Merv (27 page)

When we arrived, I took Arnie Klein aside and said, “I’ve known Elizabeth forever and she’s never on time. She was probably even a late baby.”

We all sat down for dinner and, of course, there were two glaringly empty chairs at the head table. By 7:45 poor Arnie was sweating bullets and I realized that I had to do something. The guests had paid astronomical sums to dine with Elizabeth and Michael; we were now on dessert and they were nowhere in sight.

Arnie had hired a fellow to play piano in the background during the evening. With my friend Penny Marshall egging me on, I went over to the piano player, tapped him on the shoulder and said quietly, “Do you mind if I cut in?’ I proceeded to do thirty minutes at the piano in order to distract the crowd from their irritation at my absent co-chairs. The Narvas said later that Arnie was both grateful and surprised, telling them, “I didn’t even know that Merv played the piano.”

Finally at 8:15 the door opened and Elizabeth and Michael made their entrance while I was still at the piano. Of course, I did what I’ve always done for guests—I introduced them: “Ladies and Gentlemen, they’re here! Bonnie and Clyde have arrived.” As I rose from the piano, everyone in the room stood up and applauded my brief interlude on the ivories.

Later on, during the reception at the museum, the press insisted on getting pictures of me together with Elizabeth and Michael. As the assembled paparazzi wildly snapped photos of the three of us together, I glanced outside and saw literally thousands of people milling in the streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of…
me?

Some of my most embarrassing moments always seem to occur in the name of a good cause. In 1985, Prince Charles and Princess Diana were the guests of honor at a charity reception in Palm Beach at which I was the master of ceremonies. I had conducted the first American talk show interview with the Prince of Wales two years earlier and we’d gotten along famously. (I’d asked him about his education, knowing that the autocratic Prince Phillip had shipped him off to boarding school in Australia as a teenager. Charles’s telling reply offered insight into the character of a man who may yet be king: “I was chucked into a pond and I either sank or I swam. At the age of sixteen, I was determined I wasn’t going to sink.” Ironically, “sink or swim” was the exact phrase that Diana herself would subsequently use in describing how she had been left to fend for herself in their troubled marriage.)

Eva and I had been invited to a small pre-reception function with about twenty other people, including Bob and Dolores Hope. As I moved through the receiving line, Eva was in front of me and Dolores Hope was immediately behind me. Shortly before I reached the prince and princess, a stud popped off my tuxedo shirt and fell inside the shirt itself. Dolores stuck her hand down my shirtfront and felt around for it. We arrived in front of Charles and Diana in that less-than-dignified but very funny way.

Prince Charles, ignoring the fact that a woman’s arm was in my tuxedo shirt, greeted me warmly, “Diana,” he said, turning to his beautiful young wife, “This is Merv Griffin.”

“Oh yes,” said the princess. “I know him.”

“You do?” I said, disregarding the protocol that requires you not to ask questions of royalty,
“How
do you know me?”

“I’ve seen the tape of your interview with my husband many times,” she said smiling in the shy, yet knowing way that had endeared her to millions.

It turned out that the heir to the British throne was just like any other talk show guest. He’d brought his interview tape home and showed it to his wife. A lot. I guess he liked it.

Oh, by the way, Dolores Hope eventually retrieved my errant stud. But wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I sat down on the long dais for the formal dinner. I popped again, this time in front of the entire room. A true friend, Dolores again stuck her hand down my shirtfront, feeling around for the missing stud. Thank God, Bob missed all of this or I never would have heard the end of it. But His Royal Highness happened to look down the table just as Mrs. Hope was feeling me down for the second time that night. The expression on his face was mixture of curiosity and amusement.
Those Americans are truly odd
.

I mentioned before that one of my favorite charities is Childhelp USA, founded in 1959 by two amazing women, Sara O’Meara and Yvonne Fedderson. Two years ago I donated one of my hotel properties, The Wickenberg Inn and Dude Ranch in Arizona, to Childhelp as a home for abused children. It was a $10 million gift, the largest they had ever received.

