The Company She Keeps

by Georgia Durante

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Saga Continues. . . .

  “WE’VE ALL HEARD OF THE MAFIA AND READ ABOUT MOBSTERS, BUT GEORGIA DURANTE SAW THEM UP CLOSE. She lived with them. She experienced their violence. She survived their wars. In The Company She Keeps, she tells her fascinating story.”

  —Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and bestselling author Jimmy Breslin

  “Georgia Durante’s life exemplifies many of the strengths I’ve written about. She refused to surrender to abuse, and moved from being a victim to being a victor. She is an inspiration for any woman who feels her situation is hopeless.”

  —Susan Forward, Ph.D., bestselling author of Emotional Blackmail and Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them

  “This wonderful story of courage offers an exciting and unique look at how organized crime in this country can destroy much more than the usual victims of its activities. Georgia Durante rose above it. I salute her.”

  —James D. Henderson, former chief of the Los Angeles Strike Force on Organized Crime, United States Department of Justice

  “A truly unique and insightful dimension to the underworld, written with bone-chilling detail.”

  —Henry Hill, author of Gangsters and Goodfellas: The Mob, Witness Protection Program, and Life on the Run

  “Georgia Durante had quite a life, and the courage it takes to live it. I would never have imagined all [she’s] been through. [She] hides a lot behind that lovely smile.”

  —Hugh O’Brian, actor

  “Quite unreal, really. What a life.”—Graham Nash, musician “Georgia Durante has great skill as an author. Her warmth, her daring, and her intelligence make this book a great adventure. I couldn’t put it down. Read this book! You’ll be amazed; you’ll be excited. You’ll be grateful I made you do it.”—Buddy Hackett

  “Once you start reading this book, you cannot put it down. There’s a surprise on every page and a twist and turn in every chapter.”—Dick Van Patten

  “Georgia Durante has an adventurous spirit and has led a glamorous life. She honestly shares painful experiences in this fascinating and entertaining book.”—Stella Stevens

  “[A] quick-paced account of life in the fast lane. At the heart is the love of danger and excitement which is, for [Georgia], almost a fatal flaw. Fortunately, a love of autos and an uncanny ability to control high-horsepower cars led to an unexpected escape route . . . a story well worth reading.” —Samuel Hallock DuPont, Jr.

  “A story of today. Women will relate to [Georgia’s] inner strength that enabled her to overcome obstacles, and men will relate to [her] courage and admire her perseverance.”

  —Marty Allen

  “A superbly written autobiography about a lovely young woman’s struggle and victory. What a struggle; what a victory; what a woman! Georgia is one of a kind, and so is her book.”—Alan Young

  “It’s one of those stories that makes you want to write a better critique than anyone else’s. But Georgia has written the best one of all. You’ll agree with me tomorrow morning when you still haven’t put [it] to bed.”

  —Morton Downey, Jr.

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

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  Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Celebrity Books edition. For information address Celebrity Books, 1501 County Hospital Road, Nashville, Tennessee 37218.

  First Signet Printing, October 2008

  Copyright © Georgia Durante, 1998, 2008

  eISBN : 978-0-451-22568-9

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

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  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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  To my daughter, Toni, whose struggle with life has set this book in motion. And my son, Dustin, who has been a constant source of joy in my life.

  To my parents, Tony and Angela Durante. Without your unconditional love and support, I probably wouldn’t be here to be dedicating this book to anyone.

  And lastly to my sister, Sharon, my best friend and greatest supporter.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to acknowledge:

  Scott Deal, who listened to my life story over several glasses of wine in my backyard and urged me to put it down on paper. Without his encouragement, this book would not have been written.

  Gail Stewart, my early copy editor, whose Radcliff education could in no way prepare her for the editing of this book. Yes, Gail, I took out all the profanity that made you cringe. Wish you were still with us to finally see the fruits of our labor. I miss you.

  Buddy Hackett, whose opinion I value. You were right, Buddy, I made the changes you suggested. Sherry Hackett, my dearest of friends. Thanks for the positive attitude and for standing behind me. Your belief in this book has helped it come to be.

  Barry Lund,
with Lintas Cambell Ewald Advertising Agency, and Barry Meier, with Avalon Films, who put up with me writing this book “between takes” on our annual fifty-day summer shoots for Chevrolet.

  Sidney Sheldon, who took time out from writing his own book to critique mine. Your kindness will not be forgotten.

