Woke at 5:45 AM, at studio by 7:30 (did nails in car to save time)
Makeup, wig, body make-up—into costume and on set by 9:20
Between setups had interview for News of the World
11 o’clock photo session
2:30 make-up retouched, different wig on, into new costume
Filmed scene—back to dressing room
Patched make-up for different period in film. No good. Took make-up off completely. Bill started again.
5:20 PM back to set. Just one shot took seven takes. Heard a man snoring and discovered a lighting technician in the scaffolding had dropped off to sleep
Finished work at 6:10 PM
Analyst at 6:30
Home at 8:00
The principal cast gradually dwindled as each major scene was completed, after which we took our second break in the filming, to rehearse the three biggest musical numbers.
My dad and Win came for a visit, and Geoff and Jenny arrived for their summer vacation. Although the marriage discussion had been set aside for the time being, Blake’s and my relationship continued to deepen. But it was an adjustment for Emma to suddenly have two older “siblings,” each of whom was understandably demanding attention. Blake went into overdrive trying to keep everyone occupied.
Another diary entry:
Blackie coming home with gifts for the children, a sun hat for me. Always buying some new kind of ice cream. Taking Dad for a drive up the coast—letting him try the new Mustang. Win embroidering, reading to Emma. Weekends so precious. Never enough time.
Traffic jams. Tourists at beaches. Hot. Humid. Work. Work. Work.
Discussions with Blackie. Tears of exhaustion with Blackie. Waking in the middle of the night. Touching hands—and backsides!
Geoff and Jenny, growing up, gaining a little confidence in me. Jenny, making books and letters and pictures for Blackie. Loving him so. Geoff running to greet me in evenings when I get home.
Emma learns to swim, round and round in small circles, like a little tadpole. Great pride in her own achievement.
Emma goes to New York for 10 days. Blackie takes his children back to England. House is quiet. Very lonely, despite endless work. Sadness at thought that soon we’ll be packing up at the beach. Talking about and tentatively planning a trip to Switzerland for Christmas. Can hardly wait.
EMMA BEGAN KINDERGARTEN at the Los Angeles Lycée Français, and she was none too pleased with it. She chafed at wearing a uniform, and conforming to the school’s fairly strict rules, not to mention having to learn a new language. In addition, the twin boys sitting behind her in class were inclined to tease her. When one of them became ill and accidentally threw up all over her, she came home a basket case and plaintively asked, “Mum, how long until I graduate?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her it would be another twelve years.
WORK ON STAR! progressed. Of all the major musical numbers in the film, “Jenny” was the largest and most exhausting. Michael had conceived the sequence as a circus act, with trampolines and a flying trapeze. I worked for days with the professional acrobats that had been cast, trying to accomplish the “Risley” movements, in which the acrobats lay on their backs, spinning me on their feet and tossing me from one to the other.
Once again, I reached a breaking point, and told Michael I couldn’t physically do what he wanted. He countered by saying, “If Shelah can do it, will you give it a try?”
Of course, Shelah did it brilliantly!
I became black-and-blue from all the acrobatics, and was terrified by the height of the rope ladder I had to climb. We must have shot a take of my somersaulting out of a safety net at least twenty times. It was a great relief when that number was finally complete.
Blake came down to the studios occasionally to pick me up after work. He was very circumspect around Bob Wise, because he knew how disconcerting it could be to have another director on set. One day, Bob really ran overtime, and I could see Blake getting more and more impatient. There was nothing to be done, as we had to finish.
Driving home with Emma in the car, Blake was very silent. I was silent because he was silent, and I was thinking that he could have been a little more sympathetic to my situation.
Finally, Emma’s sweet voice piped up from the back seat of the car.
“Feeling a little uptight, Blackie?”
“Yesssss, Emma, I am,” he replied through clenched teeth.
There was a small pause.
“Are you feeling anxious, or just tense?”
“Actually, Emma, a little of both.”
