Dear Cary

by Dyan Cannon

  “Maybe I will!”

  But first there were four weeks of rehearsal with musical numbers and choreography, then a break for Christmas before we hit the road. I was working with two Broadway giants, the writer-director Abe Burrows and the choreographer Bob Fosse, and after long days onstage we’d go out for dinner and stay up late talking. The atmosphere was creatively charged, and it brought me back to my days in Rome, sans Eduardo. I was having the time of my life.

  “He’s wild about you, Dyan! Anyone who’s around you both can tell.”

  Audrey Hepburn smiled, took a tiny sip of champagne, and toasted me. It was New Year’s Eve. I had joined Cary in Paris before Christmas, our first together. Audrey and I had clicked immediately and spent a lot of time together roaming the city, shopping, and chatting over coffee and croque-monsieurs. I adored her. I thought of her as the big sister I always wanted but never had. She was bighearted, warm, and maternal in every way. Now we were at the spacious house the studio had rented for Audrey and her husband, the actor Mel Ferrer, who had starred opposite her in War and Peace. They put on a spread worthy of a Russian czar. We started with shots of chilled vodka, then moved along to champagne. For dinner, there was a tin of beluga caviar the size of an oil drum, and the tiny, glistening beads were served on crisp potato skins as sheer as gossamer and dabbed with sour cream. The caviar was probably worth the gross national product of Portugal, but I could take it or leave it—the potato skins and sour cream were the pièce de résistance to my taste.

  After a midnight toast, I followed Audrey upstairs to the nursery, where we watched her son, Sean, while he slept.

  “Having a child is the most wonderful thing in the world,” Audrey said. “Do you want children, Dyan?”

  “A roomful,” I said.

  “Cary?”

  “I’ve been trying to smoke him out on the subject.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “So far, there’s no verdict.”

  “He’ll come around. Now that I’ve seen him with you, there’s not a doubt in my mind. The man’s in love.”

  I hoped she was right.

  The next day, New Year’s Day, Cary and I lolled around in the big bed, watching TV and snacking until the housekeeper served us the traditional English holiday feast of roasted goose. We were relaxed, sipping wine and enjoying the crackling logs in the dining room fireplace, when Cary suddenly put down his fork and knife, looked at me, and said, “Dyan, you have made me an extraordinarily happy man. I know this is going to be the best year ever. Thank you.”

  I was overcome. Making Cary happy was what I wanted more than anything. Making Cary happy made me happy.

  He gazed at me for a few moments and said, “Are you sure you really want to go on the road?”

  “What’s the alternative?” I asked.

  He sighed and went back to his dinner. I wanted to shake him.

  January 4, the day before I went back to New York, was my birthday, but Cary was so busy that I didn’t want to drop anything else on his plate, so I didn’t say anything. It would’ve been the first birthday I’d celebrated with him, but there was really too much going on.

  I left the next day, feeling a pang of longing for him before I even got on the plane. Parting was agonizing for both of us, and this good-bye was the worst yet. In a few days, I’d be on the road with the cast and crew of How to Succeed for a solid year, and we knew that we wouldn’t be together very much in the months to come. We were both anxious about the separation. Had I made the wrong decision?

  Cary sent a telegram the morning after I got to New York: “Silly Child! How is it that you are there and I am here? . . . and why didn’t you tell me yesterday was your special day? Silly Child. Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday, Dear Beautiful Girl. You are missed. Love, Cary.”

  The next week, we hit the road and I was doing what I felt I was born to do: acting, dancing, singing, and entertaining people. The road was a magical thing, but it could turn on you if you didn’t take care of yourself. I loved the lights, the audiences, and the excitement, but even though I rarely had a moment to myself, it could be lonely. Having Bangs with me was a saving grace, but Bangs minus Cary . . . our family wasn’t complete.

  Cary must have sensed this because he churned out letters with fierce intensity, writing at least once a day, sometimes twice. He was still in France, where he was now shooting Charade, and I savored his letters, word by word. I wasn’t as good about writing as Cary was, but he was understanding about it. “Don’t worry about writing,” he said in one of his letters, “whether you do or not—daily; if you do you do, if you don’t you don’t. It should not become a duty—unless pleasurable. It’s a joy for me because it fills the moments that I’m without your company.”

