One night when we were on location in northern California, we were all wandering around a small town. There was some sort of festival going on, and I arrived just in time to see a young woman being crowned “Little Miss Rodeo” or something. I went back to my room at the motel and was lying on my bed, thinking about Jimmy. At a certain moment I happened to look up. Strolling past my window, on the way to his room next door, was Jimmy—arm in arm with Little Miss Rodeo.
Well, I thought. I guess that won’t be happening.
There would be other nights, other girls, other locations, other towns—and Jimmy made the most of them. One night I got locked out of my hotel room. Jimmy’s room was next to mine, as always, so I went next door for help. It was a huge property, and it was late, and the office seemed too far away. Jimmy gave me a choice: he would be happy to help me break into my room, or I was welcome to stay in his. Believe me, I was torn, but having seen the steady parade of women past my window; I just couldn’t do it. Sweetheart that he was, he did help me get into my room.
Jimmy was one of only two men—the other was Bob Duvall in M*A*S*H—who I ever slept with on film. Jimmy had the decency to take the gum out of his mouth before we kissed. At the end of the shoot he presented me with a photo—of my ass. You see, before all of my takes, I used to bend over and flip my hair in front of me to fluff it up. Jimmy was a devil. He must have gotten the set photographer to snap the photo when I wasn’t looking. As a parting gift, he wrote notes all over the picture like, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing,” and other lovely remarks. One of the reasons I love him.
I still really hadn’t had a date since Rick and I broke up. Jimmy wasn’t going to break my dating ice, so it had to be someone else. That’s when Jennifer Jones stepped in.
After David Selznick’s death, Jennifer had married philanthropist and art collector Norton Simon. She was having one of her fabulous dinner parties and phoned me in my big empty house to say, “Sally, Henry Kissinger would like you come as his date to my party.”
“Ewww, Jennifer!” I said. “I’d be embarrassed to be seen with him! Besides, I’m working for McGovern.” It was election time, 1972, and George McGovern was running against Richard Nixon, who had made Kissinger his national security adviser.
I was not a Nixon fan or a supporter of the war in Vietnam.
Jennifer laughed and said, “Well, would you at least sit next to him?”
I loved Jennifer so much; I couldn’t tell her no.
“All right,” I said, “if I have to.”
I told my mom, who at that time was a good Republican. She was over the moon and mailed me a newspaper article about Kissinger and Nixon’s historic trip to China.
When Jennifer married Norton, she bought a modern beach house from director John Frankenheimer. Norton was a passionate art collector; in fact, his collection is now housed in the museum named for him in Pasadena, California. Jennifer and Norton had hired Frank Gehry, the famed architect behind the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown Los Angeles, and countless other stunning structures, to construct a second house next door. A beautiful garden, with mirrors hidden in the landscaping to reflect the greenery, connected the two houses.
The night of the party, as I entered Jennifer’s house, the first thing I saw was Vincent Van Gogh’s Mulberry Tree hanging in the foyer. The second thing I saw was Henry Kissinger, sitting across the room in a low chair. I walked over. After being introduced, I asked him, “So, how was China?”
“Why?” he asked. “Did your mother send you an article?”
“Yes,” I said. “How did you know?”
Damn, that made me like him right away.
We adjourned to our table, sitting with Rita Hayworth, Dorothy McGuire, Joseph Cotten and his wife, and Paul Ziffren, a successful Hollywood lawyer, with his wife, Mickey. The food was great, and somehow the conversation got around to M*A*S*H and why Henry hadn’t seen it. He said that Nixon wouldn’t allow it in the White House. Henry had a wonderful sense of humor and an easygoing manner.
It was a very enjoyable evening. At the end of the dinner we all stood up from the table, then Henry asked—in front of everyone there—if I’d like to accompany him to a dinner honoring the Soviet ambassador coming on his first trip to the States, another historic moment in Cold War relations. My politics reared up again. A public dinner with Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s key adviser? I was a lifelong Democrat, picketing the Vietnam War alongside Jane Fonda. But all eyes were on me. I couldn’t say no.
