Keep Moving (8 page)

All good things begin with a question. French fries or mashed potatoes? Red or white? Dessert? Chocolate or vanilla? Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon? What about Paris? Do you want the job? Will you marry me? Do you want to try to have a baby? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do while I am here?

In the early 1960s I sat alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at a rally in Los Angeles. I was there because writer Rod Serling asked a simple question: “Will you help Dr. King?”

At the rally I sloughed off warnings that someone might take a shot at Dr. King. “I’ll lean to the left,” I joked.

If someone had taken a shot and the bullet had hit me instead, I suppose I would have been okay with dying for a cause like racial equality, though it would have been way too soon for me to go. I would have missed joining the NOH8 campaign for marriage equality, as I did recently. That also began with a question: “Do you believe in equality?” And it involved the converse: “Why do people hate?”

Hate is such a terrible waste of time. I don’t think people who hate should receive the attention they seem to garner in the media. Entire cable networks have been created to hate each other. Our political system seems to have devolved into one side hating the other. I like to ask, “Why do you hate?” It is so much easier to help. It’s the easiest thing in the world. Help can mean writing a check. It can also mean sharing a smile or saying hello. One time when I was serving food to the homeless at the Midnight Mission in downtown L.A., a man seemingly in his forties recognized me and asked, “Why are you here?” It bothered me that we live in a world where he had to ask. “Why wouldn’t I be here?” I said.

It’s important to ask questions. Questions matter. Good questions matter even more. If you don’t have any questions, here are some to carry around in your pocket:

       
Why not me?

       
What can I do to help?

       
How can you be so sure?

       
Can I do better this time rather than next time?

       
What don’t I know that I should know?

       
What do I need to do next so that I don’t worry about not having done it?

       
Do I have everything I need as opposed to everything I want?

       
Am I using my time productively?

       
How can I use it better?

       
Do I like my work? If not, what would I like to do?

       
What’s missing? How can I fix that?

       
Am I okay with myself? If not, why?

       
Am I doing better?

       
How can I help other people do better?

       
Is my heart open?

       
Have I said I’m sorry to those who need to hear it?

       
Have I said I love you to those I want to tell?

3. Music.
Why does music matter? In the most personal terms, it gave me a relationship with my father. He didn’t understand me, but we liked the same music, and it was always something we could talk about. Music also played a crucial role in my career, starting with my first job as a disc jockey. For as long as I can remember, though, music has been a part of my daily life, whether it was playing with the band in school, singing or dancing to make a living, or playing the piano in the early morning or late at night, as I do nowadays, filling the quiet with chords that give, as Plato said of music, “soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”

Listen to Bach, Benny Goodman, or Cole Porter, and then try to tell me music doesn’t make life more delightful, delicious, and de-lovely. I know for a fact it does. A few years ago I was singing with my quartet the Vantastix at a children’s hospital on the East Coast. We went from room to room, singing songs to groups of kids, roommates, and families. If we found a kid, we sang.

Doctors, nurses, and the kids themselves said the songs were the best medicine they had received, adding
fun to the otherwise dreary and depressing routine of their hospital stay. The last room we entered was nearly dark, with just a small shaft of light sneaking in behind the drawn shades. A boy who looked to be about fourteen years old was lying on top of the bed, a single IV attached to his arm. He was painfully thin and bald. His eyes were closed. He was obviously very sick. Even though it seemed as if we might be disturbing him, the nurse who led us into his room nodded that it was okay to sing. We did a couple of songs, singing very softly, our voices careful to soothe and not disturb. He didn’t respond, didn’t open his eyes, and didn’t stir until we finished and started to tiptoe out. Then we heard a quiet voice, barely a whisper, say, “Would you please sing another one?” That alone is why music matters.

4. Books.
I love ideas and stories. I always have at least one book going and am on the lookout for the next one. They feed the brain and fuel the imagination. I can’t imagine life without them. As a kid, I read all the way through Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan books. I liked
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table,
and of course, I loved Mark Twain. Booth Tarkington was another writer I liked when I was growing up. He wrote the Penrod series,
Penrod and Sam
and the two other books in the trilogy about the adventures of a twelve-year-old boy. I identified with those stories.

