The Legs Are the Last to Go (3 page)

The police took my report. “Have you been harmed?” they asked.

“No,” I told them, “but I've been the target of racist slurs.”

I had not decided if I'd even go on to perform the next night until I learned what response I would get from the phone calls I'd made. The union contacted me, then contacted the conductor and threatened him, and that frightened him. So he came into my dressing room.

“What did you tell these people?” he said with a laugh.

“That you told me the audience doesn't want to hear a nigger sing,” I said.

“Oh, come on.” He snickered. “You know I was only joking.”

I said, “Well, I'll tell you what we're going to do. You are going to apologize to me in front of the entire orchestra for joking in such a way.”

“Are you crazy?” he asked.

“If you don't,” I said, “I will not perform.”

He shook his head as if I were out of my mind.

But I went ahead and gathered the orchestra into the rehearsal room. And the conductor, who I later learned had been a member of the Little Rascals (he played Porky), stood there with me and said something like, “Diahann Carroll here is accusing me of racist remarks.” He didn't say he was sorry for his behavior.

“But actually,” I said, “I would like you to apologize to me and to all of us. Your remark was an insult to what we do.”

He just laughed at me, shook his head, and walked out.

I asked the musicians, “So what do I do now? The only thing I can do is quit.”

We gathered in my hotel room for a meeting. We all agreed that we would all suffer if I didn't go on with my booking. Nobody would get paid. There was no way around it. So I simply asked to have this man removed from my show. An assistant conducted instead. It's not a big payoff ending, but it took care of the problem at hand.

That was real racism. What I was facing with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber wasn't anything in that league. He had mentioned at some point during our awkward meeting that no silent-screen stars were black. And I told him there was no Norma Desmond, either. “She's a fictional character,” I said. But I still don't know to this day why he was so keen on maligning me at
that audition when he saw me becoming so anxious in his presence.

“All right, so I'll give you a chord, now go ahead and sing,” he was telling me.

“But I was told I could rehearse with a pianist before presenting it,” I said.

“What do you mean?” he said briskly. “Come on. Just sing it. Just sing!”

I was completely unmoored now. And quite frankly, I figured at this point he didn't want to work with me if I was being so difficult. So my dream of getting this part was pretty much falling apart. But I did not break out into a sweat and feel my throat go dry. I knew what I had been promised. I had been told that I would have forty-five minutes to work with a pianist before singing for the producers, director, and creator of the show. Finally they phoned my agent and he defended my contractual agreement in no uncertain terms. He suggested they let me go home. “So you really won't sing?” Sir Andrew asked.

“I will,” I said. “And I'm sorry, but I really want to have a moment to prepare.”

And with that, I was shown the door. The rehearsal pianist walked me out of the dark theater into the parking lot and accompanied me to my car, a Rolls. It was champagne-and chocolate-colored, and looking regal in a lonely, sunlit lot.

“That's not your car, is it?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “That's my car.”

He shook his head and laughed. It was just too Norma Desmond.

“I have driven a Rolls for years,” I said.

To be honest, I was a little embarrassed. On the one hand, a Rolls is a power statement in a town in which dropping off and picking up at valet parking is a form of ritual display. But on the other hand, I knew that driving one when I was not at the top of anyone's list anymore was a slightly dangerous choice of statement making, and more than a little “Norma Desmond” in the eyes of the all-knowing types in Los Angeles.

Sending the wrong message can get you in trouble in this town. And the worst message of all is when you're driving a fancy car that is in need of repair.

1n 1976, I was truly wondering where my life was going. My hit albeit controversial series
Julia
was long over. So was my summer television series,
The Diahann Carroll Show. Dynasty
was in the future, but I had no idea of that then. Show business had already started to change, and singers like me who loved nothing more than performing the standards of the older generation were being challenged by everything from the Bee Gees to Motown. Around that time, I remember quite clearly the sight of a bright yellow Bentley convertible coming at me on Coldwater Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills. I had never seen such a color in my life except on a taxicab in New York. Behind the wheel of this lurid yellow car was this tiny black woman with a huge head of hair flying in the wind. As she drove past me, I recognized it was Diana Ross.