I still cry when I think about the photograph of the little boy whose back was scarred with cigarette burns that spelled out the words “I’m a bad boy.” It was that horrible image that inspired me to donate the Wickenburg Ranch. Along with the property, I also donated a herd of horses that Childhelp has been using as a form of “equine therapy” for emotionally withdrawn children. They’ve already had kids who hadn’t spoken for months finally begin to smile and laugh again. For as long as I live, helping those kids is probably the most rewarding thing I’ll ever do.

W
hen it was first suggested to me that the title of this book be
Merv: Making the Good Life Last
, I just laughed. What the hell did
I
know about it? I told them to give the title to Shirley MacLaine. She’d only need to change it slightly and it would work perfectly for her:
Shirley: Making the Last Life Good
.

After thinking about it, I realized that there could be a few things I’ve learned along the way that might be worth sharing with people.

The best example I know of someone who made the good life last was my Uncle Elmer. He never stopped laughing.

For his eightieth birthday, I flew Elmer and five of his friends from Los Angeles up to San Francisco on my plane. Even at that age he continued to love—and still play—the game of tennis, so I got us all tickets for a John McEnroe match at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium. At eighty, Elmer remained a terrific athlete. He could slice a tennis ball with such backspin that it would land on the opposite court and then bounce back over the net before his opponent had a chance to swing at it.

As we were heading back to the airport, I said, “Elmer, you’ve had a wonderful night. There’s just one question we all want to ask you. You’re eighty years old now. Can you still
do
it?”

Elmer looked across at me as if I’d just broken wind. As always, he was fashionably dressed and distinguished-looking—a proper gentleman whose boorish nephew had just asked him something quite rude.

“Murv,” he said, “that question is beneath you. I will not dignify it with an answer.” He spoke as if he had adenoids, in a pinched, nasal tone. (In fact, he sounded remarkably like Arthur Treacher. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I was always so fond of Arthur.)

But I wouldn’t let it go. Smiling at him as I would a recalcitrant guest on my show, I said, “Come on, Elmer. Tell us the truth. Can you still
do
it?”

There was a long pause and then a sigh. “Well,” he said finally, with just a glint of wickedness in his blue eyes, “did you ever try to stuff a marshmallow into a piggy bank?”

Barely able to catch my breath between spasms of laughter, I managed to tell our driver to stop the limo right where we were, which happened to be on one of the busiest sections of Market Street in downtown San Francisco. Everybody fell out of the car and onto the sidewalk, laughing uncontrollably. It took one very unhappy traffic cop to finally get us back in the car and on our way home.

Long and loving relationships are what the good life is really all about. I’ve been blessed with more than I can count. There is the family I was born into—my parents, my sister (who earlier this year finally lost her five-year struggle with cancer and emphysema), and my uncles and aunts. There’s also the family I begat (sounds biblical, doesn’t it?): my son, Tony, and my two beloved grandchildren, Farah Christian Griffin and Donovan Mervyn Griffin. (I should mention that most of the actual
work
in this begatting process was done by my beautiful daughter-in-law, Tricia.)

Then there’s my other “family”—the friends who’ve played crucial parts at (and on) each of the different stages of my life. I’ve already told you about two of my oldest friends, Bob Murphy, whom I’ve known since the sixth grade, and Jean Barry (now Jean Plant), who recruited me for Freddy Martin when I was twenty-two years old.

Bob is now retired and, with his wife, Lynne, lives only minutes from me at the Beverly Hilton, so I get to see him all the time. In the sixties, Jean married a marvelous fellow named Harold Plant and they were together until he passed away five years ago. Although I loved Harold, Jean still teases me about the fact that when she first told me they were getting married, I said, “Aw Jean, do you
have
to?”

