Living With Miss G (13 page)

The buzz in some film circles was that Joe was going to make dummies out
of various Hollywood operators, such as Rita Hayworth, Howard Hughes, his
henchman Johnny Meier, plus Porfirio Rubirosa, the international playboy. That
didn’t work either. Warren Stevens, Edmond O’Brien, and Marius Goring
played their parts looking like Warren Stevens, Edmond O’Brien, and Marius
Goring, and no one really understood the satiric subtleties Joe had planned.
The climax of the film–involving disillusioned Maria Vargas, the Spanish
nightclub dancer-turned-movie-star–was more farce than tragedy. In some
scenes it was pure soap opera. Maria married Rossano Brazzi, who was playing
the Italian count. On their wedding night he confesses that during the war he
was badly wounded and lost the ability to procreate the son and heir he longs
for. Maria, a resourceful girl, slips into bed with his handsome chauffeur. She
becomes pregnant, thinking it will delight the poor old count. It does not. He
shoots both Maria and the chauffeur. The film ends with Maria’s funeral and
Bogart trying to patch it all together with dignity. Jack Cardiff’s photography
was superb. Edmond O’Brien won an Academy Award. The critics remarked on
the carnal quality of Miss G dancing in a tight sweater and even a tighter skirt
around a gypsy camp fire.
During the months it took to make the film Miss G had been making
regular visits to Madrid. Her affection for Spain was becoming more and more
evident. Some of that attachment, as I learned later, was caused by the arrival of
Luis Miguel Dominguin, another bullfighter in her experience.
The love affair between Miss G and Luis Miguel was one of the happiest
experiences in her entire life. She truly loved him, but this relationship also
ended sadly.
They met in Madrid during the time Miss G made
The Barefoot Contessa
when she was whizzing about Europe, separated from Frank, and feeling no
obligation to any man. Luis Miguel arrived in her life at a most opportune
moment to fill that gap. He was tall and slender. He was debonair, handsome,
unmarried, and in that period recovering from an injury inflicted in the bullring.
He had temporarily retired from that dangerous sport.
He hardly spoke a word of English, and Miss G was similarly handicapped
regarding Spanish, but as Papa Hemingway noted, they managed to
communicate in the old fashioned way as lovers. They did not waste any time in
becoming that. In fact, they were in bed together in a small Madrid hotel when
Miss G began to experience the most virulent stomach pains of her life–
complete agony, pain beyond belief. She was passing a kidney stone.
Luis Miguel was knowledgeable about belly pains. The horns of fighting
bulls keep matadors aware of such practical matters. He rushed her straight to
the hospital. It was run by nuns, and when her condition was diagnosed as not
life-threatening, all they gave her to alleviate pain was aspirin.
During her convalescence Luis Miguel brought his great friend Ernest
Hemingway to her bedside to chat. A.E. Hotchner, who was with Hemingway at
the time, reported when they arrived Miss G was yelling down a telephone,
talking to MGM in Hollywood and saying that nothing on God’s earth would
induce her to play Ruth Etting in
Love Me and Leave Me
. She was suffering
with an awful complaint in an awful hospital, and now, for refusing to follow
orders, she had a suspension by MGM to add to her woes. She saw Papa
Hemingway whom she recognized immediately and smiled radiantly. Papa and
Miss G became friends for life.
With Luis Miguel Dominguin, Miss G was not so fortunate. We discussed
what happened so many times. “I was so stupid,” said Miss G. “You remember
the time when I got back to L.A. after I’d finished
The Barefoot Contessa
.”
I remembered it all right. Howard Hughes had rung us up and said, “I’ve
just rented this big house in Lake Tahoe, and it is very pretty, overlooking the
lake. Why don’t you go up there with Rene and take a vacation?” We both
thought it was a great idea.
There were no strings attached as far as Howard Hughes was concerned,
though I’m pretty sure he didn’t expect Miss G to take advantage of the idea in
the way she did. Howard Hughes had no idea that Miss G had the temerity to
fall in love with a Spanish bullfighter and what her next move would be.
With her usual exuberance, Miss G immediately rang Luis Miguel in Spain
inviting him to come across and enjoy the natural enticements of both herself
and Lake Tahoe. I think he caught the next plane.
Luis Miguel arrived but was puzzled to find he was living in Howard
Hughes’ house. He was also confused by his continual presence. Miss G could