“There goes the neighborhood,” I muttered to myself.

Now, I know that sounds terrible. But you have to understand that in 1976, a bright yellow Bentley (or was it a
Rolls?) was as out of place as Albert Einstein might have been in this town. And there's no denying that I was just learning what to make of the influence of Motown on the music industry. I knew it was brilliant, but I simply couldn't relate to it. I was immersed in an old-fashioned notion of elegance and sophistication and had no choice but to remain true to the music of Gershwin, Porter, and Ellington—what I knew and was raised on. All this new music represented a loss of footing for me. Yes, I'll admit it, I was confused about Detroit, too. I was, after all, from New York, the apex of all things sophisticated, cultural, and old school. And like so many transplants, I was very defensive about giving up Manhattan for Los Angeles. So as I drove past that huge flashy yellow convertible, I probably didn't want to admit how worried I was about my own career.

It had not gone as well as I had hoped after three seasons of
Julia
. My summer variety show was successful and paid well, but it had come and gone, and it seemed to me that the era of lavish television specials was coming to an end. I was convinced that there was less demand for a chanteuse like me, a girl who became a singing star on television and in nightclubs wearing pearls. There was more interest in performers who were more soulful. The great Aretha Franklin. The singular Nina Simone. Our culture was rapidly changing and I knew I had to rethink my situation. Norma Desmond was appealing to act onstage, but in real life I had to embrace the new. So I set out to do just that. If I get an A for effort, I don't get such high marks for execution. When I look back on
The Carol Burnett Show
and see myself in a macramé vest and
silly hat, singing songs that just didn't come naturally to me, I notice my own awkwardness. I was trying to adapt to the new trends—which change every ten years or so, requiring those of us in the business to keep on our toes—but that was not for me. I was and always will be a chanteuse in the way I understand the term. That was hard to reconcile with the 1970s, an era of strident liberation. The only important film role I played during those years was representative of where the cultural interest was—as a welfare mother in the independent film
Claudine
. She was gritty, real, an honest black woman working her tail off. It was a great part. But no other roles were forthcoming, so I continued to travel. But in this new world, could I really still afford my Rolls and my mansion in Benedict Canyon with a wine cellar, waterfall, and three-car garage?

Harry Belafonte had advised me to always make the best financial deal I possibly could, because no career is guaranteed, especially for an African-American woman in showbiz. He also explained early on in my career that touring, regardless of how inconvenient it was, could be very lucrative. That's why when Richard Rodgers's
No Strings
was ready for its national tour, I decided to go with it.

I remember the day I had a horrifically unsettling experience in a department store. It was in the early 1980s, and I had driven my Rolls to Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. I did not give much thought to the fact that it needed some work. Usually I'm persnickety, but around this time, I'd been neglectful. So the Rolls wasn't looking its best that day. Anyway, I had bought some bathing suits and cover-ups for a trip, and
while I was in the dressing room, a young salesclerk came in to see me.

“Miss Carroll,” she said. “Your credit card didn't go through.”

I stood there, confused. I had never heard those words before, ever. It was so mortifying I hardly knew what to say. Then, as I stepped out of the dressing room, there were some women who wanted my autograph. Can you imagine? I signed for them and spoke in a way that was more animated than usual. Then I called over to the clerk, “I'll be back to take care of this tomorrow!” I wanted to make it clear to everyone in that swimsuit department at Saks that I did not have a financial problem. And I actually didn't. It was more that I was starting to feel a kind of slipping from the top of the food chain at the time. Certainly, I could pay my bills. But I probably couldn't continue to travel the way I traveled, extravagantly, with twenty pieces of luggage and an entourage. In my midforties, I was beginning to make contact with the feeling that my life had changed, and that I might not be able to maintain the level of success that had come so easily in the past. Should I really be driving a Rolls, particularly one in need of a few repairs? My outspoken agent, Roy Gerber, didn't think so. He told me that someone had cringed seeing me pull up to the Beverly Wilshire for lunch.

