Rita Moreno: A Memoir (15 page)

And it was! It didn’t hurt that I was with the great Ann Miller, either. They rolled out the red carpet and sent over their violin trio, along with a bottle of Champagne while we dined. Could a little Puerto Rican girl have asked for more?

At the airport terminal afterward, I watched Ann buy hundreds of dollars’ worth of costume jewelry and tchotchkes, such as a three-inch Eiffel Tower. Her absolute favorite souvenir was a pair of dangling plastic fruit earrings in tropical colors.

“Look, honey, aren’t these adorable? And only a hundred dollars!”

One hundred dollars. Half my weekly salary! I wondered whether I’d ever be able to be so carefree with money.

When we landed in LA, Ann gave me a lift in her big black limousine. She dropped me off at my Culver City cottage, gave my stunned mother a big hug, and disappeared from my life for ten years.

THE COCKTAIL PARTY: PIMPED?

A
t that time, a starlet’s life followed a pattern of nearly enforced public dating. Often, budding starlets like me were paired with young male wannabe stars and sent out on the town for what were really photo ops. We were the young pretty faces and had nothing to do with each other before the date, during the date, or after the date but pose for the pictures. Those dates were superficial and false, but the publicists convinced me that they were essential to my career.

Other kinds of studio “dates” were more ominous. For some girls, this practice came uncomfortably close to pimping. If they went along with everything the men in power proposed, they descended from starlet to some kind of hybrid creature—a harlet?

At one point early in my career, I was “set up” to attend a party where I would supposedly meet a lot of famous people at a Bel Air
mansion. I was encouraged to go by the publicity people, because these “important people” could help my career.

To prepare for this appearance, I was even allowed into the costume department, where I could choose a dress from racks labeled, “Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner…” I picked out a gorgeous lacy dress that had been worn by Debra Paget, a starlet at Fox. (I knew this because I had seen a picture of her wearing it.) The dress was filed on the costume rack as “Ingenue: fantasy party dress.” How dreamy is that?

This beautiful gown was strapless and quite low-cut, but of the full-skirted, lacy, innocent Cinderella type of design. Wearing it the night of the party, I felt airy and light enough to dance all night. And even though I still secretly thought I was plain, I conceded that, with my makeup tricks, I looked…well…quite pretty.

I did not comprehend that I was about to be in the company of legendary lechers until after it was too late. One of the party guests, Harry Cohn, was the studio boss whom Elizabeth Taylor had once called “a monster.” The head of Columbia Studios, he was rumored to demand sex from all of his female stars in exchange for employment. Movie stars such as Rita Hayworth, Kim Novak, and Joan Crawford were known to have rebuffed his advances.

The party host, Alfred Hart, was equally horny and evil. “Alfred Hart of Hart Distilleries,” as he was always referred to by public relations people, was supplying the party venue—his Bel Air mansion—and, I suppose, the booze. Hart was a longtime associate of the Chicago mob and had a reputation for doing business with known gangsters. He had been a beer runner for Al Capone and later developed an odd “friendship” with FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, who also kept a file on him. In 1948,
Hart had invested seventy-five thousand dollars in the famous gangster Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingo Hotel and was implicated in a corrupt racetrack deal.

Since that time, Alfred Hart’s mob involvement has been well documented in several books, especially around an infamous legal case involving the takeover of the Del Mar Racetrack. He lived his corrupt life in the orbit of more famous mobsters and movie stars.

I didn’t know it yet, but many people in Hollywood had ties to organized crime, and names that came up around Alfred Hart included Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Around the same time that I met Hart, future president JFK was also seen with his crowd, and even shared a mistress, Judith Campbell Exner, with a famous gangster.

I was soon to discover that show business, politics, and organized crime all overlapped, crisscrossing seedy borders. That night, I innocently stepped right into a trap of corruption in my lovely borrowed dress and strappy diamond slippers.

*   *   *

Knowing none of this, I was excited and naive. I must have looked to these men like a dewy-eyed innocent, and fair game. I floated in my beautiful gown and clutched a tiny purse that held my keys, a lipstick, and a five-dollar bill. My date for the evening was to be Harry Karl, a shoe magnate who later became famous not only as “the shoe magnate who married Debbie Reynolds,” but as “the bogus millionaire who bankrupted Debbie.”