never bother to explain the differing relationships between herself and her exhusbands, ex-lovers and ex-anything else. She couldn’t waste the time. As far as
she was concerned at that moment, Luis Miguel was the great love of her life.
She expressed those feelings in and out of bed. Couldn’t Luis Miguel be happy
with that? Why did she have to explain Howard Hughes to him?
Trouble was that Luis Miguel’s command of English had not improved
much, and Miss G’s command of Spanish was equally sparse. So the nuances,
subtleties and disagreements attached to their relationship remained unresolved.
Miss G said, “Who cares?”
Luis Miguel did care. Was he sleeping with Howard Hughes’ mistress?
The drama heated up when they went gambling at the casino. It increased on the
car drive home and came to a head when Miss G flounced off to bed and
slammed the door. Miss G was very good at using a slammed door as a full stop.
It was the first and only serious disagreement they ever had. Unfortunately, it
was also the last.
Down in the lounge Howard Hughes and his side-kick Johnny Meier were
chatting. The sight of Luis Miguel did not amuse them, and their remarks were
not welcoming. Howard also realized that this might be his best chance of
getting rid of an unwelcome rival. The remarks became pointed. Luis Miguel
was far too proud to be patronized by an American multi-millionaire with about
as much sense of humor as a lamppost and a contemptuous disregard for anyone
who opposed him. If Miguel had fallen out with Miss Gardner, said Howard,
and was unhappy in this house, then he was quite free to leave. Transport could
be arranged for him within a matter of minutes. A car would take him to a
nearby airstrip. A light plane would fly him to an international airport. He could
be back in Spain within a few hours.
When Miss G came downstairs the next morning, no one seemed to know
what had happened to Luis Miguel. He had just decided to leave. Miss G knew
better.
“Somehow, that bastard Howard Hughes insulted him,” she said to me. “I
shouldn’t have brought him here to have to put up with Howard.” She rang Luis
Miguel and tried to explain, but it was too late. The love affair between them
survived for several months afterwards, but it was not the same.
Luis Miguel eventually went back to Spain and married Lucia Bose, whom
he met when she and Miss G were together. At his farm in Spain they raised
three children.
Miss G pretended that it didn’t matter. I knew that it did. Luis Miguel got
as close to her heart as any man did.
“Rene,” she said in our conversations long afterwards, “he was so gentle,
so caring. I should have done more to protect him from Howard. Maybe I would
never have understood Luis Miguel unless I’d had that time in the hospital. I
think there was a great frustration in his life. He hadn’t started out rich. His
father was a bullfighter, but there wasn’t a great fortune in that in those days.
Luis, because of his artistry and skill, made a fortune. Money wasn’t his
objective. He didn’t know what that was. There was always this ache in his life
that he should have made more of his intelligence. He had wonderful friends:
Papa Hemingway, Picasso, and many more who encouraged him to do more
than fight bulls.” She began to remember all the fun time they had together, and
she began to laugh.
“Even when I had the screaming heebie-jeebies in that hospital from the
pain, he’d tell me a funny story and make me laugh. Mind you it was his sort of
funny story, and he was lying his head off. He swore he was in the ring one time
and was gored so badly they had to pick his balls up off the sand and stick them
back in again…that was his perverted sense of humor.” The memory flooding
back caused her to scream with laughter.
After she’d stopped screaming with laughter, I said, “Miss G, after such a
serious operation, how was the results?” The laughter had dwindled to a
chuckle, “Yeah, the results were good. I’m sure it never happened even though
he was badly gored a lot of times.” She paused and went on, “I sure did love
him; he was so different.”
She paused again to arrange her thoughts. “You know he even loved the
bulls he fought. Lots of bullfighters are bold and brave, but they are also stupid.
Just being brave isn’t enough. Just having heart and courage isn’t enough.
You’ve got to have understanding and intelligence, and that was Luis Miguel.
He loved animals, all animals.”
“He took me to his farm once–his finca where he raised fighting bulls.
What do you think he had for a pet? He had a wolf. The wolf adored him, and he
adored the wolf. When the wolf understood that I loved Luis Miguel too, the
wolf loved me as well.”