Mort Lindsey, the orchestra leader on
The Merv Griffin Show
for twenty-two years, has been my friend for more than five decades. Mort has been the arranger and conductor for everybody from Judy Garland to Barbra Streisand (he won an Emmy for her Central Park concert special). His wife, the former Judy Johnson, is a wonderful singer who started on
Your Show of Shows
and had a hit record with “Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio.” Judy replaced Doris Day as Les Brown’s vocalist when Doris went to Hollywood. The Lindseys are among my closest friends in the world. Indeed, we’ve seen a lot of the world together. My orchestra also provided me with another one of the great and lasting friendships of my life, the trumpet-playing wild man, Jack Sheldon. We still make appearances together and Jack’s off-beat (and devastatingly funny) sense of humor never fails to put me on the floor.

In addition to the Lindseys, the other couple that has become like family to me is Bob and Audrey Loggia. Bob is a terrific actor who you’ll immediately recognize from his roles in more than a hundred films, including
Big
(Remember him dancing with Tom Hanks on the giant keyboard?),
Scarface, Prizzi’s Honor
, and
Jagged Edge
.

I met Bob on a fluke. During the Korean War, he was doing basic training in the army at Fort Dix, New Jersey, having previously graduated from the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. Bob was on a weekend pass when a friend of his from college said, “Why don’t you come to the Roosevelt Hotel with me? Merv Griffin sings there with the Freddy Martin Orchestra. He and his girlfriend, Judy Balaban, have these great parties.”

He picked a good weekend to drop by. I’d invited Harry Belafonte and Judy had brought along her good friend Grace Kelly, for whom she would later become a bridesmaid. Bob now describes his memory of that night as “like dying and going to heaven.”

Bob and I didn’t stay in touch after that night. I’d followed his career from a distance, but he never appeared on my show. About ten years ago, Warren Cowan brought us together for a charity event and from that day forward, Bob and I have become the closest of friends. The only thing that could ever come between us is my friendship with his wife, Audrey. Periodically Bob will see the two of us laughing together and growl, “Hey, Griffin. She’s
my
wife. You’d better watch yourself.” At which point Mr. Tough Guy will stick his tongue out and we all collapse in hysterics.

I’m a very lucky guy. My life is never boring. I think one of the most important aspects of the “good life” is always being excited about getting out of bed in the morning. And I’ve always had that.

It doesn’t occur to a lot of people to say, “I am going to structure my professional life so that I’m having fun. I’m not ever going into a profession that doesn’t make me happy.”

It’s never occurred to me to do anything else. Why would you? If you treat your personal life as the only time you’re allowed to be happy, then you’re consigning yourself to half a life spent in misery.

That’s never made sense to me. I treat my professional life the same way I do my personal life. And I measure success the same way—by how much fun I’m having, and by how much fun I’m creating around me.

Kemmons Wilson, the founder of the Holiday Inn chain, was once a guest on my show and he said something that I later had transcribed because I thought it was worth remembering: “Success is not money. Success is being happy with what you’re doing. I think you’re extremely successful if you’re happy doing what you want to do. Everybody thinks that when you get successful, and the money that comes with it, you have the ‘end answer.’ You don’t. Money is the most unimportant thing in the world. You’ve got to live the way you want to live. For some people that’s $25,000 a year, for some it’s $50,000 a year. But anything above that is just a way of keeping score.”

One of the most exciting periods of my life was when I was in “discussions” with Donald about buying Resorts. What I didn’t tell you was that at the same time the Resorts deal was happening, I was also building a home in La Quinta, a small desert community thirty miles east of Palm Springs.

It’s the most thrilling thing in the world to build your own home. In a way it’s a form of artistic expression, because you get to infuse it with your own personality and vision. I was sixty-two years old when we broke ground. After working hard for forty-one years, this was something I’d waited my entire adult life to be able to do.

As you can probably guess, I was intimately involved in every aspect of the design and construction, down to the smallest details. There were to be five residences in the compound, a main house and four guest houses, all in a Moroccan-themed design. All the stone for the floors was brought in from Spain and we used French limestone for the entrance to the main house. By August of 1988, the main house was largely complete; the furniture had arrived and was being stored in the stable and garages.