I also enjoyed stories about the Civil War and sea adventures. I used to have dime novels. They were printed on rough paper and only cost a dime, but some of the
writers were among the greats, such as Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov. Only a dime—that’s how much it cost to time travel. Can you imagine? I read those books by the handful. The collection I had as a kid is the one thing I wish I still had. In fact, the only thing I have saved from my childhood is my copy of
King Arthur.
It wasn’t deliberate. It seems to have followed me around. But I am glad to have it.

5. A Sense of humor.
I once heard someone say that if you can’t laugh at life, you’re missing the joke. I agree. As far as I’m concerned, a sense of humor is the way we make sense out of nonsense.

A Separate Plot
A Separate Plot

                
There was a young man from Dallas

                
who overdosed on Cialis.

                
His body was laid

                
to rest in the shade

                
with a separate plot

                
for his phallus.

I Was Supposed to Go First
I Was Supposed to Go First

We spoke about it a handful of times, none that stand out for any particular reason. We did not dwell on it either. As far as I was concerned, I was being practical and preparing my longtime partner, Michelle, a woman of deep and wild dispositions, for what seemed inevitable: that I was likely to die first.

I did not want to die, obviously. But I was six years older than Michelle, and it made sense to me that I would go before her. Starting in childhood, we are programmed to believe the oldest ones are supposed to go first. It’s the natural order of things. It doesn’t always happen that way, of course. Many factors come into play, such as smoking, genetics, luck. But it’s a waste of time trying to cover all those variables. I focused on the statistics. I was older, and women generally outlive men. I think the average expectancy these days for women is eighty-one, compared
to seventy-six for men. This is actually good news for survival of the species. In an evolutionary sense, women are more essential than men. In a practical sense, they make plans, write thank-you notes, and remember birthdays.

Bottom line: I was going before Michelle. Up the ladder to some unspecified rung, then . . . adios.

We were never maudlin about it. Saying “good-bye” when I left for work or ran out to the grocery store did not take on additional weight. In fact, we only had the conversation a few times before folding it up and putting it in the back of the underwear drawer. Things were understood. Beyond making sure she was provided for, I had only one concern about her quality of life without me, and I was very clear to her about it. I did not want my death to turn her into a professional widow. I didn’t want her to spend the rest of her life grieving. I didn’t even want her to mourn for a year, which is supposed to be the respectfully appropriate time to wait. I wanted her to fall in love again. I wanted this woman who was a rare force of passion and humor, a powerhouse of pure energy, to continue to live life to the fullest.

“Make sure you get on with your life,” I said.

Michelle worked as my agent’s assistant at the William Morris Agency when we met in the early 1970s. I would call to speak with him and found myself chatting with her until he was available. Pretty soon I was calling just to talk with her. At the time Michelle, a former singer and actress, was embroiled in a “palimony” lawsuit against her former companion, actor Lee Marvin, whom she met
when she got a small part in his 1964 movie
Ship of Fools.
They lived together for six years.

After breaking up in 1970, he sent her a small monthly sum, reportedly to help get her back on her feet. But when those checks stopped, she filed suit for half of the money he had earned while they were together. Her lawyer called it palimony, and every media outlet in the country followed it. Although the lawsuit was a landmark case, it created a notoriety that overwhelmed Michelle. The legal battle also saddled her with significant additional expenses, as she employed a very expensive attorney, Marvin Mitchelson.

We started living together in 1978. A year later her lawsuit went to trial. Media coverage ran the gamut from the
New York Times
to the
National Enquirer
and prompted fierce debate on the obligations of men and women who enter into relationships without marrying. Michelle stood tall and strong throughout the public ordeal—not surprising to anyone who knew her. After ultimately losing the case, she famously told reporters, “If a man wants to leave his toothbrush at my house, he better bloody well marry me.”

