I planned my outfit very carefully. You have to bend over to put your hands in the cement, and I didn’t want anything falling out of my dress. I wanted to be elegant and appropriate for this special day. I was about to plunk my little size fours down next to the prints of great stars like Lillian Gish and Joan Crawford.
Bill Travilla, who designed Marilyn Monroe’s famous pleated dress for The Seven Year Itch, made me a sapphire-blue dress with a square neckline and short sleeves. I wore a fabulous blue pillbox hat. Most importantly, I chose a pair of shoes with high heels so my feet would look small in the pavement—just the pointed soles of the shoes, an empty space, and two round dots for the spike heels.
The ceremony took place on January 14, 1965, a beautiful, sunny day. When I was getting ready to go to Grauman’s, I felt sick. But nothing was going to keep me from this event. I would have gotten up off my deathbed to be there. Put together from hat to heels, I got in the car for the drive to Hollywood.
Once I arrived, the fans made me feel better. A lot of people showed up. They cheered as I leaned over to place the palms of my hands in the wet cement. After I wiped off my hands, I leaned on the gentleman to my right, who kept me steady while I put first one foot, then the other, on the slab. One of my fans shouted out that I should give him a shoe for a souvenir, but I needed them and had to say no. Finally I signed my name and the date, and everyone went across the street to the Roosevelt Hotel, where there was a party.
Making a good impression at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
I was thrilled to be invited to join the many stars who had put their handprints and footprints in the courtyard.
In a lifetime that has had a great share of special moments, this one still makes me very proud—and people who visit now wearing sneakers aren’t able to fit their feet in my footprints.
It turned out that leaving my mark in cement for posterity was just a beginning. Three months later, on the morning of March 23, 1965, I had my own close encounter with the Final Frontier.
MOLLY BROWN IN SPACE
In 1957 the Russian satellite Sputnik became the first spacecraft to orbit the earth, launching the race to the moon between the US and the Soviet Union. John Glenn was the first American to successfully orbit the earth. Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom were among our first astronauts to fly outside our planet’s atmosphere.
I met Mr. Grissom on a visit to NASA headquarters in Houston. He kindly let me sit inside the space capsule. It was an amazing experience to actually see how the astronauts travel. Such small quarters.
Gus Grissom was in a Mercury space capsule called the Liberty Bell 7 that sank when it landed in the ocean on his return trip. For his next trip, in 1965, he nicknamed the Gemini 3 spacecraft Molly Brown, after my movie, in hopes that it would be unsinkable.
When I heard about this, I was like a kid at Christmas. It was such an honor. I sent him a gift with a note that read:
All the world will be watching, especially your gal Molly Brown. Wanted to send you my red lace long drawers (worn in the film) but the worry warts say no. So here is my prettiest lace scarf for luck. Happy landing, Molly Brown.
My scarf arrived a few hours before Gemini 3 was scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral. Even though it wasn’t allowed, Gus Grissom took the scarf on board, and he and fellow astronaut John Young also wore patches with their names and “Molly Brown” on their uniforms. Much of America watched the launch on TV.
The Molly Brown orbited the earth three times. It was a relief when they landed safely. What a thrill for me to be a small part of our country’s space program!
THE SONG-AND-DANCE TROOP
In 1965 Carrie was attending El Rodeo Elementary School. The Boy Scouts Clubhouse was right next to the school. The mothers were invited to come to a meeting about creating a Girl Scout troop. I had always loved being a Girl Scout. I used to sell Girl Scout cookies on the Warner Brothers lot when I was a teenager, long before I was employed there. Even Hedda Hopper bought cookies from me. I was thrilled to have the chance to pass on the Girl Scout experience to my daughter. I was making The Singing Nun at that time. I left the set during my lunch break to attend the meeting.
I arrived just as it was starting, and sat down next to one of the other mothers. A woman teacher who looked about forty gave a pitch for ten minutes then asked if there were any questions. The woman beside me raised her hand. She asked where the troop meetings would take place. Could we have them at our homes? She mentioned that she’d led both Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops back in New Jersey, where she’d come from. She said she also threw in a little arts and crafts and music.