Another pause.
Then Emma said innocently, “Have you ever tried Compoz, that gentle little blue pill that soothes and calms?”
It was a line from a TV ad that was running at the time.
The Rolls-Royce swerved to the side of the road. Blake exploded with laughter and stopped the car; I found myself weeping with gratitude. It was such a darling attempt on Emma’s part to make everything right again. She waded in where I didn’t have the guts to even try.
THE LAST SCENES we shot for Star! were “The Physician” and “Limehouse Blues.” The latter was set in Chinatown, and was a dramatic ballet staged in a seedy “house of ill repute.” Michael set “The Physician” in a harem, and that number begins with a shot of a large sheep, dyed orange, chewing lazily. The camera slowly pans across a long piece of yarn, pulled from the sheep by a group of exotic concubines, until it reaches me, knitting a sweater. As the cameras rolled, the sheep began to relieve itself. Somehow, the angle of the camera didn’t reveal that, so the take progressed. By the time it reached me, I had collapsed with the giggles. Ah, show biz!
Originally, we had been scheduled to finish the picture sometime in September. That month rolled on; as did October, then November, then December. As Christmas loomed, I thought we’d never get away for the holiday we’d planned in Switzerland. Finally, we wrapped the film on the night of December 14.
Star! had taken eight months to shoot, at a cost of $14 million, which in those days was monumental. I had performed 17 musical numbers, and worn 125 different costumes, out of the 3,040 that Donald Brooks had created for the film. Boris Leven had designed and built 185 sets.
Throughout all the challenges of making the movie, Bob was his stalwart, kind, and patient self. Our relationship never suffered, and neither did my relationship with Michael and Shelah, who subsequently married. My friendship with them was one of the greatest gifts of this film for me.
I HAD ONE full day to try to deliver gifts, take Emma to the pediatrician, pack, and attend the wrap party for the film in the evening. Blake had gone ahead to Switzerland that morning, traveling with Ken and Kären Wales, in order to prepare the rental chalet we’d found for the holiday; Emma and I left the following day.
When we boarded the first leg of our flight, I was astonished to find a gorgeous bouquet of white lilacs waiting on my seat, with a loving note from Blake. We stopped in New York, where I delivered Emma to Tony before traveling on to Switzerland by myself. I was despondent about my daughter not being with me for Christmas, although I knew she would be joining us for the New Year.
Landing in Geneva, my mood was lifted by the view of snow-covered mountains and a brilliant sunrise. Blessed Europe, I thought. I experienced such a flood of emotions that I wanted to leap from the plane and kiss the earth.
Blake met me at the airport, and we journeyed up to the small mountain village of Gstaad. The rental chalet was gorgeous—all-natural wood, white stuccoed walls, and a country farmhouse feeling, with a puffy eiderdown duvet on every bed.
I rested, then unpacked, while Blake went back to Geneva to collect Geoff and Jenny, who had been on a later flight out of London. We all went out to dinner at a charming old hotel in the center of the village. On the way home, the stars were bright, and the snowy mountains were bathed in moonlight. There was even a little electric train puffing and whistling through town. Blake remarked, “My God, it looks like a Bing C
rosby movie!”
The ensuing days were filled with Christmas preparations. The town was busy, with beautifully decorated store windows and people having snowball fights in the streets. Our group kept splitting up into various factions, and occasionally we would bump into each other in a shop. There was much calling out: “Don’t come in here!” “Don’t turn around!” “You mustn’t peek!”
One evening, we went to dinner in town via horse-drawn sleigh. The kids had been dying for a ride, and it was a perfect night for it: cold and crystal clear. The horses steamed profusely, their harnesses jingling. We snuggled under blankets as they jogged along, and marveled at the wonder of it all.
Everyone took skiing lessons, except for Blake. He suffered from chronic back pain, having fractured his spine in his twenties during a miscalculated dive into a swimming pool. He appointed himself our official photographer. As he captured us all slipping and sliding on the slopes, he just about collapsed with laughter. It was a wonderful tonic to see him relaxing so much.
