Living With Miss G (33 page)

A few days later I overheard her on the phone. Again she was talking to
George C. Scott. I always knew that by the tone of her voice. Soothing,
softening.
“He’s driving across the country to Main Chance,” she said.
“Miss G,” I pleaded urgently, “Let’s go!”
“I can’t go Rene,” she said. “I haven’t finished my treatment here.”
That was rubbish! “Miss G, I’m not staying,” I said. “I’m packing your
things and putting them in the back of the car. I’ll leave you one bag. Rags and I
are going to L.A. We’ll wait for you at the Beverly Hills Hotel in our usual
bungalow. I’ll leave a ticket at the airport for you if you want to get away in a
hurry, but I am going.”
I spent my last night in that motel feeling like a hunted fugitive. Scott was
bound to check into the motel when he arrived, since there was no other around.
Next morning, I was up very early. I took my suitcase, with Rags trotting beside
me, and headed for the front door. I was half way towards the car when I heard
his voice shout, “Rene!”
I ran and hit the car like a rocket. Rags jumped in beside me. A cloud of
dust across the desert marked our route to L.A.
Miss G survived for three nights. Then Bappie called me and said, “Rene,
I’m going out to the airport to pick her up. That fool has finally had enough. I’ll
bring her back to the bungalow.”
Oh my God, I could have wept when I saw her! Her head was swelling.
Her face was bruised and puffy. The bungalow had a lounge, two bedrooms and
a little kitchen. Bappie went back home to her husband, and I cooked Miss G
supper of lamb chops. She was tired but ate them up.
I washed the dishes and went to my room thinking that at least we would
get a decent night’s sleep at last.
It was unbelievable! There was a great crash as George C. Scott burst
through the door with anger in his voice. Miss G protested, “Now George,” be
reasonable. “Now George, just sit down and talk, and I’ll get you a drink.”
Then there was the usual smack as he hit her and the beating started. I got
out through the side door and sped for the nearest telephone. I was scared out of
my mind. God, when was this ever going to end?
I shrieked at Bappie, “He’s back! He’s back! For Christ’s sake get a
doctor! Get someone! Get help! He’s going to kill her!”
“Okay, okay!,” Bappie yelled back. “I’ll get someone. I’ll get everybody!”
She banged down the receiver.
I hurried back to the bungalow and went in through my side door. The
terrible noises from the next room had stopped. I sat there wondering what I
should do. Fifteen minutes later Miss G’s own doctor arrived. I heard him
knock, open the door and go in. More silence. Then Bappie and her husband
arrived and two more guys. I peered in.
George was sitting there with his head in his hands. Miss G’s face was a
mess. Bappie was erupting with rage, and George just continued to sit there with
his head in his hands.
He was a great actor, a man of high intelligence, a marvelous talent full of
warmth and wit and integrity, but this was a role he could not handle.
God, the intensity of his obsession! John Huston had identified it as
“insanely in love.” Scott had tracked Miss G from Rome to London to New
York to Arizona to Beverly Hills. He had roared across the desert and over the
Sierra Madre Mountains to smash into our bungalow. He was exhausted,
unshaven, defeated, the victim of his own raging madness. I guess Miss G knew
that more than anyone else. She pitied him, understood him and tried to assuage
the hurt even though she was hurting herself. Maybe he was a victim as much as
Miss G.
He just sat there with his head in his hands.
We never saw George C. Scott again.

The critics were flattering about Miss G’s performance two years later in
Mayerling
as Empress of the mighty Austrian-Hungarian Empire that ruled a
vast chunk of central Europe in the nineteenth century. The movie is still shown
on television, its colors slightly faded, which is sad, because Miss G’s costumes
were among the most beautiful she ever wore in her long film career. She looked
absolutely lovely.

One reviewer wrote, “Ava Gardner rises gracefully and touchingly to the
challenge portraying Elizabeth as an accomplished and neglected woman who
shrinks from her public role, but wishes to be closer to her son than their
separate lives permit.”

