Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me... (18 page)

I wasn't dating much at the time, having only recently divorced my first husband. I simply wasn't interested in finding another husband right away. I figured if that was going to happen, it would. Going to bars or clubs with friends in order to meet some guy wasn't anything I had the time or taste for, so I never had to worry about embarrassing moments with men in the apartment. The grocer delivered food, the part-time maid delivered cleanliness, and life rolled merrily on without much more interaction between Li and me than we had when she still had a home of her own.

At least Liza knew that I was someone who cared about her enough to do this for her, and I hope the occasional hug was more than an empty gesture. Once I got her on a firm footing financially, I went out and found her a lovely apartment on East Fifty-seventh Street, a premier street in New York. It was a new building on the corner of the block I had lived on when I was married. I had seen a vacancy sign outside just before I moved. The apartment it advertised was perfect. We both loved it. That was a great day. We furnished the place a little at a time from the earnings that were just starting to come from television, the playground I was now becoming very active in in my career. Li's apartment was beautiful until Mate's first fateful night in his newly decorated home.

*   *   *

Li paid one pound ten shillings for a puppy she fell in love with at a shelter in London while visiting Judy, and she brought him home. He was her mate, which Li pronounced “Mite” with her new Brit accent. I could understand lonely little Li wanting a full-time companion. “But he's not housebroken,” she told me. “What are we going to do?” I thought obedience school was the answer, but all I heard from Liza is, “I can't live without him. I love him.” It was so very sweet, so very needy, so very Liza! However, she had a few upcoming engagements, her very first personal appearances in small clubs, and the dog could not go with her.

I found a training school that sounded perfect, and a gentleman straight out of Central Casting, costumed as a captain of the Luftwaffe, including the knee-high spit-polished boots, came to collect the dog. His “hello” handshake was designed to crush more than just the littlest bones. He assured us that within two weeks Mate would be totally housebroken. Looking at him was assurance enough that if Mate survived schooling with this man he would die before he pooped out of place. Off Mate went, and off we went about our lives. I forgot about Mate completely, and so did Li. After a long stretch, I got around to asking her, “How is Mate doing?”

“Omigod! I forgot all about him.” This is the dog she couldn't live without. The spit-shined Luftwaffe captain returned with a dog that bore no resemblance to the Mate I'd met. This dog was tall and skinny and old before his time. Given where he'd been for the last seven months, I found that understandable. There was nothing about his face that a mother could love, but Liza loved him all the more. The captain then told us that Mate needed to be walked at exactly 7:10, 11:25, 4:30, and finally at 10:15. “And you will never have any problems again.”

Perfect, I thought. This will fit right in with Li's schedule. He then presented Li with a bill for four thousand dollars plus for Mate's newfound obedience, and after we saw the captain click his heels for the final time, the two of us laughed until we hurt.

That very night, just by coincidence, Judy was coming for dinner. Liza's brand-new apartment finally was furnished—beautifully, I might add. She had a swell brown-and-white geometric rug on the living room floor, a great leather couch rested on it, and silk drapes hung in pools on the polished floor. Liza was doing fettucine Alfredo for Judy and the other guests. Dinner was only the start of any evening that Judy and Liza spent together. For that matter it was only the start of any evening that either of them spent alone. Nights went on until the last club closed. I, gratefully, was not invited.

If there was one thing Liza knew about me, it was that I needed to get my eight hours of sleep during the night, not the day. Beyond that I was keen to separate my personal life from hers. We both wanted our privacy. Sometimes I wondered who picked up the checks when I, or some other agent, wasn't around. Not Judy, and not Liza. I've since learned that when there's a celebrity present, there's always someone, some star-struck proprietor or friend who feels blessed enough to be in the company of greatness, who picks up the tab. From the owner's standpoint, it's good business and cheap publicity, but I always thought being a scrounger sent the wrong message. Not all celebs are freeloaders, but Judy and Liza were.

So on the very first day of Mate's return, Liza, who was busy entertaining, missed the dog's 10:15 p.m. appointment with the sidewalks of New York. In a show of appreciation, Mate christened every new surface of the beautiful apartment. Fettucine Alfredo and poop could be found in places both high and low—Mate was, after all, a tall dog. This two-dollar dog with the four-thousand-dollar education in manners had subsequent chapters, but those would be lived out with the greengrocer around the corner.

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Flying Solo

Now that Judy was gone, representing Liza was not the only thing going on with me. I loved having my own apartment and being alone. I didn't need anyone. I was willing to pay my dues, earn my way, and make it all on my own. My mother was frightened for me. She had so wanted my marriage to be a success, but when I told her it was not, she didn't take me on as I'd imagined she would. She quietly supported me. When the time came, she even helped me to move. I knew she was heartbroken—I could see it in her face, her sad eyes—but she did not give voice to her sorrow. There was a little resignation, yes, but otherwise she looked ahead. I would one day, not too far in the future, come to understand that a substantial part of her sorrow was due to her lack of courage to do exactly what I was doing. She quietly bore her suffering. I would not. I knew I had other options. She never thought she did.

It was 1964, and I was ready to confront the world without anything or anyone to lean on. I had toughed it out alone as a child, and I thought I had survived Judy. My experience with her had given me the armor to face the world. I wore a shield that protected me from most kinds of human emotions. I was hardened to human suffering. In any situation with complications—whether in negotiations or human relations—I figured I could clean it up and move on as I had with Judy. I gave short shrift to people who wasted my time and had nothing to contribute. I thought I was a good judge of that. I was certainly judgmental—about everything and everybody.

I persuaded myself there was nothing I couldn't do. I decided that I couldn't be put in the same sentence as the downtrodden women Betty Friedan was talking about because I was so far ahead of the curve. I was not only out of the house and into the workplace, I was starting to tap-dance on top of the glass ceiling. Look, world, I made it to agent! No longer the all-purpose schlep, file clerk, gopher, and babysitter.

