Make 'Em Laugh

by Debbie Reynolds

  I didn’t think much about it. I knew Enrique was married and had a family. Besides, he had a mistress. He was busy enough.

  Over the bed was a huge oil painting of a beautiful red-haired movie star I knew: Maureen O’Hara. Wow. I didn’t know Maureen had a lover in Mexico. Unlike Hedda, I didn’t keep track of everybody’s affairs. I was still the Virgin Mary Frances from Burbank, and I was shocked.

  But that was just the first course. While I was staring at Maureen’s portrait, Enrique gently nudged me onto the bed. In one hand he offered me a ruby-and-diamond bracelet. The other hand was already up my full skirt and pawing at my panties.

  Daddy and Jeanette had gone to the bullfights and I got left with the bull.

  My years as a gymnast paid off—in one swift move I got away from him. Then I demanded we return to Miguel’s villa.

  Luckily Enrique took no for an answer. Daddy was another story. When I told him what had happened, he hurried Jeanette and me onto a plane back to LA.

  A few months later, Miguelito (our nickname for Miguel) came to visit me in Los Angeles. He was very handsome, tall and dark-haired with impeccable manners. Looking back at pictures of him now, I realize that Miguelito resembled Eddie Fisher. I guess dark, handsome men were becoming my “type.”

  On our first date, he gave me a gold pin and a beautiful heart-shaped pearl-and-diamond ring. Daddy hit the roof when I showed them to him. He told me I couldn’t accept such personal and extravagant gifts. I was very upset. Miguelito was a gentleman. He hadn’t made any plays like his friend Enrique.

  With my friends Olympic champion Bob Mathias and actress Celeste Holm on the beach in Acapulco.

  Miguelito came to the house to speak with Daddy. He explained that the jewelry was a gesture of friendship, nothing more. He must have charmed Daddy, too, because I got to keep the gifts.

  Can you believe it? A few years later I lost the ring when I washed my hands in a ladies’ room at the Horn Comedy Club in Santa Monica while I was out dancing. But to this day, I still have the pin.

  EDDIE CANTOR THROWS AN ENGAGEMENT PARTY

  Eddie Cantor was a very popular entertainer from the early 1920s until his death in October 1964. He started in vaudeville and also made many radio and film appearances. He was known for his songs “Makin’ Whoopee” and “If You Knew Susie.” Like many comics of his day, he worked in the Catskills, which was known as the Borscht Belt.

  That was where he discovered Eddie Fisher, at the popular resort Grossinger’s, in 1949. Cantor gave Eddie a lot of support and was his mentor when Eddie was starting his career. And he didn’t want Eddie to marry me. Cantor felt that Eddie’s career would suffer if he did. He wanted Eddie to continue to be a young heartthrob. Eddie’s manager, Milton Blackstone, felt the same way. They also thought that Eddie wasn’t ready to settle down. I thought so, too. When we met, he was dating at least two other girls and made a date with Pier Angeli for the same night he invited me to see him perform at the Cocoanut Grove. But I accepted Eddie’s proposal. I was in love with him, and believed he was in love with me.

  Cantor finally accepted that Eddie and I were getting married, and as a gesture of goodwill threw a big engagement party for us at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He invited four hundred people—the A-list of Hollywood at the time.

  The party was held on Saturday, October 30, 1954, in the hotel’s Crystal Room. The Cantors did a beautiful job. There were huge bouquets of flowers on a raised platform behind a long table spread with a magnificent buffet. Eddie’s parents made a special trip from Philadelphia to attend. Edward G. Robinson brought his wife, as did Jack Benny and Fred Astaire. Other married couples who came were Gordon MacRae and the actress Sheila Stephens, Ann Blyth and Dr. James McNulty, and George Burns and Gracie Allen. Even the mayor of Los Angeles and his wife put in an appearance. Joan Crawford came stag. Photographers circulated through the crowded room, taking pictures.

  Three of my good friends who’d also gotten engaged recently came with their fiancés: Vera Ellen with Vic Rothschild, Pier Angeli with Vic Damone, and Jane Powell with Pat Nerney. Designer Helen Rose had thrown a bridal shower for us a week or so earlier.