  Ralph Cossey, a true friend, who unselfishly gave of his time for three years, freeing me from my daily drudgery, allowing me to write without interruption. More books could be written if everyone with a book in them had a Ralph in their life.

  Jimmy Breslin, whose helpful suggestions were invaluable. I’m honored by the interest you have taken and by the guidance you have provided. It is very much appreciated.

  Frank Aloi, whose book, The Hammer Conspiracies, was helpful in jogging my memory and placing my life’s events in the correct chronology.

  Marty Allen and his beautiful wife, Katie, thank you for your friendship and belief in me when I needed encouragement. Your unrelenting effort in helping me to bring this book together has given the word “friendship” a new meaning.

  Quincy Jones, who used to think of me as “church people” until he read my book. Thanks, Q, for urging me to press forward with my dream.

  A special thanks to all of my friends who took the time to read my rough drafts and point out where I fell short. There are too many of you to mention by name. You know who you are. Without you, and your encouraging faith in me, these pages would never have been turned.

  I’d like to thank all of the people at Hambleton-Hill Publishing who have worked long and hard to get this book out in seven months. What a team! Thank you, Van Hill—you’re one heck of a businessman. Thank you, Bethany Snyder, my copy editor, for all those weekends you forfeited to make our deadline. You did a superb job. And a special thanks to Sandra Laughlin, who received this manuscript on a Monday and stayed up all night reading it. (Has your husband forgiven me yet?) Tuesday we made a deal to publish. Thanks for your receptiveness and insight. Your inspiration over this project has made it come to life. I will always be indebted to you.

  And finally, Chuck Woolery, who lovingly led me back to my spiritual side.

  Author’s Note

  This book has been written from my memory of events in my life. Although I’m amazed at my recall, there were times when I could not remember exact conversations and times of events. In these instances, I have improvised to move the story along. I have strong opinions of some of the people in this book which I do not hesitate to state. They are my own personal convictions which I believe I have a right to express.

  There are few, but some of the names in this book have been changed to protect the innocent . . . as well as the guilty.

  Prologue

  “Excuse me, are those Bugle Boy jeans you’re wearing?”

  “If you watched television anytime during the early 1990s, you saw the commercial. There was the good-looking hunk in a Jeep, heading north along the rugged Pacific Coast Highway. The raven-haired beauty in a red vintage Dino Ferrari convertible accelerates to eighty-five miles an hour, pulls up even with the Jeep on a spectacular hairpin turn, and inquires about the maker of the hunk’s pants.

  “Why, yes, they are . . . Bugle Boy jeans.”

  “Thank you,” says the raven-haired beauty. She abruptly brakes, executes a perfect 180-degree turn, and heads back to wherever beautiful women in exotic sports cars go when their thirty seconds are over.

  Which in this case was wheels-up on a steep bluff about a hundred feet off the highway.

  The raven-haired beauty herself was safely drinking diet soda and gossiping with the crew. Her stunt double, a blonde in a wig, was trapped underneath the twisted metal of what was once a very expensive Italian sports car.

  That was me.

  Don’t even ask what went wrong. Too much speed at the turn, a split-second miscalculation, the director’s fault, the car prep crew’s fault, my fault—who knows? Stuff happens.

  The car fishtailed. The rear wheels squealed as they skidded off the smooth surface and caught the soft shoulder, spinning me out of control. I tried to correct, but with no power steering and no shoulder harness—damn those vintage cars—it was impossible. The Ferrari took flight and came down hard, bouncing off the highway surface and flipping over once, twice, three times.

  The lack of a shoulder harness probably saved my life. While the car was still airborne, before the first point of impact, I had enough freedom of movement to pull myself sideways into the passenger seat, folding up into the cubbyhole of space beneath the glove compartment.

  It was pitch-dark in that little coffin. I was covered in shards of windshield glass and pretty badly banged up, but I was alive and my neck wasn’t broken. I had just enough time to count my blessings before I heard a hissing sound and smelled the leaking gas. I found the walkie-talkie and screamed into it, “GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

  Suddenly a dozen crew members were beside the car. They needed about thirty seconds to heave the Ferrari right side up and pull me out of my hiding place—about as long as the commercial lasts, and let me tell you that is one long, long commercial.

  What did I think about all that time? My daughter? My son? My mother? No. Did I see that white light and a bunch of angels beckoning me to join them? No. Did I thank God for keeping me alive? Later. My first thought was, Awwww, shhhhit, I smashed up a $250,000 car. Do I have to tell you that this proved to be a turning point in my life?