  In his letters, his English stiff upper lip softened and he expressed many things that he kept hidden when I was with him: loneliness, sadness, wistfulness . . . illness, even.

  Your notes keep me happier than I would otherwise feel. Thank you. The countryside all around—is snow covered—icicle-hung and mysterious—but my rooms are warm and I must take advantage of this quietude, and day without filming, to write. I think of you throughout . . .

  At this precise moment life is a dreary business—I’ve been awake most of the night—acheing (that’s ACHEING) after days of fight scenes which will take at least a minute of film . . . And there’s my aching heart too. In ten days only one letter—your first from Cleveland on arrival there . . . yesterday when I arrived at the studio eager and certain—I couldn’t believe the nothing that was before my eyes on the desk top—and then, still, none again at evening’s delivery. It is early, nine a.m., and I am going to the studio to loop—there must be a letter—I’m dispirited enough. Please undispirit me. Love C

  Dyan—If I’m not writing much these days, it’s not because you didn’t cross my mind . . . for actually you don’t CROSS my mind . . . you’re THERE . . . IN it . . . So long!

  YOU’re THE girl.

  Cary

  A telegram from Rene, Cary’s driver in France:

  NO LETTER FROM YOU MR. GRANT WORRY PLEASE WRITE SOON

  RENE.

  Later, in another letter, while we were playing in Columbus, Ohio, he wrote: “I hope you like Columbus—he discovered America. I discovered you. And you UNcovered me . . . and I’m not a bit cold. I like it I like it.”

  My schedule made it hard for me to write consistently. Once Cary had gotten back to Los Angeles, I wrote notes in batches and sent them to Dorothy, Cary’s secretary, and Helen, the maid, with instructions to place them strategically around the house: in the refrigerator, taped to the bathroom mirror, or on the TV set, even on his pillow. I wanted him to feel my presence, and he’d call overwhelmed with delight whenever he found one, which was just about daily.

  There were always a lot of guys buzzing around the production. When you’re in the spotlight, people project their fantasies onto you. Many men sent me flowers many nights, made backstage visits, and asked for dates. The attention was fun, but I always made it clear that I wasn’t available. Cary was still my emotional center of gravity and that helped me stay focused amidst the flurry of dinner and party invitations.

  Because of the time difference, it was hard for us to talk regularly while Cary was in France, but when he got back to L.A. to do post-production work, we talked nightly. During the week, the cast would usually stay out late after the show, but I frequently found myself heading back to the hotel for Cary’s calls. I really looked forward to our talks—they’d run two or three hours, and his long-distance bill must’ve been staggering—but sometimes I felt a little hemmed in. I did find myself having to reassure him that I wasn’t about to have a fling with anyone. How could he possibly imagine that I would have an affair when he was my all in all? But then, I had flashes of insecurity about what he was up to without me around. But not for long.

  On top of the calls, he continued to write. In one letter: “Thank you for going home each night—for t
he reassurance and confidence it gives me—far beyond these words that cannot fully express my gratitude . . .”

  “I haven’t an interesting or amusing thought in my head at the moment,” he wrote in another letter. “[T]he only thing I can think of saying is what is foremost in my mind: I miss you.”

  When Cary finished post-production on the film, he’d fly out on Friday afternoons to be with me wherever I was—Rochester, Cleveland, or Cincinnati—and we’d spend the weekend snuggled up in the hotel room, relaxing and ordering room service.

  After a couple of months, the show hit the West Coast. Cary came to San Francisco for the weekend, where we were settling in for a two-month run. My mother and grandmother—we called her “Bobbie,” which was our version of “bubbe,” the Yiddish word for “grandmother”—had flown down for the show, too. The second I stepped onto the stage, Bobbie stood up from her fifth-row seat and yelled, “Hello, dahlink! How are you? You look bee-yoo-ti-full!”