  For my engagement party Helen made me a powder-blue gown to wear, because blue was Eddie’s favorite color. Eddie gave me a bracelet with two strands of pearls; the clasp was a round diamond. (Comedian Henny Youngman joked that I was breaking my engagement because I’d found out that the diamond was really a piece of broken Coca-Cola bottle. Coke was the sponsor of Eddie’s TV show, Coke Time.)

  Later that month Eddie took me to visit his parents in Philadelphia. One of the local papers ran a picture of us sampling his mother’s cooking. Dorothy Kilgallen wrote in her syndicated “Voice of Broadway” newspaper column about Eddie and me attending the Metropolitan Opera in New York, being photographed by reporters, and going to a club afterward. The only sour note was a three-part syndicated article running in many papers about how Eddie might not be ready for marriage (sometimes in the same issue with local ads for my movies Athena and Susan Slept Here, which was then a big hit).

  We were married on September 17, 1955, at Jennie Grossinger’s home in Pennsylvania. Our friend Mike Todd gave us a reception after we got back from our wedding, at the Bel Air home of Nicholas Schenck (pronounced “Skenk”). Mr. Schenck was one of the big bosses at MGM. Louis B. Mayer hated him, and privately called him “Mr. Skunk.” Sonny and Cher later purchased his house.

  That party was more sedate. Studio executives Jack Warner, Lew Wasserman, and Samuel Goldwyn were there, along with Gary Cooper, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and a lot of wealthy society folks.

  That was a happy time in my life—fun and exciting. I remember it well to this day. Eddie Cantor and I became friends, and he introduced me to many comics who also became my friends.

  With my fiancé, Eddie Fisher, at our engagement party at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Eddie Cantor threw this celebration and invited everyone in Hollywood, including the darling Jack Benny.

  OVER THE RAINBOW TO LONG BEACH

  After my dear friend Judy Garland was fired from MGM in 1950, she concentrated on doing concerts, including her historic four-week run at London’s Palladium and record-breaking nineteen weeks at the Palace Theatre in New York. She divorced Vincente Minnelli in 1951 and in June 1952 married her tour manager and arranger, Sid Luft. Five months later she gave birth to their first child, and Judy’s second daughter, Lorna.

  In March 1954, Warner Brothers hired Judy to do a remake of A Star Is Born, directed by George Cukor. The film opened at the end of September to rave reviews and great box office, and Judy was later nominated for the Academy Award as Best Actress. She was in the hospital the night of the Oscars ceremony, having just given birth to her son, Joey, on March 29, 1955. A television crew had been sent to broadcast her anticipated acceptance speech.

  Sadly, Judy didn’t win. Many were shocked when Grace Kelly won for her role in The Country Girl. As wonderful as Grace is in that film, I felt Judy should have won. The story goes that Groucho Marx sent Judy a telegram saying that her loss of the award was “the greatest robbery since Brinks.”

  In spite of its popularity with moviegoers and critics, A Star Is Born lost money due to problems Judy had experienced that resulted in production overruns. So once again, in 1955 she was unemployable as an actress and in the position of having to make a comeback.

  Sid was Judy’s manager and business partner by then, and they decided that she would do another concert tour. It was a big production involving fifty-five people, with an all-male chorus of dancers; special material written by Roger Edens, Leonard Gershe, and Kay Thompson; and directed and choreographed by Charles Walters. Chuck had started out as a choreographer on films such as Best Foot Forward, Judy’s Meet Me in St. Louis, and Girl Crazy (in which he’d partnered with Judy on-screen). He’d gone on to direct many hit musicals, including Easter Parade starring Judy and Fred Astaire, and, much later, my own The Unsinkable Molly Brown. He also directed Frank Si
natra and me in The Tender Trap, a cute film that was a lot more fun to make than it is to watch. (I recently saw it on Turner Classic Movies.)

  Judy’s tour was scheduled to begin in San Diego on July 8, 1955, and to move on from there to the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and (with the great trumpet player and bandleader Harry James joining) across the US. A dress rehearsal was held at Pasadena Civic Auditorium on July 6, to which several columnists were invited.

  Judy didn’t want to appear anywhere near Los Angeles or Hollywood. But then a Long Beach theater-chain operator asked her to consider doing a benefit for their Exceptional Children’s Foundation, and Judy agreed. (Exceptional was the term used then for “special needs.”) They added a performance, to be held at Long Beach Municipal Auditorium on July 11. More than a hundred local organizations sponsored ticket sales, and notices appeared in the papers.

