Ball of Fire (34 page)

For the most part, though, the yocks were hard to come by. Lucy got colds easily and couldn’t shake them off. The slightest difficulty drove her to tantrums and crying jags. She began, rather irrationally, to miss Desi, to wonder whether even now a reconciliation was possible. Evidently he felt the same way; there was a tentative proposal of remarriage. Her yearning intensified until a retired couple came backstage and introduced themselves. Instead of wanting an autograph, they had something to give Lucy. During a recent vacation in Hawaii they came across an object shining in the sand. “The lady opened her purse and pulled out a gold chain with a Saint Christopher medal and a wedding ring,” Lucy told a friend. “I looked at the ring and it read, ‘To Desi with love from Lucy.’ I thanked them, kissed them both, and then closed the door and wept. Just closed the door and wept. It’s funny, but it was then that I knew it was really over. Having that ring in my hands didn’t bring the good times back to me, it brought the terrible times back, and I knew it was right. I knew Desi and I could be friends, but that we shouldn’t be married.”

Early in February,
Variety
stated what the rest of Broadway already knew:
Wildcat
had to shut down for “an abrupt fortnight’s layoff to permit star Lucille Ball to take a Florida rest on the advice of her doctor. Miss Ball has been suffering from a virus and chronic fatigue.” Lucy returned to the show as promised, after appearing on
The Ed Sullivan
Show
to sing
Wildcat
’s best number, “Hey, Look Me Over,” but she was not the same woman who opened the show a couple of months back. On Sundays, to bolster her flagging spirits, she attended services at Marble Collegiate Church. There the celebrity-hunting Norman Vincent Peale dispensed commonsense advice. Lucy supplemented it with readings from
The Art of Selfishness,
by the self-styled psychology writer David Seabury. Students of Ayn Rand would recognize the similarity to that author’s approach: “Here is a mysterious contradiction. Those who toil for the good of others often lose the respect of those for whom they sacrifice. As we change, under the stress of helping, others may blame us for the lessening of our strength, health, ability to cope and our charm.” For Lucy’s bruised ego, here was the perfect salve, the assurance that she had no reason to feel guilty about taking care of Number One. “This little book revolutionized my life,” she would maintain. “It taught me to worry less about all the outside factors in my life and take command of
me.
I learned to subject everything in my life to these questions: is this
good
for
Lucy?
Does it fill my needs? Is it good for my health, my peace of mind? Does my conscience agree, does it give me a spiritual life?” A paragraph in which “my” comes up seven times, “me” three times, and “Lucy” and “I” on each indicates that altruism was not very high on her agenda just then. Yet all this self-absorption did little to fend off the terrors of ill health, of encroaching age, of the feeling that she was losing her place on the board. In the past she had been bolstered by her Los Angeles circle. New York offered no such intimates; she had to make do with her mother and with members of the
Wildcat
cast. Keith Andes served as an escort for a brief time; the fling concluded as fast as it began. A more lasting relationship was forged with supporting actress Paula Stewart, who played Wildcat’s younger sister. Stewart thought about appropriate gentlemen for Lucy and struck oil the evening she and her fiancé, comedian Jack Carter, brought along their friend Gary Morton. Morton (né Morton Goldaper) was a well-built, genial third-tier comedian who had come up the traditional route. He began spouting one-liners in Brooklyn, where his father drove a truck, then graduated to the Borscht Belt and small nightclubs, and finally appeared in larger venues including the Palace and Radio City Music Hall, where he was then performing. Morton usually sported a tan and a toupee, and on this night he sat back smoking and watching his date with some amusement. In between postures she loudly advertised her fatigue. He thought she needed to be taken down a peg or two, and when Lucy tossed a cigarette in his direction and ordered, “Light me,” he threw the thing back in her direction and told her to light it herself. No one had spoken to Lucy like that in years. She laughed with a grudging admiration and asked how he earned his salary. “I’m a nightclub performer,” Morton said. “What’s your line?”

As the evening progressed, Lucy found herself intrigued more than attracted. “When I fell in love with Desi,” she was to recall, “it was at first sight—my love for Gary was slow growth. I liked him before I loved him.” They continued to see each other and to correspond in the winter of 1960–1961 without commitment on either side. Morton had out-of-town engagements, and Lucy continued to struggle in the role of Wildcat Jackson, unable to shake off exhaustion and various ailments. DeDe, who customarily kept her own counsel, felt obliged to speak out. “Lucille!” she advised her daughter. “The Man Upstairs is trying to tell you something!”