  The crew tracked down an identical 1973 Dino Ferrari in Los Angeles, and we managed to get the shot down the next day. The commercial ran for quite a while and earned me enough in residuals to do yet another major remodel on my house. The incident itself turned out to be a legend in the stunt driving business. To this day, people will tell me this story about an upside-down Dino Ferrari and how nobody could believe that the stunt driver got out of it alive.

  There’s always another Ferrari: That’s the real lesson of this story.

  It’s also, in a way, the real lesson of my life.

  If you’re anything older than thirty, my face would probably be familiar to you. I was the Kodak girl in eighty thousand life-size cutouts in drugstores and tourist shops all across America and Europe during the “Summer of Love” in 1969. That was me in that blue-and-white polka-dot bikini—itsy-bitsy by 1960s standards, modest by today’s—standing with right leg artfully bent and a come-hither expression in my eighteen-year-old brown eyes.

  College boys used to steal my cutouts; I’m told that somebody ran it for homecoming queen (I nearly won) at Pepperdine University. The college girls used it in their dorms to hang their sweaters on.

  You’ve seen me in other national media campaigns—billboards and magazine ads for More and Kent cigarettes, Coca-Cola, Las Vegas Sahara Hotel, Mattel toys, Smirnoff vodka, Adidas sportswear, JCPenney, L.A. Gear, Lipton tea, the cover of American Woman Motor Sports, and several catalog covers for department stores. The list goes on and on.

  As a stunt driver, you’ve seen me doubling for Cindy Crawford in her Pepsi commercials, driving a red Lam borghini while two little boys watch in awe as she chugs the soft drink. For Oldsmobile, I worked on several spots for “The New Generation of Olds” campaign, better known to the public as “This is Not Your Father’s Oldsmobile.” In one of the spots I doubled for Priscilla Presley, driving in and out of the surf on the beach with a helicopter filming in close proximity. Her daughter, Lisa Marie, was my petrified passenger. But the really tricky spot was the “007” commercial, filmed in Hawaii, where I doubled Roger Moore’s daughter. The helicopter work was intense—two inches off my bumper for eight white-knuckled days. Speed had to be extremely precise or the chopper would have been in my trunk, and my head fifty feet away from the scene. We had every stunt the writers could conjure up in that spot: motorcycles crashing; explosions; biplanes passing overhead within feet of the vehicle, expelling smoke and obstructing my vision.

  Enough on the commercials. After twenty years, my résumé is eighteen pages long, and I�
��m not pitching a job here.

  I’ve done quite a bit of work in feature films. In Casper, I doubled the lead actress, crashing a car into a tree and making a high fall. It was only forty feet, but with the blue screen it looked to be two hundred. For the movie Shattered, I did a near miss with another vehicle at seventy miles per hour. On Spy Hard, we did a chase scene on the city streets of downtown L.A. In Tony Danza’s latest flop, Love to Kill, I crashed a pickup truck through a glass solarium and did most of the car chase scenes in the film.

  For television, I’ve worked on Melrose Place quite often, and I’ve doubled for Linda Evans on Dynasty. I’ve since moved on to Unsolved Mysteries and Diagnosis Murder. The last episode for Diagnosis Murder I worked on was a getaway car stunt, doubling for Piper Laurie.

  There are literally hundreds of films and commercials I’ve worked on in past years where I do the action and the actress gets the glory, but who cares? I’ve had my day in the limelight. My smile isn’t seen on the screen, but my teeth are sparkling all the way to the bank.

  You might have seen my photograph in past years in the feature sections of some newspapers and “rag” magazines, if you read that sort of thing. “An unidentified companion.” That was me. “The blonde.” That was me, too. In earlier days, I was photographed by paparazzi in the company of Peter Lawford and David Janssen, both of whom died young as a result of living too fast. There I was cuddling up to O.J. (We worked together on a Hertz spot, and later I got to know him and Nicole socially in the Hollywood club scene.) There I was cuddling up to actor Hugh O’Brian at a party in Aspen. There I was dining with Quincy Jones at Drai’s, a hip supper club in Beverly Hills. And that recently married son of an ex-president? Well, that could have been me, if someone were to blow a hole in the secrecy of it all and tip off the paparazzi, but I don’t make it a practice to get into a limousine (arranged by Washington’s top security people) with married men, particularly when I don’t know my destination. Dinner, they said. But for security reasons they couldn’t tell me where. Married and divorced three times, I did manage to learn something.