Behymer.
I took a breath, nodded to my accompanist, tried to remember everything Marchesi had taught me, and smiled once at Paul. Then I began to sing “Non piu di fiori,” a beautiful aria from Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito. When I finished, I knew I had done my best and I walked off the stage.
There was a long moment of silence—too long, I thought—and then my critics burst into enthusiastic applause. Paul, businessman that he was, addressed the group. “Gentlemen,” he asked, “do you agree with me that she is concert and operatic material?”
The “yea’s” were unanimous and wholehearted. Then Paul asked, “Do you agree with me that she should return to Marchesi and prepare her repertoire?”
“Indeed! Indeed!” was the response.
Well, that definitely did it. Paul was jubilant as he put me in his car. I was excited, too, excited that I had done well, and that I hadn’t disappointed him. Thank God for Marchesi . . . and thank you, God.
Paul leaned over, kissed me, and said, “Teddy, dear, you were terrific, and I’m so proud of you.”
“You are?” I turned and looked at him. His eyes said it.
“You know I am . . . and that was a truly difficult piece. They loved you . . . and so do I. Are you hungry?” he asked as he put the car in gear.
“Always,” I replied and we both laughed.
“Then let’s go to the Brown Derby and have breakfast.”
Seated in a secluded booth, Paul hurriedly ordered, then started to tell me more. MGM wanted to test me right away. Dr. Lippe had said, “Tell her to prepare her roles.”
“Mr. Behymer assured me that when you are ready, he will arrange your concert,” Paul continued. “Darling, when you drill for oil, you may know that it is there . . . but the big question is . . . how much is there? You don’t know till you drill and see it pouring up out of the earth—a tremendous gusher. Well, I’ve always known, since the first night we met, that your voice was beautiful. It had a certain warm, luscious quality. And you sang with such feeling that I felt you would make a fantastic Carmen or Tosca. Still, I never was sure it was strong enough to fill an opera house. But when you sang this morning in that immense auditorium, sang with such power and authority, I knew I was right . . . you could do it. As Pavlovsky said, you were a tour de force. So, you see, you are on your way!”
“Do you really think so?” I asked.
“Yes, I do,” he answered.
“Well, then, I must go back to London right away. There’s so much more I have to learn, and so little time.”
“But not yet,” he said vehemently. “You still have to see the California desert. Palm Springs is so beautiful at this time of year, and I want to take you there. So don’t leave, darling, please!” His voice was so persuasive I almost laughed, but I really wanted to cry, because I too wanted to stay with Paul and have fun. After all, I’d been in California for such a short time. We drove to Palm Springs in his divine Duesenberg, top down under a full moon, with the most wonderful, soft desert wind blowing my hair all around.
We arrived at the Desert Inn just before midnight. Leaving our luggage in the suite reserved for us, we walked through the gardens, so fragrant with desert flowers, and I marveled at the spectacular palms standing like sentinels along the paths. Returning to our suite, we found a table filled with chicken sandwiches. A bottle of champagne had been placed right beside the couch in front of the fireplace, which Paul immediately lighted. It was a night I shall never forget. We ate, made love, then fell asleep after making plans to be married at Herstmonceux Castle in England when Paul came over in the spring. We went swimming, lay in the sun, had breakfast in town, then drove to Idyllwild up in the mountains. It had snowed there the day before, and it looked just like a picture postcard of Maine, with its log cabins and pine trees. For the next few days and nights, except for Paul’s business calls, we cut ourselves off from the world.
Then Paul drove me to the railroad station in Pasadena, where the Santa Fe Super Chief was waiting to take me on my first leg of the long trip back to England. I had a stateroom, with bags and music piled high. Paul kissed me twice, stood in the doorway looking at me, then came back and kissed me again. “I love you,” he whispered. “Don’t forget that, and be a good girl.” He smiled and was gone.
As the train pulled out of the station, I had a premonition of danger. I felt, even though we had made plans, that I might never see him or my homeland again. I had a sudden desire to stay, a struggle between the woman in me and the singer. Paul and I were always meeting and leaving each other. It seemed endless, yet there was this drive in me that I knew Paul admired. He, himself, gave up everything and everyone for what he felt he had to accomplish. That came first, even before love. It wasn’t his fault. Hard as it seemed for me to leave him, I had to do what I set out to do. But I did it for love!
Traveling from California to England was not a plane ride in those days. The Super Chief took me as far as Chicago, where I changed trains and boarded the 20th Century Limited to New York. In New York, I embarked on Paul’s favorite ship, the SS Normandie, bound for Southampton. Certainly travel had a glamour, an excitement not felt today. There was always the thrill of boarding, the quick search of the passenger list for friends, the invitation on the first night out to join the captain’s table for dinner, the movies, morning walks on the deck, the dancing, the parties, and the hours to catch up on one’s reading. But traveling alone, leaving the one you love, even though it would be for only a few months, seemed to take forever.
As soon as I arrived in London, I phoned Paul to say “I miss you,” and that I’d taken a flat at Eresby House in Rutland Gate. I also wanted to catch him up on my social life. “I was invited to dine at the home of Baron Frédéric d’Erlanger, an old friend of Marchesi who lives in a magnificent house directly across the park from where I now live. He is a very elegant, older gentleman, also the composer of the ballet Les Cent Baisers. His brother, Baron Emile d’Erlanger, and his nephew, Baron Leo, were invited, too, so I was the only girl at the dinner table. It was a first for me, having a liveried manservant stand behind each chair while we dined. Then off we went to Covent Garden to hear Lotte Lehmann in the role of the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. She was sensational. Afterward we had supper at Quaglino’s—remember, you took me there last year? After dancing one dance with Leo, they drove me home promptly at midnight, in Baron Frédéric’s Rolls.”
“Stop, Teddy dear,” Paul said, laughing. “You should have written all this to me. It’s extremely interesting, but, darling, just think of your telephone bill. Remember, Eresby House charges are added on top of the outside long distance charges.”
“Well, Paul,” I said, realizing he was right, but terribly excited, “I just wanted you to know who I was going out with.”
“I’m glad to know, darling, and I’ll never be jealous as long as you date men in their eighties. In the meantime, go to bed, young lady. Tomorrow, I’ll call you! Bye.”
For the next month, I earnestly obeyed Marchesi and studied the roles she had given me. I sang the part of Cherubino from Le nozze di Figaro, remembering that Marchesi was adamant that Cherubino’s aria “Voi che sapete” must be sung as Mozart had written it. She reminded me that in Rossini’s époque, singers started slurring from one phrase to the next. “It is bad taste to do this with eighteenth-century songs,” she declared, then added, “When you are singing a beautiful high note, never push. Enjoy it. When singing Charlotte’s aria ‘Va! Laisse couler mes larmes’ from Massenet’s Werther, the singer must never be so emotional as to bring herself to tears. It is for your public to cry.”
Much as I loved studying with Madame Marchesi, and much as I had learned from her and grown as a singer, for me there was still the problem of where she had placed my voice. She was sure I was a mezzo-soprano, not a soprano, which meant that the roles I most wanted to sing would always be out of reach.