I said I would.
There had been a wistful note in her voice when she said “kids,” which is why I didn’t explain or contradict her. Later, Evie told me how much Marilyn had longed to have kids, and how tragic it was that she never could.
That day, as I left the Something’s Got to Give set, dazzled as I was by Marilyn and glad to have met her, however briefly, I also felt profoundly sad for her.
A few weeks later, she was dead.
Evie called me up in tears.
“She was so frightened, Barbara,” she sobbed. “The hang-up calls. The man in the green Mercedes following her all the time. She knew who was behind it all, and why. She told me so. And now they’re saying she killed herself. She would never have done that. Never, never, never. She may have been afraid, but she liked life, she liked life.”
I have no doubt whatsoever that Evie was right on all counts.
After Flaming Star (which wasn’t a big success, primarily because Elvis only sang one song in it, and that was recorded only after feedback from preview audiences who were scandalized that their idol wasn’t singing in the movie) and the other movies that followed, I became unhappy at Fox. I tried to get the studio to loan me out to other studios, but they refused. So I remained at Fox, at the studio’s beck and call, just waiting for someone to give me work.
When Mark Robson, the director to whom I owed my Fox contract in the first place, approached me and asked me to do a part in From the Terrace, I read the script and initially refused because my character—good-time girl Clemmie Shreve—only appeared in the film for one minute and eighteen seconds.
My scene, short as it was, took place at a party, where, as “You Make Me Feel So Young” played in the background, Clemmie sees Alfred Eaton (played by Paul Newman) across a crowded room, goes straight up to him, and says coquettishly, “Are you looking for me?”
“I am, if your name is Lex Porter,” Paul says wryly.
“Well, my name is Clemmie Shreve, but I’ll change it if it’ll stop you from looking further,” I say.
“How far am I allowed to look?” Paul says with a flirtatious glance.
Then I laugh a tinkling laugh and say, “I like you,” and put my arms around him. “Sam?” I say.
“No, Alfred,” Paul says.
I give him a flirtatious look.
“Are you going to make a pass at me, Alfred?”
“You believe in long courtships, don’t you!” Paul says sardonically.
“Who’s got the time? I’m crowding nineteen,” I say.
“What, years or guys?” Paul cracks.
“Nasty,” I say, and mash up to him. “Come on, let’s dance and crowd each other.”
Paul pulls away from me.
“I’ve got a wooden leg. I’ve got to fill it,” he says.
“You mean it’s over between us?” I say archly.
“These things don’t last forever,” Paul says abruptly, then extricates himself and walks away.
I stand there dejected for a moment, then straighten up and set my sights on another target.
A cameo, to say the least.
But Mark Robson had asked me to trust him and to accept the part, so I decided to do just that, primarily because I felt I owed him a debt. So I agreed to play Clemmie Shreve in From the Terrace.
My initial reward was that I got to wear a gorgeous blue-and-white gown that the brilliant fashion designer Billy Travilla created just for me. Billy designed the iconic cerise dress Marilyn wore in her “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and the gowns she wore in The Seven Year Itch and River of No Return.
My second was that I got to act a scene with Paul Newman. He had already made Somebody Up There Likes Me, had been nominated for an Academy Award for his bravura performance as Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and was now one of the biggest male stars in Hollywood.
I was so in awe of him that at the last minute I almost changed my mind about appearing with him in From the Terrace, even briefly. I’d already signed the contract, though, so I had no option but to go ahead, scared stiff or not.
When I walked onto the set and, as my part called for, looked deep into Paul’s eyes (they outdazzled even Jack Kennedy’s), I was in Hollywood heaven. Paul must have been accustomed to evoking that reaction in besotted women, as he knew exactly how to put them at ease. He flashed me his hundred-watt smile and said, “Well, Barbara, you’re the first actress I’ve ever been able to look down on.”
He was trying to put me at ease, but he was also poking fun at himself. At the same time, his remark had a serious subtext to it—it wasn’t just a gag designed to relax me. Although I didn’t know it at the time, if the divine Paul Newman was insecure about anything about himself, it was his height.