“You could do it anyplace and any way you want to,” the teacher answered. Then she said, “Who of you would like to take a troop?”
I shoved my elbow into the ribs of the woman beside me.
“You seem like a nice broad,” I said. “Let’s take a troop together.”
The woman agreed.
I raised my hand.
“We’re not taking nuns,” the teacher said, seeing what I was wearing. I didn’t have a lot of time for lunch, so I’d driven to the meeting in my habit from the film.
“I’m not a nun in real life,” I said. “My daughter goes to school here.”
I told my new partner that I was on my lunch hour and had to leave, and asked if I could stop by her house for a drink after I finished work at five.
“Absolutely. Come by.”
Her name turned out to be Sandy Avchen. A professional musician and vocal coach, before moving to Los Angeles she’d worked with Florence Henderson, who was doing a Broadway show. Sandy had been raised near Hoboken, where Frank Sinatra grew up. Her family were lawyers for Frank’s family; they bought their Cadillacs from the same people. She was already doing shows with stars like Charlton Heston to raise money for the schools.
When I got there, Sandy was waiting for me with her four kids. We talked until around 9:00 P.M., we were so excited about creating our own Girl Scout troop.
We wound up with twenty-four kids, including my daughter, Carrie. There was another troop of twenty-four, and they all wanted to be in our troop. But we couldn’t handle any more girls. My producer on The Singing Nun kindly gave me Wednesday afternoons off to be with them. Sometimes my shooting schedule didn’t leave me time to change out of costume and I’d show up in my nun’s habit as I’d done at the meeting at Carrie’s school. The kids loved it, but some of the mothers thought I was a nut.
We were the talk of the town, known as the song-and-dance troop. We had a lot of celebrity kids. Sid Caesar’s daughter was with us, and Sid’s wife was always hanging around. There were a few mothers who were extremely helpful.
Once Sandy and I wanted to take the troop camping and hiking in the desert to earn merit badges. At that time I knew the president of Western Airlines. So I called him and said, “Listen, I want to fly my Girl Scouts to Vegas,” and he kindly arranged a flight for me and Sandy and our troop. Another time everyone came to my house in Palm Springs. I knew the owner of a big bus company, and he provided us with one of his buses and a driver. The kids all slept on my floor, and earned badges for horseback riding.
Sandy and I used to do shows. We’d rehearse down at El Rodeo.
For our first or second Halloween together, we decided to take the girls trick-or-treating on North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills. A lot of stars called this neighborhood home, and many of my friends lived there. After putting Carrie and Todd to sleep I would often leave them with the nanny, drive around making visits, and wind up on Roxbury. Lucille Ball’s house was on the corner of Roxbury and Lexington, above Sunset Boulevard. Jack Benny lived next door to her. Jimmy Stewart, Rosemary Clooney, and Agnes Moorehead (one of my costars in The Singing Nun) all lived on Roxbury, as did Eddie Cantor. They all knew one another. When they had parties, we all were invited. Agnes gave a big Christmas party every year, and everyone came. It was a very fun place.
That Halloween Sandy and I both dressed as clowns. Th
e girls dressed in whatever costumes they wanted. We piled into a station wagon and a van and were on our way.
We went to Lucille Ball’s house first. Sandy and I led the girls up the long front lawn and rang Lucy’s bell. Lucy herself opened the door. Her husband, Gary Morton, was standing behind her.
“Oh, who could this be?” Lucy asked sweetly.
I leaned in and said, “It’s me, it’s Debbie.”
“And who are these adorable kids?”
“My Girl Scouts.”
“Show me your costumes.”
She was very cute about it all. Gary was a bit grumpy, but Lucy was really sweet when faced with a crowd of excited little goblins.
She invited us into her living room. The girls surrounded Lucy as she handed candy to each of them.
“Don’t forget to go next door,” she said.
Lucy waved good-bye as we started for Jack Benny’s house. The girls were all laughing and thanking her.