  Of course all Judy’s friends wanted to go. I was working with Frank on The Tender Trap then, and engaged to Eddie Fisher. So when Frank told me he was chartering a bus and invited Eddie and me to join him on it, you couldn’t have kept us away. I asked Frank if I could also bring along my friend Margie Duncan and Bernie Rich, who was Eddie’s best friend from Philly. Frank was happy to have them. That bus contained a Who’s Who of Hollywood: David Niven, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Lana Turner, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable and Harry James, Edgar Bergen, Donald O’Connor, Art Linkletter, Sammy Davis Jr., Dick Powell and June Allyson, Jimmy Stewart, Ronald Reagan, Gary Cooper. Peter Lawford and his wife, Pat, were there. So was makeup man Keester Sweeney. (I just love his name.) The papers reported that nearly a hundred seats had been sold to celebrities, including Jack Warner and Jack Benny, who would be driving the twenty-five miles down to Long Beach.

  Our bus ride was a show before the show. Everyone was in a festive mood. Dinner and drinks were served. Frank told Bogie to sit next to the bus driver and give him directions, I guess because Bogie had played Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny. Betty Bacall sat a few rows behind Bogie. At one point she yelled out, “Hey, somebody’s feeling me up back here.”

  “Let me know if they find anything,” Bogie responded, without missing a beat. “I’ve been looking for years.”

  The bus was like summer stock on wheels. Everyone was laughing, singing, joking around, and having a wonderful time.

  The Municipal Auditorium was built on twenty acres of landfill that extend five hundred feet into the Pacific Ocean. It has since been replaced by the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center. An alley between Ocean Boulevard and Seaside Way had been roped off for the stars’ vehicles. This led to a platform outside the auditorium for visiting stars to be interviewed as they arrived. Klieg lights flooded the sky with wandering rays of light, and movie and television cameras were everywhere. Our bus was scheduled to pull up alongside the platform at around 8:00 P.M., and to wait for us just outside the entrance to the auditorium for the return trip.

  The advance publicity had done its job, and hordes of people assembled behind the roped-off areas and the mall. As our bus pulled up, about a thousand people mobbed us. It was crazier than a Hollywood opening.

  Finally we were in our seats, eager for the show to begin.

  Judy entered from behind her dancers. It was so brilliant. The house went crazy. She sang eleven songs, starting with “The Man That Got Away” from A Star Is Born and including all her standards—“Rock-a-bye Your Baby,” “After You’ve Gone,” “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart,” and others. She did two dance routines, one with Paul Sanchez, “We’re a Couple of Swells” (the “tramps” bit she first did with Fred Astaire in Easter Parade), and a comic dance routine with the Wiere Brothers. I had worked with the Wiere Brothers when Carleton Carpenter and I were on the vaudeville circuit several years before promoting our hit song “Aba Daba Honeymoon” from the movie Two Weeks with Love. It was wonderful to see them again. In between, Frank Fontaine did his stand-up and the Hi-Lo’s male quartet performed a few of their hits, including their cover of “Whatever Lola Wants” from Damn Yankees.

  Judy was magnificent throughout. She ended with “Over the Rainbow,” and the audience gave her a standing ovation that lasted several minutes, calling loudly for “More!” She obliged them with four encores, including “Swanee” and “Liza.” Then, while the crowd continued to cheer, she asked, “Would you like to meet some of my friends?”

  More cheers as she invited Frank to the stage. Frank got Bogie and Betty up there. Dean and Jerry, Eddie and I, Betty Hutton, Dick Powell, June Allyson, and Sammy Davis Jr. joined them. Dean and Sammy performed a Martin and Lewis song, with Sammy imitating Jerry. Finally Bogie told everybody to get off the stage, and the unofficial show after the show ended.

  Frank Sinatra and Chuck Walters working with me on the set of The Tender Trap in 1955. Frank invited us all to take a bus to Long Beach to see Judy Garland in concert.

  Frank had the concert recorded and later gave copies to his friends who’d attended.

  As it turned out, that show was the end of Judy’s comeback tour. Sid and Judy canceled it when CBS signed Judy to do her first TV special that September, which was so successful that CBS signed Judy to do one special a year for three more years.