Blake, Geoff, Jenny, and I decorated the Christmas tree together. On Christmas Day, it snowed—huge, fat, white flakes, all day. After opening their gifts, the children built a snowman and went sledding.
At one point, Blake and I looked at each other and agreed without hesitation that this was possibly the most “Christmassy” Christmas we had ever known. I only wished Emma could have been with us.
Boxing Day was equally memorable. Blake and I drove to the nearby town of Château-d’Oex for lunch with David Niven, who was an old friend of Blake’s, having been in the first Pink Panther film. The journey there was beautiful, and we would have been content to just drive in each other’s company for hours. We met up with David at the train station, where he was also picking up Noël Coward and his longtime partner, Graham Payn, as well as Binkie Beaumont—who had produced My Fair Lady in London, and whom I hadn’t seen for ages.
We followed David to his chalet, where his wife, children, and a nanny greeted us. We were later joined by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (who was dreadfully hungover). What a motley crew!
Elizabeth flashed an astonishingly large diamond ring that Richard had given her for Christmas, and remarked, “It’s a bit of a giggle, isn’t it?”
It all seemed rather decadent; lots of exclamations over the “divine” presents, and affirmations that “it’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen!” Noël was his gracious and witty self. We chatted briefly about Star! He seemed immensely proud of his godson, Dan Massey, and said he was looking forward to seeing the film.
At lunch there was caviar, vodka, and endless bottles of wine. The talk was funny and bawdy and mostly theatrical, of course, with a good deal of reminiscing.
THAT EVENING, BLAKE received a call from Patty. She had filed for divorce in September, and we hadn’t heard from her in a while. She was in a state of depression. Blake had told me that before and during their marriage she had attempted to take her own life several times. This made her a continual worry, especially to the children. Blake spoke to her for quite a while. Knowing how much I was missing Emma, I suspected Patty was feeling lost without Geoff and Jenny.
Emma finally arrived on New Year’s Eve, accompanied by her new nanny, Rosemary, since Kay had recently married. Emma had grown—she seemed both assured and guarded, and was moody for much of the following week. I sensed it must have been difficult for her to embrace the culture of her dad’s household and then transition to our quite different one in such a short period of time.
We saw in the New Year quietly. Blake and I had just turned in for the night when the phone rang. It was Patty again. She told Blake that she had taken a bottle of pills, and that she was saying goodbye. Blake covered the phone and whispered to me, “Go wake Ken. Tell him to call Patty’s doctor, and ask him to go to her house right away.”
Blake continued talking to Patty on the phone until he heard the doctor break through her door and take over. He handled the situation very calmly—obviously it wasn’t new to him, but it certainly was for me. I felt wobbly and anxious for that sad lady who was obviously in such emotional pain.
AS THE END of our holiday approached, I found myself longing to stay in Gstaad. Phone calls came in from the States with business matters for both of us, and I felt intruded upon and unready to return to work. If Blake had said, “Let’s just forget everything in America and live here,” I would have done it like a shot. Although that wasn’t possible, we fantasized what it might be like to have a chalet of our own one day.
As I struggled to sort out my feelings, I wrote a list of “Things I Will Always Remember About This Place”:
The mountains, of course. Their towering nearness, and their edges razor-sharp in the crystalline air. Usually at the top of the highest ones there is a plume of snow, trailing softly into the sky like smoke. Last night we saw skiers coming down the mountain from a fondue party. Each one was carrying a flaming torch, and the line of lights crossed and re-crossed as they traversed slowly down the hill.
I’ll remember the peace after everyone was asleep, when Blake and I would read, and the radio played soft, classical music, and the silliness of Jenny and me dancing in our long johns to “Sleeping Beauty.” Blake and the children wrestling on the beds, among the big duvets, piled high. He took on all three of them, and they loved it, tumbling, puppy-like, never really getting hurt in the downy softness.