Howard Thompson, the distinguished
New York Times
critic, observed,
“The surprise of the picture is Ava Gardner as the enigmatic Empress of Austria.
With an uncertain smile and husky voice this beautiful lady is the most
beguiling character in the movie. She movingly underplays her few scenes.”

According to Sydney Guilaroff and me, however, it’s a marvel that Miss G
ever got around to playing some of her scenes at all. When offered the part by
MGM in their remake of a 1936 movie, Miss G commented, “Well, at least
they’re promoting me from whoredom to royalty. It makes a change.”

Miss G had now finally made up her mind to move from Madrid to
London. There had been good years. She had enjoyed Spain and all the friends
she had made, and we left our Madrid apartment with many regrets. But it was
time for a change. London offered greater possibilities. While Miss G never for
a moment thought of giving up her American citizenship, for the rest of her life
London would be her permanent home.

We had a firm base in London and could scoot around as we pleased. Our
first scoot was across to Paris to the Studios De Boulogne where the film was
being made and where Miss G was to be fitted for her beautiful wardrobe of
elegant gowns. No one in the film world was better equipped to display them
than Ava Gardner.

We stayed at Miss G’s favorite super-luxury hotel, named with true
French realism—some might call it snobbism—L’Hotel. We also met Omar
Sharif, Miss G’s co-star. Sharif immediately captivated us with his sense of
humor, his charm, his immense knowledge about practically everything, and the
fact that he was completely on Miss G’s wave length. Both of their philosophies
coincided in the belief that acting in the movies was only a way of making a
living.

Sharif knew Paris intimately. He proceeded to show us corners of the city
we did not know existed. For many years he had a black valet who operated in
much the same way as I operated for Miss G. He was one of the family. Often as
a foursome Sharif would whisk us off to some restaurant where the cuisine was
more important than the clientele or their social standing. Sharif loved Russian
restaurants with a passion. That was a bit unusual, since he was Egyptian.

I shall never forget those marvelous meals, with whispering violins in the
background, which invariably began with chilled caviar and iced vodka,
followed by vintage champagne. Those were the sort of “starters” that impress
themselves on your memory.

In those days, on the brink of the seventies, our foursome of two blacks
and two whites might have caused a few eyebrows to rise and a few mustaches
to bristle in Georgia or Mississippi, but the sophisticated Parisians merely
smiled amicably and paid far more attention to their superb three-star food than
to us. Sharif got really sentimental in that atmosphere, but he was always the
perfect gentleman. No hanky-panky.

Before
Mayerling
started shooting Sydney Guilaroff arrived from
Hollywood. Sydney was our oldest and dearest friend. Sydney was tall, very
handsome with a distinguished air, and he always wore a white tie. He was a
serious sort of man until you got to know him. He was, without any doubt, one
of the great hairdressers of this century.

Sydney was an important figure at MGM before Miss G arrived in
Hollywood. He had started out as a hairdresser in New York where Joan
Crawford was one of his clients. She thought so highly of his creations that she
insisted he go out to Hollywood and style her hair in all her movies. There he
remained as hairdresser for Miss Crawford as well as for the great Greta Garbo,
Norma Shearer and a continuing sequence of favorite MGM stars.

At first Sydney was cold-shouldered by the diehard studio unions. Louis
B. Mayer was conservative, but he recognized talent when he saw it. That
recognition plus a chorus of praise from a succession of glamorous beauties
convinced everyone that Sydney had to be retained. Mayer made Sydney an
executive. The unions could not harass executives. Sydney was the executive in
charge of MGM’s Hairdressing Division.

From the beginning of movies, studios had been filming hundreds of
historical stories—stories of ancient Egypt, Roman and Anglo-Saxon stories,
portraying every tribe, dynasty, monarchy or revolution known to mankind.
Scenic background had to be manufactured, costumes designed and hairstyles
created. Who knew what Cleopatra’s hair looked like when she went for a boat
ride down the Nile with Mark Anthony or what Marie Antoinette’s hair looked
like when she went off to the guillotine? Sydney did!