How his height might have impacted Paul’s star quality and his vast acting talent, I had no idea, but Paul obviously considered the negative rumors about his height to be destructive to his image. His height became such a big issue for him that when a New York newspaper described him as being just five foot eight, he erupted in fury and bet the newspaper that he’d write them a check for $500,000 if he was really five foot eight—and that they’d donate to a charity $100,000 for every inch of height over five foot eight that he could lay claim to. He was so intent on winning the bet that he even contemplated consulting an orthopedic man regarding how he could make himself taller when the newspaper measured him. Luckily for him, they never followed up on the challenge, but Paul’s height, or lack of it, would always be his overriding insecurity.
That aside, he was a very down-to-earth guy and a great actor, who loved his wife, Joanne Woodward, passionately.
I’d resisted being tempted by Elvis and ignored John F. Kennedy’s invitation to call him, but the truth is that had I not been married to Michael and madly in love with him, I might have been seriously tempted by Paul Newman. But, clever woman that she is, Joanne Woodward starred in From the Terrace with him, was on set that day, and would be on most of his future movies.
Which reminds me of Elvis and his misgivings that Priscilla wouldn’t be able to cope with his pull over other women, and Booker McClay’s warnings to me when I wanted to marry Michael.
I’ve always steadfastly avoided worrying about the man in my life cheating on me with other women, because I’ve always firmly believed that worrying about my husband being tempted by other women simply takes too much time and uses too much of my energy. I’d rather devote that time and energy to loving him instead.
The truth is that no matter how happy a marriage between actors might be, there are always tremendous strains. For Michael and me, the primary strain lay in the frequency of our separations caused by our divergent careers. In fact, our separations were so frequent that in 1967 we spent just four months together, as one of us was always away on location.
Michael, who was always more self-contained than I was, may not have suffered so much during our protracted separations, but I certainly did. Recently I found a 1962 newspaper in which I talked about the sadness I felt whenever Michael had to go away for work.
“He says goodbye—and all of a sudden half of you is gone. You come home and the house seems so awfully big and empty. You find yourself looking around corners, listening for his voice and his footsteps. It’s dreadful! I miss him mostly at night. I miss him dreadfully then,” I said.
Even after we’d been married for over seven years, I still hated being parted from Michael when he went away on location. So whenever I had a break from filming whatever movie I was working on, I would jump on the next plane and join him wherever he was. Once I traveled to see him on location where he was taking part in a rodeo. Michael was a brilliant rider and gave the impression that he was at one with the horse. At this particular rodeo, like at all the others, he rode bareback, marvelously. Afterward, I had to leave, and I remember standing by the fence crying, I was so sad to be parted from him.
While we were apart, I often had to work with extremely attractive men, but Michael was never jealous, even though some of them flirted shamelessly with me. My experience with Harry Belafonte was typical.
We met during the seventies, when I was rehearsing for an NBC special and he was working on an adjacent set. He would spend hours watching me onstage, and when I came off, he flirted with me in the most enchanting way. But, handsome and charming as he was, I was never tempted by him. I was too in love with Michael. Moreover, I was never flattered when a man flirted with me, and still am not, because I don’t see it as a compliment, or even take it personally; it is just the nature of men to flirt.
My first major separation from Michael occurred because he had to go to New York to do a play and I couldn’t go with him because I had just started making Five Weeks in a Balloon, with Red Buttons.
During the shoot, Red developed a little bit of a crush on me. He must have been in his forties, but he still looked like a kid, and I think he felt like one as well. When it came to me, he certainly behaved like a kid, but I made it clear that I was married and intended to stay that way.
Later on, after I’d convinced Red that romance between us was completely out of the question, he invited me to go to the premiere of Hatari with him. I missed Michael, and I felt that my relationship with Red was on an even enough keel for me to accept an invitation from him without worrying about any consequences.
Stupidly, I’d forgotten that Red had just filed for divorce, and that the press would have a field day if we were at the premiere together, which they did.