About two weeks before I was due to move in, the contractor decided to test the electrical load. He fired up the electricity for everything—lights, kitchen appliances, air conditioning—all at once.

And my house burned to the ground.

At the exact moment this was happening, I was on the other side of the country giving testimony before the New Jersey Casino Control Commission. I’d spent much of the day in the witness chair, before returning to the apartment that I was using at Resorts. When I walked in, my nephew, Mike Eyre (who’d just become a vice president of my company), had CNN on. I glanced at the screen and saw live coverage of a fire in progress somewhere in California.
Gosh, doesn’t California have a lot of fires during the summer?

Then I recognized my four round Moroccan guest houses which, fortunately, were untouched.

In utter horror, I shouted, “That’s my house!” The fire had completely razed the main house, and its ruins filled the screen. Amazingly, CNN had arrived before the local fire department.

It took an entire year to rebuild in La Quinta.

Now here’s where the story really gets weird. Around the same time that the La Quinta house burned down, there was also a fire in the kitchen of the Popeye’s chicken franchise on the Resorts pier. The fire spread to adjacent buildings, causing extensive damage and rendering the casino helicopter pad located on the pier unusable for many months.

Given the timing of the two fires—both occurring right in the middle of my battle with Trump—I started thinking, “Gee, this guy really plays rough.” Joking aside, of course it was all just an unfortunate coincidence.

Let me take you for a tour around the property in your mind’s eye. There are 240 acres, most of them covered by tamarisk or palm trees. Ducks float on the lake, a man-made body of water with a fountain in the center. Every few minutes it sends streams of water as high as fifty feet in the air.

Inside the main house, there are thirty-foot-high ceilings and the walls are decorated with the works of French Impressionists and Colorists. The stone floors are inlaid with green and white marble. There are twelve-foot-high French windows that open out onto the terraces and the lake.

Back outside and past the four round guest houses, all with interiors painted in different pastel hues, is the tile-covered stable, which, at any given time, houses over fifty of my horses. And beyond the stable is the five-eighth-mile racetrack with its thatch-topped viewing stand. The same people who built the track at Hollywood Park designed it for me.

As Eva always said (and mind you, for her this was
really
swearing): “Darling, you built a frigging palace.”

Waking up to the early-morning desert sunlight is magical. At seven, my housekeeper, Marylou Martinez, delivers me a tray with oatmeal, coffee, and five newspapers—the
New York Times
, the
Los Angeles Times, USA Today
, the
Palm Springs Desert Sun
, and the
Wall Street Journal
. I do the crossword puzzles—
in ink
—in the first four papers. Then I scan the headlines in all of them, before going back to sleep for another hour and a half. The second sleep of the morning is the best one of the day. Try it some time; you’ll see what I mean.

Then Marylou returns with breakfast, usually something like an egg white omelet with goat cheese, and more coffee. By 9:30 A.M. I move down to a swivel chair by the lake, where I start my business calls on a cordless phone.

No two days are alike. Just like when I did my show, I get to improvise my life. One day I may get up and say, “I wonder how my racehorses are doing?” Then I’ll go down to the stable and work with the horses for a few hours. The next day, I might think, “How’s that marketing plan coming for the hotels?” And I’ll get my staff together by phone and start working on that.

I call it “planned spontaneity.”

Now, in the summer months you really don’t want to be in La Quinta. The temperature gets up as high as 125 degrees. It’s so hot that you feel like you need sunblock even in the shade.

That’s when I head north to my ranch in Carmel Valley. The property is actually 1,700 feet high in the sky, on a mesa covered with ancient oak trees. I bought it more than twenty-five years ago from the Crocker banking family of San Francisco, the same people who were kind enough to give me that awful job when I was a kid.

Like my home in La Quinta, the ranch is visually stunning to visitors, yet for very different reasons. The contrast between the desert vistas of La Quinta and the breathtaking views of the mountains and the ocean in Carmel Valley couldn’t be more dramatic.