By late 1964 I was making fifty thousand a year, which was huge compared to my friends, but then they were all women in secretarial jobs. I didn't consider comparing my salary with those of the men in the office at that point (but that day was coming, and sooner than I would have thought). The office was growing in the number of clients being signed. My office was growing: It grew a window. My wardrobe was growing, and so were my confidence and pride. I was, for the moment, riding high, and cocksure no one could pull me down.

*   *   *

My job was expanding to cover all of television for the clients we represented. My immersion in this new medium started with Liza. I had gotten my foot in the door booking Li, who was salable after her success in
Best Foot Forward
. F&D recognized this and asked me to handle the comics. My bosses had taken on several new associates: real old-fashioned booking agents, good friends from the MCA days. With them came a number of bookable comedians: Milton Berle, Jack Carter, and Shelley Berman—big earners all—who played the same clubs that Liza could go into. (And I was always thinking of Liza, still my only client.) F&D promised the comedians movie stardom. Not a one of them seemed to enjoy what he did: Each one wanted Paul Newman's career. Well, that was understandable. All they had to do was earn it. Television was their point of departure, and it fell to me to find them good dramatic roles in which they could demonstrate their fine acting ability. While the movie stars looked down on TV, comedians reached up hoping to grab on to it. I was now mandated to make that happen.

I woke up every day bent on figuring out how I could get Shelley Berman on
Ben Casey
or
Dr. Kildare
. I spent my mornings cultivating TV producers and their aides, who were snide, snotty, crass, and boorish. I spent lunch treating one or another of them to a better meal than they had manners for in the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis or the elegant dining room at the Regency. (No dating prospects here. These were not guys you'd want to bring home to mother.) By three or four in the afternoon, one of the comedians was usually sitting on the edge of my desk asking, “So what have you done for me lately?” Selling wasn't easy. It went something like this:

The producer of a new television series is on the phone. He has called because he knows my office represents Paul Newman. He wants Paul to star in the first episode of his new show to help get his series launched. Of course I'd like to help him because down the road, if the series gets picked up, I can sell him lots of clients. He thinks his new series is better than
Gone With the Wind
. (I've already read the script. It's not even as good as
Godzilla.
)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I am clear that I absolutely must nail a deal for one of the comics to star in a series soon or we're going to lose him and his big income from nightclub dates. Can't allow that to happen. Not good for business, not good for the bottom line. The comic believes he
is
Paul Newman, or as good as. However, once the producer knows he can't get Paul, I must go forward pretending Shelley Berman is, in fact, every bit as good an actor, and I must persuade the producer to take a shot with him instead. The producer then bumps me over to one of the boorish underlings, and I set up the next lunch date.

Truth is, there was a good net result. The lunch tabs I picked up on Shelley Berman's behalf probably exceeded his salary for one appearance on the TV series
Rawhide
, but then Shelley was a wonderful actor as well as a nice man, and the meals at the St. Regis were worth every penny. Besides, Shelley Berman supporting Clint Eastwood was a feel-good piece of casting.

The new agents and I worked closely together. The more I helped secure TV for their clients, the more they helped me secure good club engagements for Liza. They knew their way around deals in these clubs. They got the best money. I was a fast learner. “One hand washes the other” never proved truer than when I booked TV. As a woman agent in TV, I was an anomaly at the time. It gave me an advantage. Being a woman made securing lunch dates easy, if for no other reason than the curiosity factor. A woman selling comics who picked up the tab at the best restaurants on the East Side! That was new and different. I didn't think of it that way at the time, in spite of the fact that everyone I took to lunch remarked on it.

And so, finally, F&D gave me a secretary and I ran the TV department in New York, the home of every important buyer in that fledgling industry. Clients from Freddie's new office in LA were referred to me because I was now in charge of finding jobs for any clients interested in this growing medium, the medium in the middle between live and film, the medium that was about to explode, putting a television into every home in America, the medium that would establish Li's career, and practically end Judy's.

In the end I was treated well by TV. All the comics worked on dramas, but none of them ever became movie stars, except Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Only they weren't ours.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY

Starring Liza

Liza's success on TV made her a star, and F&D had shown me by example how to capitalize on this. Get a press agent. I hired a wonderful publicist, Lois Smith—a giant of a woman in every way—whose competence and take-charge attitude relieved us of the need to worry about press. She milked the interest in Liza, and then I booked her until her feet hurt.

Li did things the comedians couldn't do. She danced and sang, and did it well, and since it was the heyday of television variety shows, I had a playground that was enormous.
Kraft Music Hall
,
The Hollywood Palace
,
Laugh-In
,
The Carol Burnett Show
—all immensely popular shows—kept calling her back for several appearances. I booked her on
The Ed Sullivan Show
eleven times. I campaigned tirelessly to get her into the Academy Awards show as a performer, and very early in her career, 1966, she sang the award-winning song, “What's New, Pussycat?”

These appearances furnished her entire apartment and then some. She now had discretionary money, and her exposure made her a star. Besides making her known in every household in America, her appearances brought her to the attention of Hollywood and also helped create an audience for her out on the road. We both got it right.

Wherever she worked, back then she put out 100 percent. She was gracious, always gave credit to others, and never complained. Producers loved her. Directors were clamoring. The press was hovering. She ceased being simply “the daughter of…”

For me her ever-increasing popularity was heady stuff. Three years into my career as a full-time agent, and I was fortunate enough to be working with a rising star with real talent: a triple threat whose singing, dancing, and acting meant she could work film, television, concerts, clubs, and the stage. My calls were all picked up.