When Michael saw the pictures of me with Red in the newspapers, he acted as if he could hardly believe his eyes. There was nothing for him to be upset about, so I told him that of course I had been to the premiere with Red, but if I had planned to step out on him, I certainly wouldn’t have done so in front of a barrage of press photographers. Michael laughed and said that he knew I wouldn’t.
Five years into our marriage, we bought a large four-bedroom house in the San Fernando Valley, complete with a play area and a swimming pool with a fence around it. The fence was there for one reason and one reason only: so that our future child could play safely in the yard without fear of him falling into the pool and drowning.
That yet-to-be-born child was constantly at the forefront of our minds, yet all our friends felt that we were crazy to buy such a big house just for the two of us, simply because we were dreaming of a family we might never have. For although we had been married for so long, it seemed that our chances of ever conceiving a child together were getting slimmer than ever.
Five Weeks in a Balloon marked the first time I worked with a lion (an experience I would reprise with Larry on I Dream of Jeannie). For some strange reason, this particular lion was permitted to roam free around the set, with his trainer standing by. Red and I were startled, but the trainer explained, “If you see him near you when he’s out of the cage, don’t move, don’t run. He just wants to play with you, like a kitten plays with a ball of string, but no matter how playful he is, just remember that he is five hundred pounds of muscle and can really hurt you. And if he rolls over, don’t move, because if you do, he’ll break your legs.”
Point taken—by me, at least. A few days later, during a break in shooting, Red and I, still dressed in our bright plaid pants from the movie, were having lunch on the grass at Lake Sherwood. Suddenly I looked over his shoulder, and there, a hundred feet behind Red, was the lion, prowling around, his tail switching.
“Don’t move an inch, Red,” I warned. “The lion’s out.”
Red almost jumped out of his skin.
“Where is it? Where is it?” he yelled at the top of his voice.
I glanced over his shoulder. The lion was now forty feet away, contemplating the two of us as if we might make a good lunchtime snack.
“Just stand still, Red. You know we’re not supposed to move!” I said.
Whereupon Red flung himself between me and the lion, as if to protect me, and started leaping up and down and screaming, “To hell with that! To hell with that!”
At that moment, thank heavens, the trainer raced up to the lion and yanked him away from us.
So the poor lion missed snacking on two actors in bright costumes, and Red and I narrowly escaped certain death.
About the same time as I made Five Weeks in a Balloon, Fox loaned me out to MGM for The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, co-starring Claire Bloom and Laurence Harvey. Laurence, who later would be much acclaimed for his tour de force in The Manchurian Candidate, exuded style and sex appeal and was a classic bon vivant. When we were on location in a little medieval village in Germany, he actually had his magnificent white Bentley shipped over there because he missed it so much.
The villagers, who’d never seen a movie star before, never mind a dashing one driving a great big Bentley, watched with their eyes popping out of their heads as Laurence roared over the quaint cobbled streets in his car, bound for some gourmet restaurant he’d somehow managed to discover in the area.
Usually I tagged along with our makeup artist in tow. One time Laurence insisted on taking us to his favorite restaurant, which he loved because, as he put it, “They make the best steak tartare in the world, Barbara, darling. You haven’t lived till you’ve tried it.”
I gulped, then came clean and admitted that I didn’t eat anything raw, let alone raw meat.
Laurence blithely brushed my objections aside and commanded the maitre d’ to prepare the steak tartare at our table. As he did, I fought back my desire to puke. Laurence, breezily unaware of my battle, gushed away at me happily—“Here you go, Barbara, darling. Sheer nectar”—and shoved a forkload of what I considered to be raw hamburger straight into my mouth.
I made a credible show of enjoying the steak tartare, but it was a miracle that I made it back to the hotel without throwing up every single bit of it all over Laurence’s precious white Bentley!
I had much more fun when I worked on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which I made at Fox with Joan Fontaine, Walter Pidgeon, and Peter Lorre of Casablanca fame.