And that’s what I wanted to do from the first day Michelle moved into my place in Marina del Rey. We got along perfectly. We ate and drank, took long walks, and went to movies and parties. She made me more social. In turn, I took her on adventures aboard my sailboat, which was like a second home. I was a confident skipper in those days, and she was an enthusiastic passenger who
was quite clear that, with a cigarette in one hand and a cocktail in the other, she was more than occupied and not interested in learning the skills that would have elevated her to capable first mate.

Once, in one of our more memorable adventures, we flew to the British Virgin Islands, where I rented a forty-foot sailboat. We threw some groceries on it and took off for two weeks, sailing wherever our whims and the wind took us. Though I knew it was futile, I was still trying to teach her the basics of sailing, especially how to anchor. After all, we were on our own.

“Keep it into the wind while I drop anchor,” I remember saying.

She gave me one of those looks that said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Then one day we were out, and the wind was blowing hard, about forty knots. I was up front getting the anchor and lowering the sail while Michelle had hold of the steering wheel. In those conditions, though, I was having trouble, in part because of the wind but mostly because Michelle was steering us in circles.

“Starboard!” I yelled. “Starboard! Take us starboard!”

She looked directly at me, shaking her head. I wasn’t sure whether she couldn’t hear me or didn’t understand. I was focused on the tedious job at hand: the lines and sail were wrapped around the mast. I needed help. I issued another command, “Starboard!” and looked directly at my first mate to see whether she could hear me.

Michelle heard me all right. She snapped, “Don’t give me that Navy crap! Just say right or left!”

When we moved to Malibu from the Marina in 1990, I discovered something new and wonderful about Michelle. She had a green thumb. It wasn’t just green; it was the greenest thumb I had ever encountered. Whatever she planted in our backyard—a big, sloping hill—or in one of the many flower beds seemed to grow and bloom. Sometimes she tossed seeds willy-nilly or took cuttings from plants she saw along the road when we were walking, and they always grew.

She spent hours outside planting and pruning. The gardens she created were glorious, and they still are. The yard continues to bloom year-round. She left her green thumbprint everywhere. The animals and the insects, the birds and the bees appear to appreciate the plants and flowers as much as I do, if not more. It is a testimony to the impact we humans have on the earth—our little patch of dirt or the big blue orb itself. We can destroy it, or we can make it even better than we found it. Michelle definitely made it better.

She had a similarly positive effect with people. She was a strong, aggressive woman, and I liked her because of this. She was also a fiercely loyal friend. If she was your friend, you could count on her for anything, and people did. She knew everyone and introduced me to a world of new people, from Dick Martin and his wife, Dolly, to Barbara Sinatra and so many others who became my close friends. I was lucky she dragged me along. It was this large, closely knit social circle of hers that provided comfort whenever I thought about her going on without me.

“There will be no sitting around in the dark,” I said. “No wasting time. No waiting a year before resuming life—and hopefully love.”

She nodded, and I knew she would take care of things in my absence and that people would take care of her. I would have left her comfortable too. That was also paramount in my thoughts. Like a good Boy Scout, my campsite would be cleaned and tended to when I left, which was important to my peace of mind. My loved ones wouldn’t have to worry. In those private moments when I did my estate planning and thinking, and just thinking minus the estate planning, I wanted to know my exit would be on favorable terms.

I am not saying it wouldn’t be sad. But there would be no sense that I had dined and dashed. Maybe I wouldn’t have sung all the songs I wanted to sing, but I wouldn’t have missed many, and just as importantly, because life wasn’t all about me, the bills would be paid, my slippers put in their place, and everyone told they were loved.

The thing neither of us anticipated or even considered was that Michelle might go before me. We ignored that she didn’t take care of herself. She drank, smoked, and was overweight. She treated life as if it were a party. Sometimes she was the guest. Other times she was the hostess. And other times she was the headliner, belting out a couple of tunes. She enjoyed herself.