“My friend saw you get out of your car and he called me immediately,” Roy told me. “He said you should stop driving it because it's a perfect example of someone having financial problems.” I finally got it repaired, and I kept trading up for new ones, just as my father had done with his Chryslers all my
childhood. And now, fifteen years later, here I was after a disastrous audition, standing in a theater parking lot about to get into my Rolls, and worrying about how to pay for my life. I didn't just want to play Norma Desmond in the national production of
Sunset Boulevard
in Toronto. I
had
to.

I unlocked the door to the car and got in.

“I just can't believe this is really your car,” the pianist said. “Well, I promised myself years ago that I would drive a Rolls all my life,” I told him. “It's very important to me that I only have the best for myself and my child.”

He nodded respectfully, and then shook his head.

“Well, I wish those people inside that theater could see you now, because quite clearly you
are
Norma Desmond,” he said. “You have the perfect voice, looks, and car.”

I thanked him and drove away, angry that the revered creator of the show could feel it was his right to tease me and try to provoke me into singing saloon songs. And I was upset that I was not the kind of person who could joke around with him and go with the flow. My whole life I've been careful and formal. The only time I wasn't was when I ran in for my second audition for
House of Flowers
with a crazy, chopped-off hairstyle, so exhausted that without even thinking, I sat down on the edge of the stage, kicked off my shoes, and sang to Harold Arlen, Truman Capote, and all the producers in the dark. But I was a girl then, barely twenty years old. Now I was very much an adult.

“Well, that's that,” I said as I drove home. So much for
Sunset Boulevard
.

Not long after that, my agent got another call, and I was sent some music to prepare and asked to fly to Toronto. After another audition, without Sir Andrew around, I was granted my proper time with a rehearsal pianist and sang well. The producer, Garth Drabinksy, told me he had wanted me all along. No, Sir Andrew was not totally happy about the choice. I don't think he wanted me at all, and claimed that I couldn't sing in the key in which the songs were written. But the final decision about me was the producer's, not the creator's. And I was offered the job that very day, and like any woman in her sixties, I was terribly delighted to be wanted again.

But it didn't take long to realize that I was back in the theater, and that meant I would be locked away day in and day out in my own little gilded cage. I always took my work so seriously, too seriously. For an entire year, I would be committed to eight shows a week, worrying about my throat, with humidifiers all around me. But I desperately needed to prove I could play the role. I was the oldest woman to play Norma Desmond, and certainly the darkest. My leading man, Rex Smith, was very charming and extremely talented. And there was something so rewarding about not having to worry for two years about what kind of jobs I might be offered.

The revolving set for the show was incredibly ornate and so were the costumes. Sweeping around in capes as heavy as velvet drapes and walking up and down three hundred steps eight performances weekly in heels and a leopard-skin gown that weighed sixty pounds almost killed me. One night I tripped and injured my ankle badly. I iced it in between scenes so the show could go on. That's the reality of live theater. It
can be painful and it isn't always pretty. Yet it can be so rewarding.

The reviews and audiences were wonderful. Toronto's a beautiful city and its theatergoers are as sophisticated as any in the world. And if the American press didn't pay much attention to the production, I was just becoming seasoned enough to understand that less than perfect can be good enough. You learn that as you age, I think—to appreciate fully what you're given. It's a kind of acceptance that can bring peace, even to an overly ambitious perfectionist like me.

The one thing that I could not accept from my experience as the lead in Toronto's
Sunset Boulevard
was the night Sir Andrew came from England to see our performance. The company was thrilled that we would be able to meet the great creator of so many shows and songs we knew so well. The plan was that we'd have some time with him after the show. So after the curtain fell, we were all racing around in our dressing rooms, pulling ourselves together for our moment. But then his voice came over our PA system, sounding brittle and rushed.