The week before the event Henry called to make sure I was still going. I finally came clean. “Henry, I feel ambivalent about going with you because you guys are murderers, and I’m working for McGovern.”
He responded, in his low distinctive voice, “Sally, I’m sure you don’t mean ‘murderers.’”
“Well, maybe not ‘murderers,’” I mumbled.
On the night of the dinner Henry picked me up at the white elephant. There was nowhere for him to sit, but he seemed to be a good sport. I got in the car and began grilling him about why we were in Vietnam and why the Nixon administration was keeping us there. Henry started to reply, “The president—” when I interrupted him, saying, “I don’t care about the president. What are you doing there?”
He seemed to take it all in stride. I guess that’s what being a diplomat is all about.
We arrived at the Bistro, an elegant Beverly Hills restaurant that the Who’s Who of Hollywood used to patronize. The maître d’ escorted us upstairs to a private room. He opened the door, and instead of seeing fifty people, which is what I was hoping for—easier to get lost in the hubbub—there were only about fifteen people, among them Cary Grant, John Wayne, and the Soviet ambassador and his wife. Just my usual crowd.
While mingling before dinner, I heard John Wayne talking about Vietnam.
“We should have gone in there and wiped them off the face of the Earth,” he said. In spite of our significant differences on that issue, I liked John and always found him warm and respectful.
During dinner Henry asked me to stand up and welcome the Soviet ambassador. It was the last thing I wanted to do, and I don’t remember one word of what I said. After a nice meal and many toasts, Henry and his two bodyguards—who barely fit in the car—drove me home. We were an odd pair, especially politically, but I had fun.
IT WASN’T AS THOUGH I WAS SPENDING HOURS ON END WORKING the phones for George McGovern, but I did my best to spread the word. I did my share for different causes, but the bottom line was that I was a follower. McGovern was about getting out of Vietnam, cutting back on defense, and getting the Equal Rights Amendment ratified. I was on board with all that. I wanted McGovern to be president instead of Nixon. End of story.
I worked as an usher at a huge benefit concert held in his honor called, “Four for McGovern.” Warren Beatty was the driving force behind the event, which was held at the Los Angeles Forum. My friend Lou Adler was producing. No matter what the media says today about the growing ties between Hollywood and Washington, DC, that relationship is hardly new. Warren even convinced Barbra Streisand to perform, along with Carole King and James Taylor, all backed by Quincy Jones and his orchestra. It wasn’t just a single performer stepping out to support a candidate, Warren pointed out to the press, remembering Frank Sinatra’s concerts for Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Rather, it was the group effort and solidarity that he felt made an event like this different and more influential, giving it the power to unite a larger section of the population.
Someone called and asked me to usher for the benefit, and I said, “Sure.” Because I was going to be ushering, I pulled together what I thought would be appropriate usher attire: I showed up that night wearing a straight black skirt, a plain white blouse, and carrying a flashlight.
When I arrived at the Forum, it was positively swarming with media. I was shuffled into a room full of television cameras and reporters. I looked up: Standing across the room was Warren Beatty, never lo
oking more handsome, and Julie Christie, never looking more beautiful. Both of them were dressed to the nines. Even Jack Nicholson was wearing a three-piece suit. And there I was, in a dowdy black wool skirt, wearing hardly any makeup.
Just my luck, one of the cameras turned on me, and a reporter thrust his mic into my face.
“Why is it, Miss Kellerman, that all of you people are rushing out to vote for someone with so little charisma?” he asked.
“This is not about charisma,” I huffed and puffed in response. “This is about content!”
Thank God they didn’t ask me anything about McGovern’s platform. I would have been in pretty deep water. Luckily, I got to play Miss Indignant.
