My First Hundred Years in Show Business: A Memoir (15 page)

T
HE ONE THING WE COULDN
’
T FIND WAS ANY FILM OF
D
IANA
walking. She walked like a ballet dancer, on the balls of her feet, hips thrust forward. Decades of models walked down the runway like her. Diana glided. They glided. By pure chance I mentioned to Carmine Porcelli, a fashion designer I knew, that I was working on a play about her. He not only knew her but had dined several times in her famous living room and this guy wasn’t an actor, but he perfectly imitated her mannerisms, particularly her walk. He glided beautifully.

Even so, I wanted to find film showing her walking so I could study it. Mark heard about a video the late Andy Warhol had made of her. Various people were in charge of his estate, there was some sort of museum in the works, and we got a number to call. Those times when we had to try to breach the walls of one or another snooty defender of the Vreeland cult in order to get something, information or papers we needed, I felt like an Oakie. Not dressed well enough. I didn’t have the right shoes.

The Warholians were vague and withholding on the telephone; the harder it got the more it became something I simply had to have, the most valuable bit of information we could possibly acquire. After several calls, we were finally informed we might pick up a copy of the video at the desk. The receptionist stared at us, we sidled in bowing and scraping and grabbed it.

Having scored a coup, we took ourselves to the Edison Hotel coffee shop for a celebratory breakfast. The Edison is a traditional hangout for old character actors. It was around the corner from
Prelude to a Kiss,
which I was in at the time and I had a matinee that day. I ordered eggs Benedict and scarfed them down. Minutes later my stomach seized up. I doubled over in an agonizing cramp. I thought I was going to pass out, so I lay down on the booth seat. I couldn’t see or hear what Mark was doing, he seemed to be sitting there like a wooden statue. I felt I was going to erupt. I asked the waitress passing by where the bathroom was, she said I had to go across the hotel lobby. I staggered from the booth to the door leading into the lobby. It was crammed with German tourists in lederhosen. I didn’t think I could make it and crawled back. Couldn’t I use the john in the restaurant? Our waitress must have seen this sort of thing often, she was completely blasé. She said this john is for the help only. By this time I was groaning like a wounded buffalo. Management called an ambulance. I was lifted onto a stretcher, and as I was carried out past the customers, I heard a guy sitting in the aisle remark to his buddy, “That’s the gal who was on
One Day at a Time
.”

The minute I got into the ambulance the pain stopped. We hadn’t even left the curb. The ambulance guy looked at me suspiciously, “You okay now?” I mumbled an apology and climbed out. I made it to the theater in time for the half-hour call.

The tape turned out to show Vreeland thoroughly ensconced on her couch, listening to the endless dronings of an art curator named Henry Geldzahler.

Every time the project took a step forward, I seemed to develop some physical ailment. When we first got permission to write the play, I developed a back pain so bad I couldn’t sit upright for two weeks. Then I developed a throbbing toothache during the Playwrights’ reading, and now after getting the Warhol tape I nearly exploded at the Edison. What was up with that? I had no idea.

I
MET
E
LLIS
R
ABB THROUGH
N
ICKY
M
ARTIN
. E
LLIS WAS TALL, WILLOWY
, silly, kind, selfish, extremely theatrical, and terribly funny. He was an instinctive director and a genius at casting. He directed and acted in highly successful revivals of classic plays on Broadway with A.P.A., his company of actors I would have given my left kidney to work with.

I almost got to work with him when, in 1973, he was set to direct a Broadway revival of
The Women
, starring Alexis Smith, Kim Hunter, and Myrna Loy. He didn’t audition actors. He had seen me in
Gypsy
. He called me up and in a low, melodious voice asked, “Which would you rather play, darling? Nancy the writer? Or the maid?” I could hardly believe my ears. Of course I told him I preferred the writer. He said, “Do you darling? Then it’s yours.” However, when the producers insisted on hiring the movie actress Rhonda Fleming for the Paulette Goddard role, Ellis quit the production. We were passed on to Morton “Teke” DaCosta, who had apparently recovered from
Hot Spot
and happily crocheted a large afghan while rehearsing us. During the first act, each time a star made an entrance, he directed me to cross the stage and light a cigarette, until the fourth time when I pointed out that I was now holding three lit cigarettes in my hand.

O
N THE FIRST DAY OF REHEARSALS FOR
T
HE
W
OMEN
,
AMIDST THE
pretty young things, old character actresses, faded stage names, and one or two film legends milling around the ballroom, I spied a vision in leopard fur and veiled derby, nervously twiddling a gold lorgnette. She looked like a forties B-movie actress. She
was
a forties B-movie actress: Doris Dowling. She played Alan Ladd’s wife in
The Blue Dahlia
and the girl in the bar in
The Lost Weekend
. She was darkly beautiful: raven brows, thick eyelashes, delicate bone structure. As a teenager she danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She was a young beauty in
Bitter Rice,
the first postwar Italian film to come to the U.S. She was the seventh of bandleader Artie Shaw’s eight wives. In Hollywood, Doris was a girlfriend of Billy Wilder. I quite liked her. A few of us shared a dressing room. Without a shred of irony, she cautioned us that when flowers were delivered backstage we must be careful not to throw the box away before searching for the jewelry.

Doris had tons of real jewelry. And furs, lots of furs. She was an interesting mixture of street tough and cultivated lady. Her European youth no doubt accounted for her exquisite table manners. It was a pleasure to dine out with her. She ate her meal leisurely, pleasurably. She was imperious but never rude to the waiters, making them want to die for her. Over the next few years, her Beverly Hills bungalow became an oasis for me whenever I had to spend time in the L.A. desert. She liked to cook delicacies like braised endive and blancmange. On the other hand her taste in paintings leaned toward large oils by seventies’ Los Angeles artists depicting nudes writhing in space with smoke shooting out of their nipples.

Doris rolled her joints in leopard-print papers from the famous lingerie store, Frederick’s of Hollywood. One time we got in her souped-up former stuntman’s Chevy—“Engine by Fisher,” she informed me—and shared a joint as we roared downtown to hear a bicentennial concert by John Cage. It was unforgettable. Music stands and huge speakers littered the stage. A Native American in sunglasses stood at a mike stage right. Stage left at a mike was a small woman in black with tightly coiled white hair. Every now and then during the cacophony, the Native American would start to laugh. A low, mocking laugh. At other moments, the little woman stage left would start singing, “Oh, the lamb of God …” Half the audience left. We loved it.

Father

Mother

The Family

Me

Hugh and MLW Xmas in Fuchsia Moon

Brother Hugh, 21, at Princeton