As usual, Lucy ignored the warning. She also paid no attention to another omen. In order to keep their star—and their show—going, the producers ordered an oxygen tank to be kept waiting in the wings. Lucy took hits from it between acts. Since she also took hits on cigarettes before, after, and sometimes during performances, however, any help she received was immediately neutralized. Hedda Hopper wrote about the night William Frawley attended a performance: “He created a minor sensation. ‘It’s Fred Mertz!’ they all said. I went backstage to see Lucille when Bill came in. When he saw how thin Lucy was there were tears in his eyes.”

On April 22, 1961, in the middle of a vigorous dance number called “Tippy Tippy Toes,” Lucy collapsed onstage. Dancer Edith King reached out to break Lucy’s fall—and fractured her own wrist in the process. From then on, every realist in the company of
Wildcat
knew that the end was near. Lucy’s understudy, Betty Jane Watson, finished out the week while the producers scrambled to find a replacement star. They approached Gwen Verdon, Mitzi Gaynor, even Ginger Rogers. The women gave a uniform response: “Follow
Lucille Ball.
Are you
crazy
?” On May 24, Lucy gave her final Broadway performance. The next day a press release went out, guaranteeing ticket buyers that the star would rest up for eight or nine weeks, then reenter
Wildcat
on August 7. Lucy’s return was crucial; at the time of the shutdown the advance sale was larger than it had been on opening day. Few personalities could have accomplished her feat: by dint of fame and grit she had made the critical barbs irrelevant; audiences came to the Alvin to see Lucille Ball, not Wildcat Jackson. For the first time, a television personality had proved to be an outsized box office draw.

B
ut there would be no resumption. Lucy resigned in June, returning $165,000 of her own money to the box office. The sum would compensate for tickets that had been bought and would have to be returned. She had lost twenty-two pounds during the run and was now in a state of psychological depression and physical exhaustion. Upon hearing of Lucy’s situation, Hedda Hopper wrote: “Let’s hope Lucy stays in the hospital until she regains her health, strength, and peace of mind. Lucy’s one of the most vital girls I know but so weak now she can scarcely hold a teacup.”

Hedda was misinformed. Lucy was not in the hospital. She had settled on a new panacea. The way to escape trouble, she had concluded, was not merely to quit Hollywood or New York, but to leave the whole country behind her. She would set up residence in Switzerland, settle there for a while with the children. There was plenty of money in the bank. She was nearing the half-century mark. Who needed all this show business madness, this sickness of the body and soul? “I felt so awful,” Lucy wrote in her autobiography, “I honestly thought I was going to die. I flew to London and eventually to Capri and Rome, determined to die in a scenic atmosphere.”

She returned to Beverly Hills with DeDe and the children, slightly improved but still dispirited, determined to sell the houses and get the hell out of town. Somehow, though, she could not break away. Friendships were resumed, parties attended. And then there was Gary Morton, who showed up one day and settled into the guest house for several weeks. Lucy took him to a series of social gatherings where he said he felt like “some strange lamp” with people circling around and examining him from every angle. One of them was Desi himself, who annoyed his ex-wife by expressing approval of her new man. Other reports were not so favorable. Friends noted that, like Desi Arnaz, Gary Morton was younger than Lucy by six years; unlike Desi, however, he was very much a second banana who made a decent living but hardly the kind of income Lucy earned just by collecting dividends from Desilu. And he was Jewish; that would bring additional complications in the unlikely event that they married. It was widely assumed that this would be a short-lived affair, a rebound Lucy needed after the depressing divorce and the abrupt close of
Wildcat.

Minds were changed after several weeks, when Lucy began to perk up and regain the weight she had lost—and even put on a few extra pounds. Clearly she was recovering, and Gary seemed to be the main cause of her happiness. His stay at the guest house lengthened. Speculation began. Lucy did a good job of pretending to be a truly independent soul, ordering friends not to mention the word “marriage” in her presence. A canny reporter heard the scuttlebutt and cornered her one day: “I’d like to bet that you will marry Gary Morton.” Lucy countered: “You’ll lose your money. Don’t bet. It’s nice this way.” Lucy was kidding the journalist, and herself. She dreaded the approach of fifty and of finishing her life, as she had once confided in cousin Cleo, “loaded and lonely.”