When Karl appeared in the doorway of my apartment in Westwood, I thought he was good-looking enough but was slightly disappointed. I had seen his picture in the papers, but in person Karl’s features were somewhat coarser. He had slightly kinky iron
gray hair and dressed very much in the style of many men in the business, along the lines of “the look” that Sy Devore designed for almost every successful male in Hollywood.

Sy was expensive, but so much in demand that he had created a breed of clients who appeared to be clones of one another. Whether it was the effect of the wide lapels, shawl collars, or vents in the back, the men all looked like dressed-up chorus boys from an expensive production number, or well-heeled, gnomish gangsters. The fabric always appeared to be just a little too shiny. To complete the ensemble: Gucci moccasins in velvet, suede, or crocodile skin.

Karl looked like an overgroomed gangster and may well have been one, given his cohorts. He drove a canary yellow Cadillac convertible, and we sped off in it to the gated Xanadu of Bel Air. We made very small talk, and it quickly became apparent that we were definitely not meant for each other.

In fact, it was unclear whether Harry Karl was a married man at that very moment. Karl was either married to Marie McDonald, the blond bombshell star of
Pardon My Sarong
, or he may have been momentarily single, on the brief hiatus between their two marriages to each other. I later discovered that, despite being such a homely troll, Karl had an insatiable appetite for beautiful young women. Apparently I wasn’t his type, though, and I’m still grateful for that today. Perhaps in this instance being a Latina helped. He was no gentleman, but he seemed to prefer blondes.

Oh, well
, I thought,
that’s fine. This is a business outing.

I reminded myself that this party was a chance to meet important people, not a real blind date or a place to pursue romantic interests. Besides, I was excited and eager to see the inside of a famous mansion and meet the rich and famous.

At least I wasn’t disappointed by the setting. Karl drove through a set of massive curlicue iron gates onto a vast estate. We passed a tennis court and groomed hedges where gardeners were feverishly at work, wielding heavy pruning shears that gleamed in the late-afternoon sun.

A uniformed valet whisked away the yellow Cadillac on our arrival, and we were greeted at the door by a formally dressed butler (in livery!) who took my wrap. Another butler instantly materialized, offering us a round silver tray that held champagne flutes sparkling in the roseate light.

My hopeful little spirit rose at the sight of bubbly in crystal. I gratefully accepted a glass and thanked the butler. When I turned around, Harry Karl was gone—so
completely
gone that I couldn’t see him anywhere! Meanwhile, the host, Alfred Hart of Hart Distilleries, introduced himself and led me around to various clusters of glamorous-looking people, introducing me to everyone as this “sexy little starlet.”

Hart dropped me off at a bridge table in the middle of the living room, introduced me to Harry Cohn, and left. “Are you the new girl at Twentieth Century Fox?” Cohn asked.

“Yes,” I said, and we made small talk for a few minutes.

Then, out of the blue, Cohn said, “You’re very fuckable. I’d like to fuck you.”

He said it in the same kind of tone you might use to remark on the weather. My response was pathetic. I gave him a horribly crooked quasi smile and excused myself.

I found the powder room, locked the door behind me, and leaned against it. I was panting with anxiety, thinking,
What am I going to do? What am I going to do?

I stayed in the powder room as long as I could, until someone knocked and I had to leave my safe haven. I looked for Karl to ask
him to take me home, but couldn’t find him. I didn’t want to attract attention by moving around any more than I absolutely had to. I chose a spot in a corner of the room with the most people and sat down, trying to figure out what to do.

The orchestra started to play a bolero, and our host, the gnome, asked me to dance. I could hardly refuse him in front of everyone, I thought. Besides, at least here we were surrounded by other people, including his wife. What could happen?

Alfred Hart of Hart Distilleries whisked me (as well as a gnome can) to the dance floor of his vast living room and held me very close. Within one minute he started to breathe heavily, and perspiration began beading on his upper lip and forehead. He squeezed me so hard that you couldn’t have slipped a piece of paper between our bodies, then began grinding against me. His wife could not have been more than two yards away, but she was flirting with another gnome and playing poker (a different sort than her husband’s version of the game).

