by Nancy Bacon
Then I noticed this skinny, sandy-haired guy running around and giving a lot of orders to people. He looked too young to be of any importance, but men twice his age were doing his bidding. He was, I learned, the kid brother, Bobby. And he had single-handedly organized the entire campaign. Cute, I thought, watching him dash madly about, his shirt sleeves rolled up to expose golden hair on his suntanned arms. He reminded me a little of Audie Murphy or Dick Clark; the same baby face and look of innocence. I was introduced to him and don’t remember being overly impressed. He was curt, abrupt, and his eyes were stony blue without a flicker of warmth. After a respectful moment, he excused himself and dashed off to disappear into the surging crowd.
Jim and I left for Europe soon after that, but I managed to follow John Kennedy’s triumph via the newspapers. I was in Rome when he was elected President and if I had thought the Democratic National Convention had been an arena of bedlam and chaos, I was not prepared for the citizens of that otherwise sleepy little Italian city. They literally went crazy.
People poured into the streets like waters from a bursting dam; confetti blinded mc as I tried to make my way down the Via Veneto to Bricktop’s Bar; monks danced in the streets; enormous crowds gathered in the square around the Vatican clutching rosary beads and offering prayers for the new Catholic president. Within seconds, it seemed, jokes sprang up about Jack Kennedy and his faith. (‘Get me Father on the phone,’ Kennedy allegedly ordered the White House operator. ‘Is that home or Rome, Mr. President?’ came the crisp reply.)
When I returned from Europe the Kennedy administration was going great guns. The Kennedy name had become magic. It stood for goodness, honor, integrity, and truth. The name of Kennedy stood for the new America. It seemed you could not say one without the other. It mattered not that he was rumored to have a Hollywood star for a mistress. It merely added to the legend. It was such a heady, romantic political era, and our leaders were a young, energetic bunch who gamboled on their sprawling green lawns in Hyannis Port and played touch football like a gang of roughneck boys. The feline and darkly attractive Jacqueline Kennedy set the fashion styles of the sixties and thrilled America with her whispery, little girl voice as she took us on an intimate tour of her home, the White House. Jack and Jackie soon began appearing on the covers of fan magazines as America’s last gasp in gods and goddesses. If it seemed just a bit unrespectable for the President of the United States and his Lady to be gracing such publications, well, they were, after all, young, successful, and beautiful, and that alone qualified them.
Then a lunatic assassin sent John Fitzgerald Kennedy to a martyr’s grave and the name was hallowed.
Four silent years passed. Then Robert Kennedy emerged and gave America hope once more. In fact, that was the key word of his campaign: Hope. Once again hearts were light and gay. Youth was the password. Hysteria the order of the day. The kid brother was doing all right. Already the legend was taking shape. His Hickory Hill parties had become infamous. Newsmen joyously reported that at least one dignitary was thrown fully clothed into the pool at every such gathering. Frivolity prevailed. It was rumored, with much smacking of lips, that Bobby was the paramour of another living legend—Marilyn Monroe. No one denied it. (In retrospect, it seems only logical that these two talented, beautiful, but doomed young people should have been drawn to one another.)
When John F. Kennedy was earning his legend in the early sixties, permissiveness was tentatively knocking at the door of puritanism. During Bobby’s reign it flung open the portals and strode boldly through. In fact, Bobby came very close to being the first political hero to be busted on a narcotics charge. According to Heneghan it happened in a small western state, and the sheriff of that county claimed to have information that Bobby was holding a stash of marijuana in his hotel suite. An incensed red-neck type, he was all for making the bust when he received a visit from a ‘couple of guys’ who told him how very foolish it would be to bust the Attorney General of the United States, His brother might not like it.
I vowed to not only vote for Bobby, but to convince everyone else I knew to do the same. I simply adored him. He spoke on a gut level with people. He was intensely interested in everything. He wanted a safe world for his children to grow up in. I had read all the reports of Bobby’s so-called ruthlessness, his tart, monosyllabic tongue, his complete disregard for President Johnson, his tight associations with show business people and rock freaks and acid-head poets, his utter obsession to get down in the streets and mingle with and touch the common people, even though it presented a security problem. And I loved every word. This was my kind of guy. What a president he would make!