At Jack’s house we repeated the routine.
“Well, who have we got here?” Jack asked, holding his right elbow with his left hand, the palm of his right hand to his face—his famous pose.
I whispered in his ear, “It’s Debbie, and this is Sandy.”
He turned to a table next to the door, picked up a basket, and gestured for the girls to step forward, saying, “I have a basket full of money here.”
The girls lined up—and he gave everybody dimes! A single dime apiece out of his money basket.
The troop continued up the street to Jimmy Stewart’s home, then across Roxbury to Agnes Moorehead’s. Everyone was so nice as two dozen kids showed up on their doorsteps.
Spencer Tracy was such a wonderful star. I’m sure he was thrilled to be buying cookies from MGM’s newest contract player.
He won an Academy Award, but I had forty-seven merit badges.
To this day, I continue to support the Girl Scouts. When I performed in the 1970s, they paid half price to attend my concerts. I don’t sell cookies anymore, but I’m happy to lend my name to the organization. Even though I thoroughly enjoyed my years as a troop leader, Carrie tells me now that she hated it. We have very different tastes.
I miss those days when I would visit my friends’ homes on Roxbury Drive. Sandy and I are still close to this day.
FISH SHTICK
In June 1971 Sea World opened their new attraction in San Diego with a killer whale named Shamu. The huge black-and-white orca supposedly weighed forty-seven hundred pounds and ate more than two hundred pounds of fish a day; one extra visit to the sushi bar and she would have tipped five thousand. She was enormous.
And so was the playground the park had created for her—a 625,000-gallon performing tank measuring 120 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 24 feet deep, on seven additional acres of land Sea World had acquired just for this attraction. It held a million gallons of water. More than one hundred fifty trees had been planted, and another two and a quarter acres of lush green lawn with decorative ground cover bordered the water. It looked like a lagoon.
As if that weren’t enough, there was a wall of twenty-three wide Plexiglas panels on the audience side of the show tank, for underwater viewing of Shamu’s antics.
The opening event was a show called Shamu Goes Hollywood, with proceeds to benefit the Motion Picture Relief Fund. The owners of Sea World asked me to sponsor it, and I was happy to do so. Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood, Glenn Ford, Shirley Jones, Ricardo Montalban, Jean Simmons, and Jack Haley Jr. agreed to help publicize the festivities.
At one point, I was standing at the edge of the giant pool watching Shamu’s flips and jumps with her handlers when the killer whale sped toward me. Shamu rose out of the water with her jaws gaping wide. The handlers led me over to her, and asked me to put my head inside her mouth.
I’d been nervous before at openings but this one really scared me. I leaned forward until my wig was in her nose, praying that Shamu wouldn’t mistake me for a fish stick. One sniffle and I would have been Jonah of San Diego.
Shamu didn’t chomp me. But on the drive home from Sea World I still couldn’t shake the fresh orca smell. I had noticed that many of the restaurants at the park had a seafood theme. Was this the final fate of the fish who misbehaved?
The following April I read in the papers that Shamu had bitten the legs and hips of a female employee in a bikini, who was trying to ride her during the filming of a publicity promo. When the orca refused to release the woman, they had to pry Shamu’s jaws apart with a pole.
Shamu was a magnificent creature, but they retired her from performing after that. She’s lucky she didn’t end up as the Catch of the Day in one of their eateries. I counted myself lucky, too. I had survived my own close encounter with her jaws.
BERTHA THE ELEPHANT
When you played concert dates in Las Vegas in the 1970s, it was usually part of the deal to also appear in Reno. Just east of Reno is Sparks, Nevada, which also has casino hotels, so many of us played there, too, at the Nugget.
One of the greatest performers to ever grace the Nugget stage was Bertha the Elephant, who was the hotel’s main attraction from 1962 until she died in the late 1990s. She had her own act in the Circus Room with her baby, Tina, and she would briefly share the stage with me or Liberace or Tony Bennett—whoever was the headliner that week. Bertha was truly a Nevada favorite; she and Tina also appeared every year in Carson City at their Nevada Day parade.
