Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me...

by Stevie Phillips

  When the contracts were completed, they were sent to the promoters for signature. Upon their return, they would be presented to David for his countersignature. Many had already been signed and returned to us by the promoters. We were awaiting just a few more when Tony came to my office with the bad news: David was canceling the tour. I was practically speechless (I am never entirely speechless). I knew I was hearing straight talk. Tony DeFries was neither a drama queen nor a kidder. I still think of him as a businessman with an edge. He was all business now. He didn’t waste any words: “I couldn’t change his mind. He will not do it. I suggest you talk to him yourself. He’s at the Beverly Wilshire.”

  It was already late in the afternoon, but I could still make one of the nonstops to Los Angeles at 6:00 p.m. if I left immediately, forgoing luggage and any other preparation. Screw what was on my desk—the unreturned phone calls, the other important deals. Screw it all. I told the head of music about the mess we were in. I told my secretary to get me a plane reservation. I told Tony to tell David Bowie I would knock on his door the next morning promptly at ten, and I was out of there. I had to succeed or the music department would fall off a cliff.

  At the appointed hour, I was standing in front of Bowie’s door at the Wilshire. I was shown into the living room of a suite decorated in some ersatz French Provincial style that was warm and welcoming. David was warm and welcoming too, but not to me. To the guy on the couch! He was sitting on the lap of an attractive black man, and they were in a lip-lock. They were both fully dressed, and I’m not at all sure what was going on between them as their lips remained sealed—to each other’s.

  “Excuse me, David. We need to talk.” The lip-lock remained unbroken. Was this how I was going to have to talk to him? I figured it was (going over to the couch and pulling the two men apart didn’t seem a viable option). So I made up my mind that despite what I was seeing I had David’s attention, and who knows? Maybe I did. I barreled ahead, starting with a boring logical approach. “David, canceling this tour is a very bad career move. The promoters aren’t going to sit still for it; they will all sue you.” On and on I went for at least ten boring minutes. No response. What to do next? I hadn’t a clue.

  “David, talk to me. I flew all the way out here to see you, to talk some sense into you. At the very least, kindly acknowledge that I am here in this room.” A no-change case! Neither man had moved nor changed positions even once. I was looking at a tableau, statue-like, a beautiful contrast in colors. David, whitish skin, strawberry-blond hair, pale-blue suit; the other man, a light-skinned black, white shirt and dark-brown suit. I was looking at a beautiful blend—at my undoing. My exasperation—nay, my desperation—was growing. What now? I tried reciting Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.” Bowie was English, after all:

  ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

  All mimsy were the borogoves,

  And the mome raths outgrabe.

  “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

  Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

  The frumious Bandersnatch!”

  But then, when I looked over at the couch, nobody had moved an inch. I was riveted. I stared for a while. And then I went on to gibberish of the sensible kind.

  “You know, David, something’s definitely wrong with my life. Can you tell me, please, what it is? Where did I go wrong? Where did I take the bad turn in the road?”

  By that time I was getting up in the wrinkled clothes I’d been wearing for the last twenty-four hours, and within a minute I was out the door. I wanted to peek through a keyhole to see what happened next inside, but no keyhole, so I moved on. What were my options? The way I saw it, I had only one: Go back to New York. Face the music. Only there would be no music. Had I been closer to David, perhaps I could have had a real conversation, but I doubt it. Their tableau had been too carefully thought out. There would be no music.

  *

  On the plane ride home I had a revelation. I started to believe that I’d been witness to a well-staged event. David knew I would come to California and attempt to talk to him. He would not refuse to see me; he was a polite, kind man. So he had arranged a setting in which he could be present and yet not respond. Call it a happening.

  I decided I should be amused. I liked him. He also knew that by canceling he was putting me in a spot you couldn’t sell to a leopard. Why would he do that? The answer has to be that he had his reasons, and I will never know what they were. And could he even explain his reasons to me? I was not a Martian. I would not understand, and he found an amusing way to avoid having to explain. Who would think of such a thing? Not I. But then I would never have convinced the world that I was a hermaphrodite, or that I had come from another planet.