I was thinking of all these things as I shot pool at The Factory that night. I must admit I was dying to meet the infamous Bobby. I knew Peter Lawford vaguely and was wondering if I should sort of amble over and say hello when I heard this loud hiss—right in my ear. Startled, I turned to find a waiter clutching at my arm. ‘Bobby Kennedy wants to meet you! He invited you to his table for a drink!’
I put away my pool cue and followed him to a table in a shadowy corner near the fireplace. There were several people sitting there, but the only one I noticed had a shock of unruly, thick sandy hair and pale blue eyes surrounded by a million laugh lines (I don’t recall ever seeing Sinatra or Lawford that night; I had eyes only for Bobby). He half-rose as I slid into the booth next to him, then he said with a sweet, warm smile. ‘Hi, I’m Bob Kennedy—and you’re Nancy, right?’ My leg touched his as I squeezed into the already crowded booth and something like a shock quivered throughout my body. Oh dear God, I remember thinking, don’t let me be turned on to the next president of the United States! I wasn’t sure I could handle such an affair.
As I got to know Bobby I found him to be a soft, sweet person. He was even a little shy at times, and when this happened he would develop a stammer in his speech. I have a brother who stammers, so I was naturally concerned about what caused it. After some observation, I decided that Bobby only had this speech affliction when he was very fatigued or nervous or unprepared. Also, his hands would shake and tremble uncontrollably when he was angered or very concerned about some special issue.
When he spoke to me, he would sometimes duck his head and peek at me from beneath his shaggy brows, quizzically, and that slight tremor of voice was more pronounced. I was reminded of a small, tow-headed lad digging his toe in the dirt. He was not as articulate or well-spoken as his brother, Jack, had been. In fact, his speech sometimes held a rather rough edge, and he had a way of kidding himself—of kidding the world, really. His sense of humor was dry and laconic. As mentioned earlier, he was intensely interested in everything. When he discovered that I had been raised on a farm he fired questions at me like a prosecuting attorney. He had to know everything about what it was like living on a farm; what sort of hours the farmer put in; was it rewarding or just frustrating; did the children work as hard as he had heard; what kind of profits were made per year; was it a doomed and antiquated way of life; what was the fate of the farm animals; etc. and etc. Such curiosity I had never witnessed before, except, perhaps, in Errol Flynn. (Errol once said that his only true addiction in life was curiosity—not booze, dope, or broads, as rumored, but plain curiosity.) I got the impression that Bobby had this same unquenchable thirst for knowledge in every form.
I had campaigned for Bobby along with every other Kennedy fan in Hollywood and was in the throes of delicious agony as I awaited the returns that fateful June evening in I968. I had been invited to the victory party (we were all positive that Bobby would win!) and was sitting in my dressing room applying my makeup when the telephone rang. It was Lloyd Thaxton, a good friend and fellow Kennedy supporter. ‘Bob Kennedy’s been shot,’ were his first words. ‘There won’t be a victory party.’
‘Oh, Lloyd, what a ghastly joke!’ I said, knowing that Lloyd had a way with the practical joke. ‘Look, I can’t talk now—see you later.’ I laughed at him and hung up the receiver. The phone rang again the moment I re
moved my hand. This time it was Griff the Bear. ‘Kennedy’s been shot!’ he shouted, almost as if he were personally angry. ‘Quick! Turn on the tube!’ ‘Which channel?’ I gasped, knowing that if Griff told me it had to be true; we had been closer than brother and sister for years. ‘For Christ’s sake, Rabbit!’ he choked with fury. ‘It’s on every fucking channel on the tube!’ With that he slammed down the receiver and I rushed to the television set and turned on a rerun of Dallas. Same cast of characters. Same insanity. Same tragedy. Same confusion. Too familiar.
