Watch Me: A Memoir (26 page)

We ate a very formal dinner that night in the hotel dining room with several toasts, but nonetheless, we were surprised the next morning when everyone from the chambermaids to the doormen at reception wished us a wonderful life together. When we got into the car, the driver congratulated us and then turned on the radio, which was reporting on-air that I had become engaged the night before in the west of Ireland at Dromoland Castle.

*  *  *

When we got back to New York, Joan threw an engagement party for us and invited just about everyone. The rooms in her apartment were packed with friends. She presented us with a cake with two little figures on horseback on top, which she claimed were Bob and me riding off into the sunset.

Back in California, Bob introduced me to his artist friends, many of whom, like him, lived in Venice. I took Bob up to Santa Barbara to introduce him to Dorothy Jeakins and to take her on a picnic to the gardens of a Japanese monastery. We ultimately didn’t get too far—only to her back yard. But even though Dorothy was frail now and using a wheelchair, she flirted sweetly with Bob.

*  *  *

Gordon Davidson, the founding artistic director of the Center Theater Group, suggested that I do a presentation at UCLA. At this time I was working to produce a screenplay of Nancy Cardozo’s book
Lucky Eyes and a High Heart
, about the spiritual and political connection between the Irish poet William Butler Yeats and his muse, the great beauty and patriot Maud
Gonne MacBride. I decided to talk about their passions, namely Yeats’s for MacBride, and MacBride’s hopes for a free Ireland, reading from their letters and his poems. For the second part of the program, I would read Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from James Joyce’s
Ulysses.
Afterward, when Bob and I walked out into the starry night, my heart was still pounding in my chest from adrenaline. Nick was standing by the limo, a small portable television in his hands. “L.A. is on fire,” he announced in disbelief.

The city had erupted in the aftermath of the acquittal of four Los Angeles police officers accused of beating Rodney King. On television, downtown looked like a war zone, with looters scrambling over each other to get into Samy’s Camera and people being pulled out of their vehicles and getting beaten up. That afternoon I went to a nearby market in Beverly Hills, where everyone was queuing for bread and stockpiling cans of beans; they seemed to be in it for the long run.

The next day I drove through Beverly Hills down to Hollywood to see what was going on, which at that point wasn’t much. But it was obvious that there was a big disconnect between those who lived the affluent life tucked away in gated communities in Beverly Hills and those who confronted real life on the streets downtown. There was no doubt that Venice would provide excitement. I decided to sell my house and look for a place nearer the beach, where Bob and I could live together.

*  *  *

I had loved veils throughout my life but decided to wear a white crepe Armani suit and a picture hat for my wedding. I wanted to look the way women do on their second marriage. It felt more like the truth and more dignified than skipping
down the aisle at forty, trying to look like a girl. There was not a moment after Bob asked me to marry him that I doubted it would happen. Now I was shopping with Sabrina Guinness at Bullocks on Wilshire Boulevard, trying on and buying beautiful Manolo Blahniks two sizes too small, and wearing an emerald engagement ring on my finger. I wondered if it would make any difference to Jack when he heard the news.

I had decided that we should get married in the garden at the Hotel Bel Air; it would be traditional, grown up, and sophisticated, and Bob would take care of the party. He planned to set up a big tent on an empty lot he owned next door to his studio on Windward Avenue.

My assistant, Molly Shaw, was going through lists of food and people and flowers; my bridesmaids were multiplying by the hour, all of them concerned about what they should wear. Joan Buck had been appointed matron of honor and was instructing all the girls to wear beige, and Wanda McDaniel at Giorgio Armani was helping with a discount. My niece Laura was our flower girl, and her brothers, Matt and Jack, were ring-bearers. Bob had commissioned hand-forged flick-knives from Germany for his battalion of groomsmen, including my brother Danny; his best man was Earl McGrath.

The wedding took place on the bright and beautiful morning of May 23, 1992. Swans were floating in the stream; the pergola was decorated with gardenias, tuberose, and pink and white roses. As music sang on the bows of three violinists led by Henri Temianka, old, dear friends like Dorothy Jeakins and Lillian Ross, Swifty and Mary Lazar, Lauren Bacall, Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, and my doctor Elsie Giorgi took their seats. Cici was there, as was Bob’s aunt Mercedes, a vision in pink.