Even though he hadn’t had a ringside seat at the time, Sydney understood
that hairstyles had to look authentic but also be acceptable to the modern eye
and not a subject for laughter or derision. He studied ancient sculptures,
mosaics, friezes and artifacts all over the world. He scrutinized time-worn
manuscripts and observed cave paintings, sketches, cartoons and old masters. He
then adapted and absorbed what he saw into the hairstyles he created. Sydney
was an unsung genius, and as time went on he did much more than just create
hairstyles.

A hairdresser is on the set usually before anybody else and works more
hours than anybody. He also has duties which carry him onto a set during the
actual shooting. The position, coloring, shading of a star’s hairstyle is of
paramount importance to her appearance. A wrong light, a piece of scenery
behind her head, a dozen tiny mistakes can make a vast difference to her beauty
and a dramatic impact on her performance. Sydney set out to make certain that
his hairstyles and his ladies did not suffer through such neglect.

During those years on the sets of many of MGM’s most expensive and
prestigious productions, Sydney learned more about film art than many directors
or technicians. But Miss G didn’t know the man or who he was to become when
she first met with him at the start of her career. As she recalled, that meeting was
catastrophic. As a new girl Miss G found herself on a call sheet and was
expected to be in that salon shortly after daybreak. She entered shyly, sat in a
chair and to diminish her nervousness began to chew gum. Not only did she
chew gum, she cracked gum! Sydney heard the sound and almost exploded.
Nothing so vulgar had ever occurred in his temple dedicated to his art. He
discovered the culprit and towered above her while Miss G tried to disappear
inside the upholstery. Sydney forgave her.

That was the beginning of a deep and abiding friendship that developed
between them in the months and years ahead. When I began to work for Miss G,
I was included in that friendship. Indeed, in all those years at MGM, beginning
with and continuing through practically all her pictures, Sydney and I were the
guardians of our dear, lovely, dingbat lady. Wherever Ava Gardner was, no
matter what part of the world, no matter how desperate or unhappy she felt, all
she had to do was ring Sydney, and he would arrive to bring advice and aid.

Never did we have more need of aid than during the shooting of
Mayerling.
In those weeks Sydney and I exchanged more panic signals than
Admiral Yamamoto at the Battle of Midway.

Film stars tend to chronicle their careers through their successes or failures.
Success in Hollywood terms means record takings at the box office. Failure is
no clatter of cash registers. Miss G’s mind never worked like that. First, she
thought of every film she made as a job, work to be done. When it was over she
asked herself if we had fun. If so, then it was a success.

The Bible
, even though it was directed by our true and dear friend, John
Huston, would rank at pit-bottom and
The Night of the Iguana
as sky-high.
Mayerling
also entered our sky-high rating, even though it was a box office
disaster. Even Sydney and I had a hard time preventing the Empress of AustriaHungary from falling on her ass on occasion.

Miss G loved filming in Paris. We had a lovely, warm, sympathetic,
friendly director, Terrence Young, and the cast including James Mason,
Catherine Deneuve, Omar Sharif, Genevieve Page and James Robertson Justice,
who was a lovely, fruity real life replica of His royal Highness King Edward
VII.

The script was based on a true story. At the end of the last century, Crown
Prince Rudolph, played by Omar Sharif, heir to the Austrian Hungarian throne,
fell in love with a commoner, Maria Vetsera, played by Catherine Deneuve,
even though he was married to Princess Stephanie of Belgium. It was a tragic
love story that ended in a suicide pact between the two lovers in a hunting lodge
in the forest of Mayerling.