In the three or four days that followed I was completely numb. I had cried until my eyes were so swollen I could hardly see the television screen, but still I kept it on and watched, almost ghoulishly, it seemed, the repetitious reporting of the fatal shooting of Senator Robert Kennedy. I saw, again and again, Rosey Grier, Rafer Johnson and George Plimpton, struggling with the madman who had caused all this pain. I heard shouts of ‘Get the gun! Get the gun! We don’t want another Dallas here!’ I watched the tear-streaked faces of the crowd as they wandered aimlessly about the big, gloomy Ambassador Hotel, almost as if they were waiting for Bobby to appear and tell them it was okay to go home now. Then the flag-draped coffin and the frenzied preparations for the last I plane trip. I saw people on television that I knew personally, looking grave and like stiff strangers—Andy and Claudine Williams, Art Buchwald, Kennedy aides that I had met at rallies, and others. Silent. Taking Bobby home.
The plane looked impersonal as the casket was loaded aboard. The reporter who had been speaking softly and in husky tones was suddenly quiet. The door of the plane slammed shut. A whirring sound grew to a muffled roar. The plane lifted itself on lofty wings and filled the frame. The sky was incredibly blue, like a Hollywood backdrop, and there was only silence as millions of Americans said goodbye to their last chance.
I was sitting on the sofa with Quina, my housekeeper, and two-year-old Staci, who was cross-legged on the floor in front of the set. All was still as the plane climbed slowly and steadily into the clouds, then disappeared into a speck of nothingness. Staci turned her eyes to mine. ‘Bobby’s all gone, Mommy,’ she said brokenly. Tears streamed down her cheeks. I was stunned. The Kennedy charisma and tragedies reached out to touch even the babies.
I had known Bobby for less than a year and he had touched my life as no other person, male or female, ever had. I was to recall the curve of his mouth, his sweet smile, the look of interest that turned on bright lights in his otherwise pale blue eyes, the feel of his strong hand on mine. I remember him as being broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, shorter than you would imagine, with rather a long torso. But vital. Oh, so very vital and alive.
I would not be voting in this election. Perhaps I would never vote. It was over for me when the Kennedys left this world.
Then a kind of stillness settled over the land. Strong men wept. Hope was gone. Hope was dead. It could not be resurrected.
A few die-hards clutched desperately at the last Kennedy, Teddy, and bumper-stickers proclaimed: ‘Teddy in 72.’ However, when baby brother stood naked before the people, he was found wanting. Politicians live on the narrow edge of ethics, and Kennedy haters (for there were those) took up their marking pens and listed everything from his being expelled from Harvard for cheating on an exam to the shocking Chappaquiddick tragedy, where a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, met her death in the icy waters of Poucha Pond.
The Kennedys have always surrounded themselves with canny advisors and perhaps they were the ones to issue a statement that Edward Kennedy would not be running for the presidency in 1972. Perhaps they figured this latest Kennedy locomotive needed a four-year cooling off period. Ted did play it cool from the sidelines—but he looked more and more like a take-over man for ’76.
Then the kid brother blew it again. He and a buddy, Senator John Tunney, shared the headlines: TEDDY SAILS OFF MAINE WITH TUNNEY, TWO WOMEN. It appeared in a tabloid and fuzzy, pore-exposing photos appeared of the quartet as they struggled to get the sails up and remain anonymous. But this wasn’t the staid fifties or the respectable sixties, it was the straightforward seventies, and where once typewriter keys resisted spelling out any Kennedy indiscretion, they now spewed forth in boldface type. The public wanted to know what the hell was going on. If Teddy and wife, Joan, had some sort of an arrangement which permitted him to scalawag about like a newly-nutted sophomore, then let them declare it. People looked up to this kid brother of their favorite President. To slam a Kennedy in print was as monstrous a gaffe as spitting on a baby suckling at its mother’s breast. But if there was something behind the headlines, then the public felt they had a right to know.
comedy and tragedy unmasked
There were many tragic poets with vulnerable souls among our superstars. And they hadn’t a chance of survival. That old villain, terrified, pompous, puritanical society was out there ready to shoot them down as swiftly as Al Capone armed with a machine gun. I’ve seen many friends of mine killed by society, murdered by an uncaring world, buried by the indifferent parasites that fed off them. Like Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. Like the sensitive poet, Robert Walker, who was masquerading as an actor. He wore his tragedy like a shroud and it was as much a part of him as his skin. He spent most of his young life in and out of clinics for his compulsive drinking problem and his melancholy. He was painfully shy, withdrawn, and sad when sober; drunk, he would spout flowery poetry, laugh, love, and drink until dawn.