Ushering along with me were Jack Nicholson, Julie Christie, Peggy Lipton, Michelle Phillips, James Earl Jones, Jacqueline Bisset, Mike Nichols, Shirley MacLaine, Goldie Hawn, Gene Hackman, Elliott Gould, Marlo Thomas, Burt Lancaster, Jon Voight, Raquel Welch, Michael Sarrazin, Britt Eklund, and more. (But I was the only one in proper attire.) Gregory Peck and Joni Mitchell were in the audience. Some tickets were $4 and $10, but Golden Circle tickets were going for $100. And those were 1972 dollars. Warren was right about the crowd—more than eighteen thousand people showed up.
Streisand killed. The screaming crowd, wearing “I rocked with McGovern” buttons, throbbed and got revved up to vote by Barbra, Quincy, Carole, and Sweet Baby James. There was a choir, and Quincy strolled onto stage in a long velvet robe. Too far out.
Barbra’s performance led right into McGovern’s appearance on stage. Finally. The man. The moment. The crowd surged forward. We all waited. He stepped forward and said, “Let . . . the sun . . . shine . . . in . . .”
My God, I thought as I watched McGovern address the crowd, why are we voting for someone with so little charisma?
McGovern made $320,000 that night. The campaign may have failed, but Barbra’s resulting album, Live Concert at the Forum, was fantastic. I met McGovern years later, when he was signing his book, and found him one on one to be warm, charming, and charismatic after all.
The war in Vietnam mobilized a lot of people, actors and civilians alike. Like a lot of my friends, I was very much against the Vietnam War but not against the men and women who fought in it. In my mind we were for the troops: We wanted them to come home from the war alive. I know that was Jane Fonda’s motivation too.
I’ve always greatly admired Jane’s curiosity and her ability to throw herself into her interests, learning everything there is to know about her passions. She has done so much good for so many people. I also took part in a poetry reading, along with Jane, Donald Sutherland, Jon Voight, and others, in support of Daniel Ellsberg, a former military analyst who released what became known as the Pentagon Papers. At a rehearsal one afternoon, we were standing on stage at the Coliseum when Henry Fonda strolled up with Ellsberg himself. After the handshakes were done and Henry and Daniel were on their way out, Ellsberg turned back and called out, “Sally, I know your sister!”
Ellsberg had been working at the RAND Corporation when he made his now-infamous copies of documents related to US policy in Vietnam. My sister had worked at the RAND Corporation as a secretary during his time there. I dined out on that all afternoon. What a strange small world: Me, Diana, Ellsberg, Kissinger. . . .
Not long after that rally, a postcard arrived in the mail from Russia. It had a picture of Red Square and the Lenin Mausoleum. It read:
From Russia with love, Henry (Kissinger). Hope I see you soon.
Thank God he put “Kissinger” in parentheses. I was always getting postcards from the Soviet Union in those days.
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER MICKEY AND PAUL ZIFFREN HOSTED a dinner for Henry, and he invited me to come as his date. Paul Ziffren was an entertainment lawyer for people like Charlton Heston and Danny Thomas. Paul and his wife, Mickey, often hosted get-togethers that brought candidates together with people from the entertainment and corporate worlds. Paul was very tight with Henry. By this time, fall of 1972, I had finally sold the big house and moved into a tiny little rental in Malibu, right down the beach from the Ziffrens’. I’d unloaded the gargantuan house in less than a year.
My entire new home could have fit in the living room of the house I’d just sold.
I had decided to save money for the first time in my life. So I borrowed a friend’s camper and packed up what was left for the trip across town, thinking I would move everything with the help of some friends. When it was time to unload, Jerry Brown—the future governor of California—was the only one who showed up to help. You can see why I have to campaign for Jerry for the rest of my life, no matter what office he’s seeking. I even did a promotional video for him when he ran for president, which may be why he wasn’t elected. My “cousin” David Bennett had a fantasy I’d marry Jerry and that one day I would be standing in the White House Rose Garden in my notorious pink nightgown. David, however, would be standing on the balcony chatting with President Jerry. David’s fantasy, not mine.