She had her own elevator in the backstage area. I played that club for years before they let me go on that elevator with her. Bertha’s handlers would take her outside to do her business. She let loose on command when they tapped her on the leg. She was better trained than some performers I know of.
But once in a while she would make a mistake, and when that happened you really thought Niagara Falls had moved to Sparks, Nevada. The whole audience would be underwater. We’d run out with mops to mop up, and then I had to go on with my act. My beautiful costumes all turned a little yellow from elephant pee.
When we humans played the Nugget, we had to work seven nights a week, with an extra ten minutes on Monday night. Somebody once asked the entertainment office why we had to do a longer show on Mondays.
“That’s Bertha’s day off,” we were told.
Mondays off while everyone else made up for her act? That pachyderm had a better contract than we did!
Bertha was the most cherished entertainer in Sparks, Nevada. She even had her own elevator to get to the stage. Here I am with Bertha and a friend of hers.
Superstar Bertha giving my mother, Maxene, a lift.
4
It’s the Pictures That Got Smaller
In the early 1950s, Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, called television “a passing fancy.” Although Mr. Mayer knew movies, he wasn’t right about the new wave of entertainment called TV. When I was asked to appear on Ed Sullivan’s first program, Talk of the Town, Mr. Mayer forbade me to do it. The studio did allow me to go on the show in 1953 to promote their new film I Love Melvin, which I made on location in New York City with Donald O’Connor.
When Eddie Fisher had his weekly TV series, I was a guest on his show. As television grew in popularity, the movie business had to adjust. Nowadays all the film studios produce TV shows as well as feature films. RCA and NBC pioneer David Sarnoff and his wife, Lizette, were very kind to Eddie and me. We had dinner at their home while on our honeymoon trip. Mrs. Sarnoff gave me a powder-blue evening bag covered in pearls. (I recently gave it to my granddaughter, Billie.)
Being on talk shows has always been fun. In the days when there were only three channels to watch, these shows had good audiences. It was also an opportunity for the networks to add more commercials to their schedule, since in the early days many stations went off the air after their late-night newscasts.
Today’s talk shows are much livelier than they were then. I’ve been a guest on most of them. The View and The Talk are favorites of mine. The conversation is quick and fun when you’re surroun
ded by smart people. I especially loved Dinah Shore’s shows. She was a lovely host who made it comfortable for her guests. Oprah, Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, and Rosie O’Donnell did, too. David Letterman invited me to be on his show a few times. Jimmy Fallon is such a great talent today. He’s really taken The Tonight Show into a wonderful, comedic place. What a joy it is to see people doing silly, fun things together. I’m excited about Stephen Colbert’s new show. He’s always been a favorite of mine.
Craig Ferguson was a real kick in the pants. He really went with the moment, which is so important in comedy. No matter what I said, he was right there with me. I loved doing his show. The last time I was on with him, promoting my book Unsinkable, we laughed and cut up. At one point, I giggled and did a little snort at the same time. Craig busted me for it, which got a big laugh. He has the heart of a vaudevillian, too.
One of the secrets of being a good guest is always being prepared for each show, especially when you’re on a junket where you’re doing ten shows in three weeks. You have to work with the producers to make sure that what you say in your guest spot on The View is different from what you say with the morning-show people or on Access Hollywood. Joan Rivers was always keenly aware of this, making sure she had different material for each show. Steve Martin, Will Ferrell, and Kevin Spacey are great guests, too—always different, even on back-to-back nights.
I love slapstick, physical humor, and being spontaneous. And, as I’ve said before, I’ll do anything to get a laugh. Sometimes talk shows offered the perfect opportunity to do this.
DEBBIE GOES WILD
When the TV world was still somewhat new, I did a guest spot on Jack Paar’s Tonight Show. This was in September 1959, shortly after my highly publicized divorce from Eddie Fisher. Before the show, Jack’s producers agreed that we wouldn’t be talking about “The Scandal.” They did ask me to be funny, “not serious.” Even in the worst of times, when I’m onstage, I’m never serious.
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