  I hope Judy had as much fun as we did that night.

  Frank always threw a great party. I don’t remember who his date was that evening, just that she was a beautiful blonde. While he was married to his first wife, Nancy, Frank was always with other women, in Hollywood and in every other city he visited. Yet Nancy is the loveliest lady there is. When Frank fell for Ava Gardner, he wanted to marry her; but he always took good care of Nancy and the children. There was no one like Frank.

  Or Judy!

  “DEBBIE MAKES A SPLASH!”

  That was how they reported it.

  In 1960 I was asked to perform at a benefit for the Hollywood Boys Clubs and the Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles, sponsored by the local radio station KLAC. It was their eleventh annual All Star Charity Show, to be held at the Hollywood Bowl. That year the other stars included Bob Hope, Rosemary Clooney, Steve Allen, Jo Stafford, Mickey Rooney, Janet Leigh, Jimmy Durante, Zsa Zsa Gabor, the Mills Brothers, and Gisele MacKenzie, among others. There were two popular musical ensembles: Paul Weston and His Orchestra and Teddy Buckner’s Dixieland Band. The emcees were celebrities in their own right, disc jockeys from the station known as the “Big Five”: Dick Haynes, George Church III, Ross McCoy, Bill Stewart, and Ray Belem.

  The event took place on June 25, a Saturday. Everyone was in formal wear. Even the deejays wore white dinner jackets with their black slacks. My gown was an exquisite handmade Helen Rose creation that had a full skirt of white organdy with a white chiffon net overlay embroidered with flowers that took many seamstresses a week to sew.

  I had worn this dress at the 1958 Academy Awards to sing “Tammy” when the song was nominated. The song and the dress were favorites of mine. They still are.

  I was the last person to perform that night. My first album, Debbie, had been released recently, and I did a few songs from it, including my hit single “A Very Special Love” from 1958. I ended with my big hit, “Tammy,” which I’ve always sung as the final number in my act. I was thrilled by the crowd’s enthusiastic response, and thanked them.

  At that time, between the amphitheater seats and the stage in the Hollywood Bowl’s iconic big white shell, there was a reflecting pool. As I was thanking the audience I got an idea.

  “Now we’ll really get into the swim of things,” I announced, and said to the deejays, “It’s time to go into the pool!”

  Then I ran across the platform that separated the stage from the edge of the reflecting pool . . . and jumped in!

  And the deejays jumped in after me—white dinner jackets and all—as though it had all been planned.

  The place went into an uproar as eighteen thousand people sprang to their feet, cheering and laughing.

  The show was a smash. We raised a
lot of money for the kids. Everyone had a great time.

  Sometimes my comic escapades cost me some very beautiful dresses. This Helen Rose gown was exquisite—until I jumped into the pool.

  Looking back on it now, I don’t know why I decided to jump in the pool, but I went right into the water without thinking about those big lights under the surface. I felt a sense of euphoria, and that seemed to be the best way to top off the evening. I didn’t even think about it; I just jumped. It was probably the dumbest thing I ever did. It’s a miracle we weren’t all electrocuted. It was the biggest splash of the time and got a lot of press, but it was taking a huge chance. In those days, I was game for anything. I took everything as a challenge. I loved being that carefree. I’d do anything for a laugh, even if it meant getting all wet.

  I’m glad that I did it—except for the dress. I was de-flowered as soon as I hit the water. My gorgeous gown was ruined in an instant. I loved that dress. It made me feel beautiful while I wore it. I’ve always felt bad about ruining it.

  A couple of years later I received an invitation I couldn’t refuse.

  MAKING A GOOD IMPRESSION

  The Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard near Highland Avenue in Los Angeles is a very popular tourist destination. In the late 1920s the owner, Sid Grauman, had the idea to have movie stars put their handprints, footprints, and signatures in the sidewalk outside his theater. He started with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, and ever since then almost two hundred stars have left their mark in the Grauman’s walkway. So I was very excited to be invited to have my hands and feet immortalized this way, especially since it was in the desirable area in front of the theater doors. Outside of New Jersey, there aren’t a lot of occasions when people ask you to put your feet in cement. And at the Chinese Theatre it’s a good thing.