My heart aches at the thought of leaving.
We flew back via London, and spent a week there, as we needed to take Jenny and Geoff home to Patty, who was now in stable condition, and ready to have her children back again. I had not been in England for four years, and worried about what might be waiting for me there with respect to my family. My concerns were not unfounded.
When my stepfather died, I’d realized that Mum couldn’t rattle around our family home—the Old Meuse—by herself anymore. Coincidentally, the local council wanted to buy the place and develop a housing estate on the land. The property was in my name, so with my mother’s permission, I agreed to the sale, with the stipulation that a third of an acre be kept for her. We were in the planning stages of building Mum a new home on that smaller piece of land, and there was enough money left over from the sale to give both Mum and Auntie a bit of a financial boost.
Mum used her portion to purchase the cottage that Auntie had been renting. This was probably intended to be a loving gesture from an older sister to ensure the younger sister’s security. At the same time, it also gave Mum the power to lord it over her sibling, which was typical of their relationship. I’d heard that Auntie was in tears because she was angry and frustrated by the games my mother had been playing. I also learned that her poor cat had just been killed by a car. While Blake was meeting with Patty, I headed down to Walton, stopping at the pet store in Harrods to buy a new kitten as a surprise for her.
My brother Don met me at the Old Meuse with his wife, Celia, and their young son, Rory. My old home was in a serious state of dilapidation; no central heating, only one of three bathrooms working, kitchen filthy. Squalid and damp, it looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned for ten years. Clearly, it was essential that Mum move as soon as her new cottage was ready.
We all drove to Auntie’s cottage, and I left the little kitten safely in the car, waiting for the right moment to give it to her.
Aunt Joan greeted me with “Don’t come too near me or I shall break down again! I’ve only just stopped crying . . .” She showed me her cottage, and gradually calmed a little. She had cooked us all lunch, and we were soon chatting, laughing, and swapping news.
After lunch, I mentioned the kitten. There was another emotional outburst: “I don’t want it! I couldn’t give it a good home, what’s the use!” and then, “Where is it?” followed by great concern when she discovered that I had left it in the car. By the end of the day, she had talked herself into keeping the little creature.
In reflecting on the week, I realized that the saddest thing about my mother had been her
total quiet about everything. Of all the family, she was the only one who hadn’t complained, hadn’t asked me for anything, except to inquire about plans for her new cottage. Her loneliness damn near broke my heart.
I had been doing everything I could for her, financially, for as long as I could remember; although physically I was far away, living in the States, as was Chris. Pop was gone, Donald was married, and Johnny was also married and living in Norway, working as a pilot.
I vowed to find some way, somehow, to be the daughter she needed me to be.
8
SINCE OUR FIRST meeting at my house in February of 1966, Blake had written the script for the film he had discussed with me, Darling Lili. He had coauthored it with William Peter Blatty, with whom he had collaborated on several other films, including A Shot in the Dark; What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?; and Gunn. Darling Lili centers on a British spy working for the Germans during World War I who falls in love with an American flier.
Rehearsals commenced in February of 1968, almost exactly two years to the day after Blake had pitched the project to me. At first, I ran between Paramount and 20th Century Fox, as I was also finishing looping for Star!
We began with hair and wardrobe tests, as usual. I would be wearing wigs, and there was the endless struggle to find the right style and color. Happily, the bulk of my costumes were being designed once again by the brilliant Donald Brooks.
Although the film is not a musical, I did have several songs to sing, as my character of Lili masqueraded as an entertainer. I really enjoyed the prerecording sessions; original songs composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by the great Johnny Mercer. Both were Hollywood legends, and I felt honored to be working with them. Henry was easy in manner, with a terrific sense of humor. Musicians adored working with him, as did I. We only recorded one song a day—quite a change from the hectic schedule of Star!
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