  By the time we were flying over Chicago I began to realize that David would not cancel the tour because it wouldn’t simply ruin his career, it would end it. I reckoned he must have figured that out. He could, however, postpone the tour. That could make some kind of sense. If something important to him intruded on the dates originally scheduled, a postponement might be the solution. But he had not suggested the P word, and therefore he didn’t have to defend it. The idea became mine, and I thought I could make it work. Promoters weren’t in the business of suing big singing stars; they depended on them.

  I decided over Chicago not even to try making sense of what had happened, but simply to go for the postponement and see if it could fly. I instructed the guys in the music department to come up with some new dates, ones that everyone could live with, and we would be home free. Why wasn’t I smart enough to think of this before I left New York? For me, smart has always taken time. One plane ride does not smart make. I’m a little slow. Two plane rides—and I finally figured it out. Postponement worked like a charm. The tour was a mind-blowing success. His audiences were beyond thrilled—transported, I would say.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Fun in the Sun

  My mother and father were gone. My husband too. Judy gone. All within a stunningly short period of time, from 1968 to 1972. Time to move on. As the seventies opened, women’s lib was in full flower, and I found myself marching in the feminist parade in DC with tens of thousands of other women supporting the ERA. Additionally, although I did not have a high profile like Jane Fonda, Judy Collins, or Joan Baez—politicized entertainers whom I admired enormously—I got on my own soapbox and protested the war in Vietnam whenever and wherever I could.

  To F&D it looked as if I had suddenly emerged from solitary and discovered a great big new world outside. In truth my political awakening was not an overnight thing. It was very gradual. As the world of show business grew smaller to me, the world outside grew larger.

  Of course feminism was an issue that had always been knocking on my office door, and I was determined to take care of number one. But also, as a true believer, I grew ready to run my bra up the flagpole if that became necessary to get equal rights and equal pay for all women. I championed the campaign and, as an activist, launched a small, one-woman campaign of my own.

  I looked into the plummy old Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel—up until then totally a men’s preserve—and decided it would be a lovely, and very convenient place to take clients for lunch. But management at the Plaza did not agree. However, the air was redolent with a make-it-happen attitude. Customs mired in the moss of old times were piling up in garbage bins. Customs at the Plaza needed updating.

  Having made up my mind to persuade the management to take a view more consistent with changing times, I sat cross-legged outside the room at lunch and gave them the option to carry me out or allow women in. The assistant manager at the front desk wisely chose the latter after only one day of arguing and one day of begging me to leave. It was a small and short-lived campaign, such as it was.

  But everything else was not that easy. Liza was not. She had started drinking, and rumors were swirling that she was doing cocaine. What
I witnessed, however, was mild. Li ordered rum and Coca-Cola when we were together. It seemed harmless to me. I think she was mindful of the issue I made of addiction, and I did talk about it, but because I never saw anything much, it was easy for me to be in denial about her drugs. I refused to believe that this girl who wouldn’t take so much as an aspirin when we first met, this daughter who at first hand had witnessed her mother’s demise, would go the same route. But I was so wrong.

  Reality may have been exactly the opposite; because she was Judy’s daughter, she, too, became an addict. Was it genetic? So far as I know, nobody has yet found the gene for it. One hears that children of alcoholics are far more likely than other children to become alcoholics, but I don’t know the answer. I hated when it happened; that I know for sure. I thought about how Judy might have helped Liza with her addiction.

  Was there anything I could have done? Not that I ever was able to do anything for Judy. I have long since learned that only Liza could help Liza. I learned it the hard way when I discovered that supporting her addiction was more important than anyone in her life, including me.

  *

  Meanwhile, Liza kept on keeping on. She was my special province. No doubt I gave her much attention at the expense of others. But for me money was always a big part of the picture, hers and mine. I wanted Li to be wealthy. I didn’t want her ever to have her mother’s financial problems. And, at the same time, pressure from the agency was always present; I had to justify my own growing income.