With Luis Miguel back in Spain and Miss G still suspended by MGM and
free as air, we continued our “Move and Booze” vacation at Lake Tahoe.
Everybody in the west knows that Lake Tahoe lies between California and
Nevada and is huge and beautiful. Certainly, the unbelievable shimmer of its
blue surface lured Howard Hughes to say, “Ava, for a girl of such perfect
beauty, I must find a ring of that color to match your looks.”

I don’t think Miss G did anything in response but smile. In due course, he
gave her the most wonderful ring, a blue sapphire stone mounted between two
large diamonds on a slender band of gold. She took it, smiled again and said,
“Well, thank you, Howard.” Most ladies would have drooled in ecstasy.

Practically every night when he was there, which wasn’t all that often, he
would escort Miss G and me to the casino for a gambling session. Get it straight,
my appearance there was simply to stand behind Miss G as she sat at the tables
and keep her equipped with dollar bills to wager. Usually, she started with a
stake of between fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars. I had strict
instructions that when she slipped down to five hundred I would react like a red
stoplight signal and say, “Miss G, that’s it. We are through!”

On one occasion, however, Miss G arrived at the casino, and this night we
were without Mr. Hughes. She was liquored up to the eyeballs and started
throwing dollar bills around the table as if they were confetti. She was on a
losing streak and getting cross. Fifteen hundred dollars clicked into the
croupier’s hands. My red warning light was now blinking with the speed of a
police car signal, and I was hissing, “Miss G, Miss G, you’ve reached the limit.
Stop! Stop!” I could have been talking to the wind. Miss G was having none of
it. She turned, not only furious, but as an accuser.

“Rene, what have you done with my money?” This statement she made in
a very loud voice. “I want to go on playing. Where is it? What have you done
with it?” Her voice must have reached every corner of the casino. Looks were
hostile. Who was this strange black girl trying to steal Miss Ava Gardner’s
gambling stakes?

At speed, I handed over the last five hundred. At equal speed Miss G lost
it. The bank then refused to grant her any more credit. Ava Gardner or not, they
had seen too many of these dumb, drunk broads before. They knew they could
gamble on until they lost their blouses, pants and garters in their efforts to
recoup their losses. Next morning they would accuse the casino of scandalous
behavior in allowing them to gamble so unwisely. So we went home.

Next morning, a trace of resentment still tingling in my veins, I repeated
the story to Miss G. “I did what?” she exclaimed and laughed so hard she nearly
fell off her chair.

I said reprovingly, “Miss G, I was the only black face in that whole casino.
You could have gotten me lynched.” She laughed even louder. To the end of her
life, she crowed with laughter remembering that incident. I even get to laughing
about it myself these days.

Howard Hughes, who never drank more than one rum and Coke at any
meal or gamb
ling session, also scared me to death with his gambling. He would spend
between twenty and twenty-five thousand dollars a night trying to work out their
system and break it. I don’t think he ever succeeded, but Miss G always said,
“Don’t worry about Howard. If he loses too much money, he’ll just buy the
casino and get it all back.”

I tried to take that into consideration, but found it hard. Once I said, “Miss
G, do you really understand Mr. Hughes?” Miss G did her usual quick gurgle of
laughter.

“Rene, honey, nobody understands Mr. Hughes. Sometimes I don’t think
Mr. Hughes understands Mr. Hughes. Everybody understands the orders he
hands out and does what he tells them to do.”

I was still trying to work out Mr. Hughes, the enigma. I said, “Bappie says
he’s the richest man in the world, and certainly he’s got all these houses
everywhere.”

“Houses!” exclaimed Miss G. “Before your time, when I first knew him,
he had this enormous great house in Beverly Hills. He didn’t own it, he rented it.
I don’t think Howard has ever owned a house anywhere, ever! He just rents
them.”

She went on with her explanation. “You’ve seen the suit he wears? Shiny
at the elbows, the sleeves damn near frayed and two inches too short. The
trousers equally short, worn and shiny. His luggage, you’ve seen that too.
Cardboard boxes made of pasteboard, the cheapest things you can find. They’re
not even glued together. Howard is allergic to glue. As far as I can make out,
Howard is allergic to about ninety percent of the world’s components, so he ties
his boxes up with string. He even keeps his shaving gear in one.”