He was married to actress Jennifer Jones, and when she walked out on him for David Selznick, he used it as an excuse to drink more heavily. He and Henaghan were old buddies and Jim has told me many funny and fascinating tales about Bob. As well as some sad ones. Jim was with Bob the night he died—or was murdered, as Jim claims. Bob had been on a binge for several days and was literally staggering from the effects of the booze. Jim had gone over to Bob’s house to keep him company and they had downed a few belts of Scotch. Suddenly Bob began to weep and thrash about, smashing lamps and crying for help.
‘Nobody’s ever cared,’ he sobbed, ‘not a fucking one of them. They use me, devour me...’
Jim tried to calm him but Bob was out of control, sobbing and cursing. He had been under the care of a psychiatrist and Jim called him to come over as soon as possible. By the time he arrived a couple of Bob’s friends had been summoned and they held him down while the doctor prepared a hypodermic. Jim said Bob was shouting and crying all the while, ‘Don’t give me that shot! It’ll kill me! I’ve been drinking and that shot’ll kill me!’
‘I didn’t know what the hell to think,’ Jim told me. ‘Bob was my best friend and I hated like hell to see him that way. The doctor said the shot would calm him, knock him out so he could get some much-needed rest. It knocked him out all right.’
Three minutes after the doctor withdrew the needle from Bob’s arm, he was dead—at age thirty-two. The silent men carried him into his bedroom and stretched him out on the bed then shuffled outside and into their cars. Only Jim remained. He sat by the side of Bob’s bed, weeping, talking to him about the times they had shared, then picked up his hand and held it tightly. He noticed his watch, and with tears blurring his eyes, he slipped it off and tucked it into his pocket.
‘I always told you I’d steal your watch someday, you bastard,’ he whispered huskily.
Success can be deadly-and it often is. Author Gene Fowler I once said (in a letter to Hedda Hopper), ‘Success is a toy balloon among children armed with sharp pins.’ How very true. I remember what Success did to Allan Sherman, the roly-poly comedian who became famous for his Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh albums. (He also did My Son, the Celebrity, My Son, the Folksinger, and others) Allan was a very bright man, almost too bright in many ways, because he was constantly trying to figure out why there wasn’t more love and kindness in the world. This can be dangerous for anyone, but for a star it’s sure death. He was a gentle, sensitive man, kind, generous, wanting love so badly he died for it. He could not cope with the vicious, money-grabbing produce
rs and others he was forced to deal with; the grasping, greedy agents and coworkers; the publicity-hungry girls who used him to get their names in print; the head waiters and captains who deferred to him because they expected a big tip. It was all too much for this gentle poet who simply wanted the love of his fellow men. He was married for many years to his childhood sweetheart and they had two children, Nancy and Robert, but when Hollywood and fame and fortune beckoned, the marriage went down the tubes.
I met Allan in the middle sixties. He was living alone in a bachelor apartment in Hollywood and writing his first article for Reader’s Digest. When he learned that I was a writer he flattered me enormously by asking (shyly) if I would check over his story to see if it needed any changes. I felt rather embarrassed to be put in the position of critic to one of the funniest men I had known, but I dutifully read the copy. It was great, not funny as I had expected, but rather whimsical and thought-provoking. That’s when I knew there was more behind those black hornrims than just a fast-buck comic. We talked for hours that day and when we discovered that it had grown dark outside, he hustled me into his spiffy red Mercedes and took me to The Magic Castle for dinner.
That was the beginning of a long friendship between Allan and myself. As the years passed and I got to know him well I saw the pain he lived with each day of his life. He was not a handsome man, he was extremely obese and suffered from asthma, which required daily medication. Because of his obesity and his desire to find love, he constantly popped diet pills, as strong as they made them, to kill his appetite, then he would smoke several joints of marijuana (which increases the appetite) then polish off a dozen donuts, a fifth of Scotch, a couple bottles of champagne, and whatever else he could find in the apartment. He wanted to be slim desperately, but he just did not have the will power; food was his security blanket. When there was no one to hold or even talk to and the hour was late and he was alone, he turned to food and drink as a comforting friend.