DeDe had very little use for men; one had died on her, the other had been a crank and a loser. Yet she knew Lucy was not quite her mother’s daughter: she needed a man around, a reliable one this time, someone whose ego could be subordinate to a star’s. No more famous men; no more egotists; no more boozers. Gary looked to be a viable candidate, and he might just be Lucy’s last, best chance. Here was a comedian who was neither a loser nor a headliner, who had never met a payroll, never run a studio, never dominated a scene. He had been peripatetic since early manhood; his sole attempt at marriage had lasted less than a year and ended in an annulment. He was not much of a drinker or seducer and had no particular interest in the business end of things. Amiable, honest, a good listener, and something of a recessive personality, Morton was, in essence, the anti-Desi. If only some way could be found to make certain that the suitor wasn’t a fortune hunter, he just might make a fine second husband for Lucille Ball.

The first time Gary brought up the idea of marriage Lucy deflected his proposal. DeDe surprised her by saying, “You shouldn’t let that guy get away.” The second time he proposed was on a plane headed to New York. Gary was booked to play the Copacabana, and Lucy planned to make her first TV appearance since
Wildcat,
doing a turn with Henry Fonda.

“Lucy, what are we waiting for?” Gary asked.

“Well, are you prepared for any swipes that they might take at you? What if they call you Mr. Ball?”

“Who are
they
?”

She sat silent. Perhaps “they” were just an insubstantial fear, like so many of her recent worries. Straightening up, she said in a determined voice: “All right. If Dr. Norman Vincent Peale is free to marry us this week, we’ll go ahead.”

The reverend was of course free, and on November 19, 1961, Lucille Ball and Gary Morton exchanged vows at Marble Collegiate Church in a ceremony attended by DeDe and the children, flown in for the occasion. Informed about the imminent nuptials, Desi IV asked, “Will Daddy like it?” Lucy answered truthfully, “He wouldn’t mind.” The couple who had brought Lucy and Gary together, Paula Stewart and Jack Carter, were matron of honor and best man. (DeDe’s concern about gold-digging was put to rest when Morton signed a prenuptial agreement and set up a separate bank account for his own expenses.)

Much symbolism, and not a little irony, attended the service. Lucy and Desi had also been married in November—twenty-one years before. When she and Gary applied for a license, Lucy wore the same outfit in which she had divorced Desi the previous year. She had done a little numerology when adding up the figures on her new marriage license and found that they equaled nineteen—“My lucky number!” she exclaimed to a reporter. It was not as lucky as she claimed; the nineteenth (and final) year of her first marriage had been one of unrelieved misery. She told other reporters, “I look forward to a nice, quiet life.” Leaving the church, she and Gary had to follow in the wake of a flying wedge of New York City policemen. The cops protected the couple from a crowd of fifteen hundred fans who wanted a glimpse, a touch, or a piece of clothing from their favorite.

The Mortons started out separately. He went off to Palm Springs, where he was booked to play a nightclub. Lucy stayed in New York to rehearse for
The Good Years,
a CBS special costarring her old colleagues Henry Fonda and Margaret Hamilton and featuring the new comedian Mort Sahl. Based on
The Good Years: From
1900
to the First
World War,
the nostalgic history by Walter Lord, the program looked back with affection on silent-movie serials, prohibition, and vaudeville. In various sketches Lucy sang and danced with and without Fonda, and acted the part of a reprobate, hauled into court as a public nuisance.

The show aired on January 12, 1962. It was hardly her finest sixty minutes. Geoffrey Mark Fidelman speculates that Lucy was not producer Leland Hayward’s ideal: “It is most likely that Mary Martin was the first choice, as she had appeared in several of Hayward’s productions.” But Martin was doing eight shows a week as the centerpiece of
The Sound of Music
on Broadway, and Ball and Fonda were pals. (Fonda liked to joke that had the two Hollywood hopefuls gotten along back in the 1930s he could have co-owned a studio called Henrilu.) So Lucy was chosen, and she gamely went along with Franklin Shaffner’s direction. In the words of her hair stylist, Irma Kusely, “This was a dreadful show. Both Fonda and Lucille hated it. Lucille did not look well. She was still battling weight.” She was also fighting the clock, and makeup artists could hide only so much. Yet she stayed away from the route so many middle-aged film and television stars had chosen. “Few people know it,” Kusely added, “but she was not a candidate for plastic surgery due to her skin type. She literally had very thin skin which bruised easily. Surgery was out of the question.”