  The audience roared with laughter, and the performance ground to a halt. One thing I’d learned in theater is that when the unexpected happens, just go with it. “Hello, Bobbie!” I called out. “Do you and Mom like your seats?”

  “The best seats in the house!” she hollered. “And the play, very nice—so far.”

  The audience roared again. My mother tugged at Bobbie’s elbow and gently pulled her back into her seat. Fred Lerner, the conductor, cued the orchestra and got the show rolling again.

  Afterward, Cary and I took Bobbie and my mother out to a late dinner and showed them some of the sights. It was the first time either of them had met Cary, and they were charmed but maintained a stance of quiet observation. Cary raised a toast: “To the three most beautiful women in the world!”

  Mother and I clinked glasses, but not Bobbie. She looked Cary straight in the eye. “So you like my granddaughter,” she said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “More than words can say,” Cary replied, amused.

  “Nuthink wrong with words,” said Bobbie. She pointed a finger at Cary. “How much you like my granddaughter?” Then she pointed to my mother. “My daughter wants to know.”

  Cary smiled at Bobbie and then looked directly at my mother. “I love your daughter,” he said, and leaning toward Bobbie, took her hand and kissed her on the cheek.

  They were both happily exhausted by the time we returned to the hotel. I walked them to their room. As I was saying good night, Bobbie took my hand and squeezed it. “Be careful with your heart, dahlink,” she said.

  “I love you with all of it, Bobbie.”

  That was the last time I saw her alive.

  Bobbie and my mother left San Francisco Monday, but Cary stayed on for a couple more days. The show was dark on Mondays, and that particular day, I joined the cast for a photo shoot for the San Francisco Chronicle. When I got back to Cary’s suite I found him having lunch with none other than Dr. Timothy Leary, who was already well-known and controversial for his evangelizing about the incredible benefits of LSD. Cary was pointedly casual in the way he introduced us, as if major countercultural figures like Leary were bobbing around everywhere. I sensed I was being set up; Cary had been hinting about how great it would be if I joined his cosmic exploration by dropping acid.

  So it was obvious that the good doctor’s visit was hardly coincidental. I didn’t mind, though. Timothy was quite a striking man, both in appearance and personality, and his intelligence blazed like a klieg light, though he softened it with old-fashioned, courtly manners and understated charm. We chatted for a few minutes, and Timothy asked some questions about my acting—maybe that was just the windup for what was to come, but he was disarmingly sincere in everything he said.

  Then Cary steered the conversation to psychedelic experiences.

  “I think Dyan would benefit enormously from it,” Cary said. “But she’s a little apprehensive.”

  “Anybody with any sense would be,” Timothy said, making his point with a chicken drumstick. I could tell he enjoyed eating as much as Cary. “It’s a powerful energy form. But if you have the proper respect for it, it’ll change your world.”

  “It changed my world,” Cary said. “It brought me closer to God.”

  “I just don’t see how taking a drug can bring anyone closer to God,” I said. And I didn’t. It just seemed very counterintuitive. But it was an interesting conversation. Cary was one of the most thoughtful and intelligent men I knew, and if he found something in it, I was happy to listen.

  “It’s not a drug,” Timothy said. “It’s a chemical.”

  “But if it brings you closer to God, why do you need a tranquilizer to bring you down?” I asked.

  “It’s a matter of energy management,” Tim said. “We’re the pioneers. As time goes on, we’ll refine the method. You see, we use drugs for one of two reasons: either to put us in a nice, cozy stupor or to wake us up. LSD, though, is a chemical that contains the equivalent of about several hundred Encyclopaedia Britannicas . . . Cary, save that last shrimp for—oh, too late.”

  Timothy went on laying out the case for LSD as a wonder drug—oh, make that chemical. When it was in your brain, he said, time evaporated. Colors and forms continually morphed into different colors and forms, dancing to the rhythmic pulsation of the heart. “Our brains are constantly in direct contact with our cells and our tissues, and when you take LSD, it’s like plunging through the barrel of a microscope and swimming with your own cells!” he said.

  He lost me there. I didn’t want to go swimming with my own cells or anybody else’s.