Margot and the kids had come from London for the wedding,
and my brother Tony had come down from Taos. I was in the hotel manager’s private office at the top of the garden steps when Tony came to get me. “It’s time,” he said, and tucked my arm under his, and we processed happily down the aisle as the trio played “Here Comes the Bride.” My cheeks were twitching uncontrollably as my eyes locked gently with the eyes of my friends. I carried a bouquet of freesia, gardenias, and lilies of the valley. Bob was standing in a pale suit under the trellis, between Earl and Steven. The walk seemed endless, and there was a murmur of what I assumed to be appreciation for my hat. I moved forward beside Bob to face our judge, Mariana Pfaelzer, and take our vows. She made a beautiful speech, funny and smart and serious and heartfelt, and then, as we exchanged rings, pronounced us man and wife.

I don’t know how I had remained oblivious during the entire ceremony. I had missed the sight of Swifty Lazar’s chair unexpectedly tipping over onto the grass and the flurry of activity that attended it. After a brief difference of opinion between Betty Bacall and Dr. Giorgi about which hospital he should be taken to, Dr. Giorgi won, and Swifty was spirited away like a doll in the arms of my friend Joey Burke to have his pacemaker replaced. No one mentioned the incident to me until well after speeches and cake, when Bob and I retired to our suite for a few romantic hours before our big evening blowout party in Venice.

Mittoine had done my hair in a beehive for the party, like he used to do for his mother in the sixties. It was a style I’d never have dreamed of wearing if not to please him. It was a real updo; he had tucked red roses and gardenias behind my ears and puffed out my bangs. My makeup artist, Carol Shaw, did me proud all day and most of the night. The inside
of the marquee was decorated with colored lights, seashells, and flowers, and Bob had invested in several great bands, blues and Brazilian, with feathered showgirls from Bahia. My nephews, little Matt and Jack, were fascinated by the girls and followed them around, mesmerized.

I wore a Richard Tyler white silk taffeta dress that we designed, with a ruffled Spanish dancing skirt tight to the knees, a blood-red sash, and a little bolero hand-embroidered with seed pearls in the shape of a winged heart. Seal was there with Olivia d’Abo. He and Harry Dean Stanton sang “Proud Mary,” and Helena belly-danced. There were a few faces from the old life with Jack. Bob and I cut into at least twenty separate cakes, one for each table, with two ceremonial knives that he had ordered from his favorite jeweler, in Germany. My feet were still sore from the tiny Manolos, so I just kicked them off and danced like a dervish until three in the morning with my handsome husband.

When I look at the pictures of the wedding, everyone looks young and beautiful: Paula Yates in yellow polka dots, grinning in an Easter hat with a baby in her arms; Susan Forristal catching the bouquet I threw to her, payback for my snatching hers at her wedding; Jerry Hall looking stunning and slightly more bridal than I in cream lace Alexander McQueen; Mick in a little straw boater; Allegra with gardenias in her hair; my nephews Matt and Jack consuming champagne under the buffet table; Tony smiling broadly as he gives me away; Toby Rafelson looking very pretty with a rose in her hair; Lauren Hutton’s golden skin; Dorothy Jeakins in a wheelchair, pressing a box into my hands (inside was a necklace of Mum’s that Gladys had given Dorothy when Mum died—rows of carved intaglio portraits in lava rock with a Maltese cross pendant);
a long shot of Bob and me leaving the reception to go to our room, my Manolos in hand.

*  *  *

When we had become engaged in Ireland, Bob had told me he wanted to take me to Oaxaca, a beautiful little town in southwestern Mexico, for our honeymoon. Friends of ours had given us the telephone number for a Mr. Guillermo Olguín, who was the son of a previous mayor of Oaxaca, as someone we should call when we got there, a friend and guide in the locality. Without our having made any previous arrangement, Guillermo was at the airport when we arrived, and walked up and introduced himself. He understood magical thinking and usually happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Guillermo offered to drive us to our hotel, El Presidente, located on a quiet street away from the
zócalo
, the main square. The building was set back behind a heavy stone wall. It had existed through the decades as a monastery, a barracks, and a convent, and at its center was a most beautiful tropical garden, with fountains and palm fronds, where one could take drinks or dine. After several tequilas, I had a brainstorm, or so I thought, that if Bob could build me a place like it in Venice, we could live as if it were an oasis on Windward Avenue, one of the busiest streets in America. He was ecstatic when I shared these thoughts with him.