  And so when Li did big-money engagements in which part of the contract was a percentage of the gate, I was always present for her in the count-up room to make sure that she was never cheated. I counted the money along with the promoter. No one was going to tell me there was deadwood (unsold seats) because I checked out the hall at every concert, making sure members of the audience were taking their seats with actual tickets. No one was going to beef up the crew list, adding names of people that hadn’t worked on the show. I was supercareful. The music business has always found a way to attract smarmy characters with their own accounting shortcuts and shifty tricks that deny performers.

  I’ll never forget the concert in Rhode Island where the foreman, during the count-up, insisted that there were forty guys on crew for the load-in … obviously a scheme he had gotten away with before. “Sorry, Charlie, there were only thirty. I was there. I have their names on this list,” I told him. But the foreman had a different list, the one in his head. “There were forty men, or your little girl is going to be dancing in the dark in less than a minute.” I called his bluff. He picked up the phone, and someone on the other end pulled the plug. All the lights in the arena went out. Liza was dancing on a pitch-black stage in a huge house without a single lit exit sign. Within seconds there would be panic. “You’re right,” I said, “there were indeed forty guys.” The lights came on, and I paid the extra ten men he was shaking me down for, knowing I would get the money back from the promoter if he wanted to work with the agency again, and the promoter might be able to discuss it with the union if indeed those rednecks would be working for him again.

  On the other hand, the promoter, too, might have been getting a kickback. So all bets were off. Time after time, in hall after hall, as I walked around, I found patrons in the audience taking their seats with pieces of paper instead of tickets. The real tickets would then be counted as “unsold,” thereby decreasing the amount Liza was paid. Not on my watch. The cheating that went down in those situations is legend, but Liza rarely lost while I was there.

  *

  Outside the United States we had some grand adventures together. Sometimes making good money wasn’t hard work. Marbella was one such case, and it provided comic relief. It started when my secretary buzzed me to say that a man from Spain was on the line with an offer for Liza to play Marbella. Not only hadn’t I heard of the man, I hadn’t heard of the place. “Tell him that Liza doesn’t play abroad except with known promoters, and when she does leave the U.S. all the money has to be deposited in a bank of our choice three months prior to the engagement.” Those demands were acceptable on the other end of the line. “Tell him that even if we decide to work with him we would need, as earnest money, at least half the negotiated price right now.” That turned out to be acceptable, too.

  Still not paying much attention, I casually said, “Tell him that Liza travels with her orchestra, and other personnel. We would need fifteen first-class airfares and as many hotel rooms, including two large suites.” I kept trying to end the conversation, but nothing was a problem for this Spanish stranger, according to my secretary, who came back to me within seconds. “He wants Liza for a three-night engagement.”

  “Tell him Liza gets a hundred thousand a night.” A conversation ender for sure! More than a million a night for some performers might be nothing now, but back then such an amount was unheard of. I was not eager to see Li go to Europe to play one lone-standing three-day engagement for some palooka I’d never heard of. If the offer carried any risk, there would have to be a big reward. Finished! I went back to shuffling the paperwork on my desk, but Joan got back to me again in practically no time at all.

  “He’s agreed to everything.”

  “Who is this guy?” I wondered, and I picked up the phone, suddenly willing to give him my full attention. Señor Banus introduced himself, and I asked him very specific questions about where Li would be playing. I had no reason to expect him to be a liar, and if the money showed up, well, it was thirty thousand dollars’ commission for five minutes of my time. Finding his replies satisfactory, I sorted out the final details. All the money and airline tickets came exactly when this caballero said they would. The contracts were signed, and on the appointed day, we were off. I wasn’t going to miss this one. Once I knew where Marbella was, the sunny south of Spain sounded just wonderful to me.