As usual, the true story was enhanced and embroidered with fictional
incidents such as intrigues at court, plots to free Hungary from Austrian rule,
and fierce confrontations between father and son. Emperor Franz Josef, played
by James Mason, was a stern, martial figure. Miss G, cast as the Empress
Elizabeth, was only ten years older than Omar Sharif who was cast as her son.
Miss G had some difficulty in acting as a mature, consoling and helpful advisor
to her son. In some of their film scenes it was suggested that Mama and Rudolf
were so consoling to each other that they might well have been having an affair.

Well, they were not! Miss G pulled off her role well and, as I’ve already
mentioned, with a bit of help from Sydney Guilaroff and me.
I loved the film. All the main characters were splendid, and the film rose to
a climax which was moving and tragic.
At the start of the film Miss G arrived in her usual splendid condition—fit,
slender, alcohol-free and set to fire on all cylinders. Then we met Omar Sharif,
our happy Parisian excursions started, and we began to drink a little more, to eat
a little more, and to exercise a little less.
One of my prime duties before any film started shooting was to do a “dry
run.” That did not mean reading the script and playing the other parts to Miss
G’s cues. It meant me journeying out to the studio and giving it a hard look.
Where was our dressing room? Did it have a couch and a toilet? Did it have a
refrigerator? How far was it to the sets? Did we have to cross open territory, or
were we under shelter? Finally and most importantly, where could I hide the
bottles of booze in case Miss G needed a swift pick-up?
As already mentioned, Miss G would start out as a figure of perfection.
Then slowly the drinking would increase, and halfway through the film Sydney
and I had to watch her acting performances closely. Three quarters of the way
through the film we were usually on red alert. And from that moment on we had
to be ready to step in with evasive action.
Sydney and I surveyed Miss G from different vantage points. He would be
prowling around, stepping in between every shot or every time the director
would call a halt to adjust her hairstyle and whisper encouragement or advice
into her ear.
I would be standing much closer to her to offer a quick drink if necessary,
but trying to keep the size down by adding more water or ginger ale. When Miss
G’s dramatic ability got close to the danger level, Sydney would come swinging
across with our code sentence. “Rene! The curls are flying!” That meant that
Miss G would probably be smiling when she shouldn’t be smiling or frowning
when she shouldn’t be frowning or when, in a scene with her son Rudolph, her
husky vowels began to sound as if she was inviting him to her bedroom instead
of giving him a lecture on the state of the Austrian economy.
I don’t think the situation was hidden from anybody, including the director.
Everybody loved Miss G and understood her little idiosyncrasies. Since her
performance as seen in the rushes was quite superb, nobody really minded or
complained. But as far as Sydney and I were concerned, there had to be a limit
to this. Proper excuses had to be made. “She didn’t sleep at all well last night.
She’s been feeling off color the last couple of days.” And tactful hints: “I do
hope they wind this up pretty soon. She’s so tired.” Or as a last resort: “I wonder
if we could call a halt so that the doctor could give her a B-12 vitamin shot? She
needs the stimulation.”
Miss G was normally blissfully unaware of our intervention, and at the end
of the shooting day her rhapsodic smile would be followed by, “Well, now we
can all have a little drink.”
Another problem was the matter of Miss G’s weight. If she had ample
opportunity to exercise as she did while filming
The Night of the Iguana,
when
she used to water ski from Puerto Vallarta to Mismaloya, she never put on an
ounce. But in
Mayerling,
Paris was full of temptation. If a movie buff studies the
slender lines of Miss G’s face in the first shots and compares them with the
rounded happiness of her face in the closing scenes, he will discover quite a
difference.
Miss G’s eating hours were always incredibly unconventional—a habit I
had caved in to early in our relationship. It was not unusual for us to be stuffing
ourselves with roast pork or chicken and sopping up alcohol in the splendor of
our L’Hotel bedroom in the small hours of the morning.
Miss G hated eating or drinking alone. Having me eating and drinking with
her and talking over the triumphs or problems of the day made her happy. And
most of the time Miss G was a load of fun with a few drinks in her. As they say,
“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” It was always a pleasure to join Miss G.