  Cary didn’t find that notion any more appealing than I did. So he flashed a sort of yellow caution sign. He didn’t want Timothy freaking me out by going too far. Timothy got the signal and shifted emphasis.

  “And it’ll enhance any relationship with another person,” he said. “Especially the people you are closest to. It tears down the walls that divide us from each other.”

  At this Cary nodded approvingly.

  I had to admit I was impressed by the utter sincerity with which they both made their case. Timothy had the conviction that LSD was a spaceship to utopia. When my tutorial was over, I was starting to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I was open to anything that could tear down any wall between Cary and me and meld us into one person.

  Still, somewhere deep inside, a little voice was stubbornly crying, “Danger, Dyan! Danger!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Middle Finger

  The show’s next stop was Los Angeles, which for me was the best of all worlds. I was working and I was spending time with Cary and catching up with my friends. I had a great two months. Cary and I met up for an occasional lunch, went to dinner on nights when the theater was dark, relaxed at his house, and even made it to Palm Springs a couple of times. Being on the road, I’d let go and stopped worrying about what the future held. Still, at the end of two months, it was painful to say “see you later.”

  The next stop for How to Succeed was Chicago. About six weeks into the run, one of my fellow actors barged into the dressing room I shared with several other women, enraged that he’d been upstaged again. It was about the hundredth time we’d all heard this rant, and here he was again, practically foaming at the mouth. “We’re not having this conversation again,” I said calmly. “Please . . .” I held the door open for him, with the obvious intention of shutting it behind him. My right hand was on the knob and the fingers of my left curved around the edge of the door. But psycho diva wasn’t going peacefully, and to make his point, he flung the door shut with angry vigor. My grip was tight enough that the force took my hand with it, and my middle finger got caught when the door slammed into the frame, just catching the tip. The room fell silent, and the actor stood there red faced and panting with fury. Then one of my dancer friends shrieked and pointed to the floor. “Oh my God! Dyan, is that the end of your finger?” I looked down and, sure enough, saw a piece of my finger lying on the floor like a piece of chicken gristle. Now I no
ticed that the tip of my finger was spurting blood. Strangely, I didn’t feel a thing . . .

  Until a minute later when a shock of pain tore up my arm from the mutilated finger. By now the others were kneeling in a circle around my lost fingertip. One had a cup of ice. “Go ahead, pick it up!” “Maybe they can sew it back on!” “No, I don’t want to ruin it!” “It’s already ruined!” “No, you pick it up.”

  The next thing I knew, I was in the car with the stage director on my way to the emergency room. They stitched it up and we left. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t think it was all that serious.

  The next morning, though, my hand had swollen to the size of a cantaloupe—a blue cantaloupe. And it throbbed so hard I could almost hear it. I took a cab back to the hospital. The ER doctor admitted me immediately.

  When the doctor on call came into my room, my jaw dropped. He was drop-dead gorgeous. So gorgeous I actually forgot about my hand for a moment. He touched his fingers to my forehead and smiled right into my eyes.

  “Don’t tell me: you were in a fistfight,” he said with a laugh.

  “Yeah, but I went down swinging!” I replied.

  He examined my hand. “What’s your diagnosis?” I asked.

  “In medical lingo, we call this a complete mess.”

  I laughed.

  “Keep your sense of humor, but don’t take this lightly, Miss Cannon. Can I call you Dyan?”

  “Yes, Doctor!”

  “I’m Dr. Steve Mandell. But you can call me Dr. Steve. You’ll be fine as long as you do as I tell you. This really has to be cared for properly or it could turn gangrenous. And I’d really hate to see a beautiful gal like you turn green from head to toe.”

  “Oy. So what do I have to do?”

  “Nothing, for a few days. You’re staying put here. We’ll do the rest.”

  “I have to stay? I’m in a play!”

  “Then this is a great day for your understudy. It’s not negotiable, Dyan. I don’t want to go to the theater a year from now and see you playing Captain Hook. So relax. Watch TV, read, and enjoy our exquisite hospital cuisine. You’re going to be here for a little while.”