One afternoon, back when I was still shooting
Diagnosis Murder,
she was picking up some samples at a clothing manufacturer. She felt fine. On her way out,
though with her arms full of clothes, she hopped over a low fence in an effort to get to her car quicker and felt a sharp pain in her chest, so sharp that she lost her breath. She didn’t know what was happening. She drove to the CBS studio where I was working on a new show and found me on the set.

I took one look at her—she had literally turned purple—knew she was in trouble, and got her to lie down in my dressing room while we called an ambulance. Within minutes, she was being rushed to the hospital, where doctors determined that she’d had a heart attack. Michelle understood, yet she still wanted to leave the hospital immediately, and she put up quite a fuss. It was just her personality. In the end, she listened to the doctors and stayed close to a week, and the most remarkable thing happened to her while she was there: she quit smoking.

None of us could believe it, including her. Michelle was a chain-smoker, one of the last and one of the worst. She used to smoke in the shower—that’s how bad her habit was. At one time I had been a heavy smoker, but I had quit and tried to get her to quit too. She never could until that stint in the hospital, after which she swore that the Jamaican nurse who took care of her did something to her—Michelle called it healing voodoo—because she checked out of the hospital and never wanted a cigarette again. I figured we had dodged a bullet. Even after the heart attack I still imagined myself leaving her a widow. She did too.

As Michelle bounced back, my first wife, Margie, was diagnosed with cancer. I made sure she had the best care, and in 2008, after a tough battle, she passed away.

By then Michelle was engaged in her own fight with the Big C. In the spring a nagging cough took her into the doctor, who found a spot on her lung. Long story short: they ended up taking out the whole upper half of her lung, followed by the usual unpleasant but necessary stuff, chemo and radiation.

As an unshakable optimist, I thought she was going to beat the disease. It wasn’t going to be easy, but Michelle had the best doctors in the city and a spirit that was like a buoy in the open sea. No matter how large a wave crashed down, she popped back up. Radiation treatments were five days a week. After that we went to chemo, where I kept her company while she was on the drip. I ate sandwiches they brought around and watched TV. We followed directions and prayed. But her cancer metastasized anyway.

Few words convey the sadness and helplessness of saying good-bye to someone you love, someone with whom you’ve shared every day for thirty-one years, as I had with Michelle. I remembered thinking back to the first time we met with her oncologist. Michelle asked, “Is there anything I can do?”

“Well, you ought to be on the safe side,” he said. “It’s probably a good idea to get your affairs in order.”

She never did get her affairs in order, nor did she ever marry me. How ironic is that? We had our own agreement, of course, but I wanted to get married for legal
reasons and all the other reasons that kept us together for three decades.

“Let me count the ways,” as Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote. She knew it too, but she always put it off, with a throaty laugh. Then it was too late, and I found myself listening to her say the things I had always told her: “I don’t want you to go through the obligatory year of mourning. . . . Life is too short. . . . Don’t waste time. . . . I love you.”

I used to ask people, “Of all the things you enjoyed doing during your life and can’t do anymore, what do you miss most?” I had asked Michelle long before she got sick, and she said, “Having lunch with the girls.” Of course, she still could have had lunch with the girls, and she did go out with her friends, but I knew what she meant. She was talking about being young, twentysomething, when she went out with the girls, and all of life and its possibilities were still ahead of her. It’s a wonderful memory, a feeling that is worthy of a wistful smile and a faraway, dreamy look.

Attitude. So much of life is about attitude—or, more accurately, having a good attitude. In terms of the death of friends and loved ones, attitude takes a backseat to being practical, to opening your heart and being practical about the fact that everyone lives and dies, and although we don’t get to choose the way we die, we do have a big say in the way we live.

I also think belief is crucial. I believe in a Higher Power, whatever that means. It means something different to different people. I don’t think anyone can claim
with absolute certainty to know what that means, only that there is a Higher Power, one we should respect.

In terms of life, death, and an afterlife, I am a great admirer of author Norman Cousins, who suggested that upon death or after death, your soul probably goes on, but not your physical body. That ceases to exist anymore, and eventually it decays and disappears. Only your spirit survives, and in that realm you don’t have any memory of having lived.