This was a nightmare! I tried to push away from him without making a scene. Hart pulled me even harder against him, now seriously panting. At this point, he had his arm fully around me so that I couldn’t get away

“Please let me go,” I said. “You’re hurting my back.”

“You’re a sexy little bitch, aren’t you?” he said, panting.

“Oh, my God, Mr. Hart, please. Just let me go.”

“I’ll bet you’re wild in bed!”

At that, I shoved him as hard as I could, finally freeing myself from that pelvic death grip, and got away.

“Hey!” he said. “Don’t play that game with me,
sister.
”

Trembling with fear that someone would catch on to what was happening, and that somehow I would be accused of a sexual
act with this rutting Chihuahua, I fled to the powder room again to calm down.

I was desperate to escape, but my “date” was still missing. I wanted no part of Harry Karl anyway. I realized that this party was a troll-and-starlet mixer, and wondered how many girls like me had ended up in an upstairs guest room, on soiled sheets, and left parties like these shamefaced. Count me out! All I wanted to do was flee—and bathe.

I splashed cold water over my face, and of course my mascara started to run. I gave my eyes a hasty wipe and sidled toward the front door. I didn’t ask the butler for my wrap for fear of being found out.

When I opened the door, a whoosh of lovely clean air hit my face. I started walking fast, still nervous that someone might try to follow me. I did have a five-dollar bill in my bag. I could have called a taxi, except that I was too afraid to go back inside the house to use the phone.

I was starting to remove my high heels, thinking that somehow I would walk back miles and miles to Westwood, when a pickup truck arrived to collect the gardeners I’d seen working earlier in the day. They were Mexicans; I ran over to the truck and spoke in Spanish to one of them.

“Please, can you take me home?” I begged.

The men didn’t ask why. They understood without a word. They sat me down on the front seat, and one of them gently put his work jacket over my shoulders. They drove me home without a word. They were the only gentlemen I met that night.

DATING, HOLLYWOOD STYLE

I
actually lost my virginity twice.

How is that possible? It isn’t, unless you repress the first painful experience, which I evidently did for years.

I was a teenager. The extent of my sex education was the book
Being Born
, accompanied by my mother’s, “Here, Rosita, read this.” As I look back at that quite progressive act (for the time), I find her effort actually astonishing. Yet there was no discussion to follow the reading. All I could figure out was that the man is a farmer and the woman is a field and somehow he plants a seed in her. The end! And perhaps this lack of understanding was why I became the unwitting field for the man who forced himself on me.

Much later I would learn how common it was for aspiring actresses to have sex to get a part—it was almost expected of
starlets. But that was something I would never think of and
never
do,
ever
! I had felt increasingly uncomfortable around this man, my very first agent, and in my naïveté, I evidently did not decipher his amorous signals.

Many agents in that era were of the booking sort. They didn’t build careers; they pursued gigs. If you worked, they made money. My agent-selecting process was from the school of
eeny, meeny, miny
. I’d look through agent/manager trade magazines and just pick one, make a call and see whether I could arrange a meeting. Surely my mother must have been as clueless as I was about the risks of the unchaperoned meetings. There were no background checks or child-predator laws in the business back then.

On one such interview when I was fifteen years old, I was escorted to the dressing room by a prospective agent and given a long-trained gown with only postage stamp–size nipple coverings. Luckily, they were enough—I had yet to develop breasts. The costume, he explained, was for a nudie show to open in Montreal. He knew I was underage, but what did that matter? It was in Canada, and they didn’t care and neither did he. He wanted to book me and earn his commission. No big deal! I fled. And never said a word to my mother.

I did finally secure a “reputable” agent. Or so I thought. He needed my talent and I needed his jobs. He was “miny” on my prospecting list. I was instructed to meet him one evening at his apartment. From there he would escort me to a very important event. I arrived early, he offered me a soda, and I sat on the couch waiting to leave. I began to feel uncomfortable. I didn’t like the way he was staring at me, and I tried to look away. He sat beside me, took the soda from my hand, and placed it on the end table. He stroked my cheek, whispering, “Such a pretty little girl.” Then he bent me over the arm of his couch, started kissing me, and forced himself on me.