It was romantic to be with Bob in his home country. That night, mariachis serenaded us and played “Noche de Ronda.” We were very happy, and I was very much in love. Bob called me his Honita and I called him Honito.

The union felt different, almost preordained. I was Bob’s wife, but I also felt like his student. He was very informed, an art historian who could tell you pretty much anything you
wanted to know about Mexican culture, from pre-Columbian art through Diego Rivera, so it was fascinating to go to museums and galleries with him. Guillermo took us to some beautiful old pueblos where the local artists made ceramics from black clay, distilled tequila, and wove blankets. Bob and I drew a design that they would make for us—a wedding blanket, with the image of us on a background of coccinella red surrounded by a border of squash blossoms.

Guillermo introduced us to his wife, Marie, who told us about her work with indigenous women in remote areas of Mexico and El Salvador. We went to an outdoor restaurant by a lake that served red ants and iguana, which tasted reptilian.

We visited Monte Albán in the scorching sun, thirteen hundred feet above the valley floor of Oaxaca, built in 500
B.C.
by the Zapotec Indians, who actually practiced dentistry, as evidenced by some impressive stone carvings of primitive warriors having their teeth extracted. On our last night, Guillermo took us to a little bar on the outskirts of town to listen to a girl sing. Her name was Lila Downs. She had black braided hair, gardenias and red roses woven like a crown around her head, an embroidered blouse of dark green satin, carmine lips, many rings on her fingers, and huaraches on her feet. She looked a lot like Frida Kahlo and sang jazz and sad love songs. She came to L.A. not long afterward, signed a record contract, and became famous.

On our way back to L.A., Guillermo accompanied us to Mexico City, where we hung out with him for a few days, looking at fierce Aztec gods in the National Museum of History, checking out the Orozco and Rivera murals, and savoring
huitlacoche
enchiladas in some fine restaurants. I asked
Bob to take me to the building where he grew up, and as we made our way in a taxi, Bob and Guillermo discovered to their mutual astonishment that they had occupied apartments at the same address when they were children, and even had a vague memory of each other from that time. This was almost unbelievable in a city of more than eight million people, but somehow I was not too surprised. It was part of the magical thinking. The apartment building, from the forties, was across the street from a little park; the bakery was still just a block down the street, with the same sugary cakes in the window that Bob had loved as a child.

We went on to Polanco to see Frida Kahlo’s little house, with its vivid walls and the tiny bed to which she had been confined for most of her life. I remembered a story about Frida—that before the bus in which she had been traveling as a teenager had crashed, leaving her crippled for life, she had been seated close to someone who was carrying art supplies. When they unearthed her from the wreckage, Frida was covered in gold leaf.

Bob and I loved to stay in Mexico City at the Camino Real Hotel, with its massive concrete walls painted by the architect Barragán. When we returned there in 1997, it was to celebrate a retrospective of Bob’s work in the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, formerly a very grand opera house. Under an extraordinary ceiling of Tiffany glass, Bob’s work never looked more beautiful.

When we returned to Venice, Bob set about making preliminary blueprints for the house we had conceived, often asking me for input when it came to questions of style and concept. He had designed only one house before, one that I very much admired—a very simple oblong shape with a
huge living room window that opened out onto the bay of the Pacific in Marina del Rey.

It had been Bob’s idea that his artist friends participate in the design and decor of that interior, so there were floors and kitchen cabinets designed by Billy Al Bengston and doors by Tony Berlant. Bob always liked the idea of an artists’ co-op, contributing to achieve a master plan. He took this idea directly from the Renaissance, a time when the Vatican sponsored sculpture and painting in cathedrals and churches. And Bob was always happy to work for the church, albeit his subject matter was generally the female nude.

Bob and Steven acquired all of the necessary permits, and Bob proceeded to build a house that was a graceful combination of all the forms I love—modern, art deco, Moorish, and Venetian, with arches and domes in white plaster.