  *

  The rich and famous always find spectacular waterfront real estate with expansive views, sugar beaches, great food, and interesting activity before the rest of us. Would that I could have googled him; I might have found that Señor Banus was Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s right-hand man. The administration he served had treated him well, and now he was attempting to turn this paradise he’d earned into a first-class resort. He had the money for development; all he needed was a little publicity. He needed Liza. This is a measure of how important she was then: the Beyoncé of her time. Banus knew her endorsement could establish Marbella as a world-class watering hole.

  As things turned out, it was fortunate I’d tagged along, because when we got there I saw no hall, no arena, and I quickly found out there wasn’t even a small theater anywhere within a hundred miles: No place to play the date. Marbella, however, was exquisite. Sean Connery was looking very relaxed as he played golf on the beautiful links adjacent to the hotel. I noted a few shops and a disco opposite the marina, where a few smallish yachts nestled in the slips and beautiful people strolled around in expensive casual clothes. Not much else to see, but in whatever direction one looked, one saw the name “Banus.” It was emblazoned over every store, on every street sign, in big letters that welcomed the world to Marbella. Puerto Banus, Disco Banus, Banus shopping mall. B-A-N-U-S in bold letters everywhere. I developed an ardent curiosity about this man’s provenance. Everyone spoke in hushed tones. I couldn’t wait to meet him. He was standing by the door of Hotel Banus.

  Liza, tired from the trip, retired to her suite while I got the tour from the wealthy señor, a portly man not short on confidence. “About the hall, Señor—”

  “Every tree that you see had to be brought from my vineyards up north,” he told me, making a grand sweep with his arm over the tree-covered vista.

  “Excuse me, sir, where is the hall?”

  “It will be here,” he said, and then he went on about the future expansion and the new luxury shops that were coming soon.

  “What do you mean, ‘It will be here’? It is not here.”

  “Don’t worry, it is coming.”
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  “Huh?”

  “You must not worry. The hall will be here by tomorrow at two.” He was trying in his best English to give me every assurance, but it all sounded nuts to me. I immediately warned Liza something was funny, “But we have the money, all of it—every last dollar is in our hands! Let’s just wait to see what happens.” I wasn’t about to let Liza do a shoddy show.

  The next morning, a caravan that stretched back to the horizon descended on the golf course. The trucks carried risers, bandstands, generators, lights of all kinds, red velvet bunting, a piano—everything needed to create a stage out on the beautiful lawns. Peons by the dozens set about assembling all these pieces with a professionalism that would have embarrassed concert personnel back in the United States. It took but a few hours to complete the magnificent stage, and then, as a final gesture, they put a large trellis behind it that served as a cyclorama. The coup de grâce came when additional trucks laden with hundreds of thousands of roses arrived. The laborers threaded the roses through the trellis to provide the prettiest backdrop one could have wished for. Setting up stages in parks is commonplace today; back then it was almost unheard of.

  “But what about the audience, Señor Banus? There are no seats.”

  “I’m taking care of that now. You must not worry.” I then watched in mouth-dropping awe as employees from the hotel brought out a dozen large tables, all ten-tops, and set them with the finest gold-trimmed china and silver dinner service, adorned the tables with elegant centerpieces, and retired, only to be replaced by liveried servers and stylishly turned-out footmen. It was like a fairy tale. Actually it was a fairy tale, because for the next three nights Liza performed for almost all of the so-called royalty of Europe.

  Sr Banus and his portly wife—on whose ample bosom reposed some of the largest emeralds I’d ever seen—had the pleasure of escorting Liza around to meet all the invitees. We dined with princes and princesses, nightclubbed with queens and kings forgotten by history—all of whose names had at least five hyphenated parts—and discovered that not every titled individual was as scintillating as one would have imagined from their smiling faces in fashionable magazines devoted to the madcap life. Liza and I giggled a lot. She was on her best behavior, charming and willing to do for Banus what the Señor and his rotund wife wanted. The concert went off without a hitch. We were having a grand time.