So I had gone from a huge house with no furniture to a teeny-tiny house crammed to the rafters. It was adorable, though: a little Spanish-style house right on the beach. Wendy Stark—now Wendy Stark Morrissey—the Los Angeles editor of Vanity Fair and daughter of the movie producer Ray Stark, lived next door. Robert Redford shot a scene in that house for The Way We Were. I could never look at Wendy’s house without thinking of Robert and my idol, Barbra, in that film, so achingly in love.
I wasn’t ready when Henry arrived to pick me up for the party. I stuck my wet head out of the shower and yelled, “I’ll be out in a minute!”
I emerged one hour later.
In the meantime Henry had little to do. No crackers or cheese or drinks. All he could do was sit and wait while my trusty Cocker spaniel, Holly, barked incessantly at his Secret Service men outside.
Henry assumed we’d drive to the Ziffrens, which I thought was ridiculous.
“Come on, Henry,” I told him. “It’s only a few houses down the beach. Let’s walk. We can carry our shoes.”
“Sally,” Henry chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re trying to ruin me.”
On the walk over he turned to me and said, joking, “I know you’re working for McGovern, but when we win, we’ll still give you a passport.”
It was a nice party, a nice night. At the end of it Henry gave me a kiss on the cheek and off he went.
About a month later I got the following letter, dated October 29, 1972:
Dear Sally:
Sorry to be so remiss in writing, but I’ve been busy stopping a war.
What have you been up to lately?
Best,
Henry
Henry Kissinger never intimidated me. I loved his humor, which made mine better.
One day Henry called from the White House and as we were talking on the phone, he said, “Sally, the red light is on—it’s the president.”
“So?” I’d reply. “Who’s more important?”
“Sally, you’re trying to ruin me,” he said with a laugh.
Directors made me nervous; other industry people could make me feel competitive, insecure, or desperate for validation. But someone like Henry Kissinger, easily one of the world’s most powerful men? I wasn’t worried about what he thought of me. He couldn’t get me a role. He couldn’t do anything for me except maybe get me a passport.
And just a few weeks after his letter arrived, Richard Nixon won reelection as president of the United States by a landslide. I sent a telegram to Henry at the White House:
All right, I give up. You win. Will you still get me a passport?
The following year, when Watergate broke, I was at home lying in bed with actor, singer, and songwriter Clifton Davis, with whom I was having a nice romance at the time. He was the only man I was ever with who wasn’t angry. Claire adored him.
The phone rang. It was Henry. He had called, in essence, to let me know that he had not been involved in the scandal. It was the last time we ever spoke. I liked Henry a lo
t, but geography and travel and schedules and international crises can be real obstacles. We drifted apart.
My time in Malibu was short, but it capped off a hectic couple of years. I was ready for a change, personally and professionally. And this time I wouldn’t need Rick or anyone else to help sabotage my career—I was going to do it fine all by myself.
CHAPTER 10
Advice Given and Ignored
“Where the hell are any answers . . . Inside me, I guess.”
—Sally Hughes, my character in Lost Horizon
“Everything we need is within us . . .”
—Edith Kellerman, my mother
I HAVE BEEN GETTING THIS MESSAGE IN VARIOUS FORMS FOR years—from my mother, my characters, and my psychotherapists. Sometimes it sinks in; other times I misinterpret it as justification for ignoring the well-meaning and better-informed advice of others. It’s all in the interpretation. The devil is in the details.
Hollywood may have changed a lot since I played my first big role in Reform School Girls in 1957, but one thing has remained the same: it has a very short memory. You blow some good will, and Hollywood moves on to the next flavor of the month. And why shouldn’t it? Every time I land a part, I know there are thousands of other women lined up around the block who could do just as good a job as I would if they were only given the chance.
So why blow the chances you’re given? Well, if you’re me, you do because you’re convinced that you should follow your bliss. This was the 1970s, man—come on.
My bliss was singing. As much as I loved acting, I never wanted one career instead of the other.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. I had no idea how to build a career as an actor or as a singer. I didn’t understand that when opportunities come to you, like being in a hit film and being nominated for an Oscar, you have to go with them. Instead, my inner monologue was, Good. I’m all set as an actress. Now I’ve got to work on my music.
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