by Anne Edwards
When he was fourteen he took the $35 he had earned working in an appliance store near the small DeVinko house and bought an upright piano with fourteen broken keys. His father forbade him to bring it into the house, but his sister spoke up in his defense. All the living-room furniture had to be crowded together to make room for it. The piano was impossible to play in the condition it was in. Deans, therefore, went to a professional tuner and talked him into allowing him to apprentice until he could learn how to fix and tune the old upright himself, continuing to work afternoons and weekends to pay for classical lessons and for a television set. He deemed the set an important addition to his training, studying the performers on the small screen as assiduously as he had observed the piano tuner. Ethel had done much the same thing in that old movie house in Grand Rapids.
By sixteen he felt he could make it on his own in the jazz world, left home, and began a long line of small-time club “gigs”—Club Lee in Fort Lee, New Jersey; the Jungle Club in Union City; The Tender Trap in Fairview. It was a nomadic, nighttime world. He was young and ambitious and tough enough not to care what was happening around him or to him if it meant steamrolling himself to his final goal: a club date in New York. People moved into and out of his life, but he had learned how to chop things off, how to keep his eye leveled on the main goal.
Then came Jilly’s. He got his first close-up view of the “big-timers.” They came while he played and talked through his sets and never really saw him through the dense clouds of cigarette smoke. He knew club playing was not what he wanted. He had to be out front, where the action was—where the stars were.
From Jilly’s he went to the Tenement in New York, then traveled out to Harold’s Club in Reno, Nevada, hating what he was doing; feeling servile (“Play ‘Melancholy Baby’”), rootless, losing back his pay to the casinos where he was the “bar pianist.” The years passed. He wasn’t sure how he was going to do it, but he was determined to make a pitch for the “big time.”
He had heard about Judy Garland, seen a concert of hers in Newark, New Jersey; but her music had not reached him. He was still very much a part of the jazz world. When he thought about her, it was in neons. He admired her star status and understood her use of pills. He took them himself—“ups” to keep him going, “downs” to sleep, both together for a buzz; but he could do without them, too.
No photographs of him in the late sixties do him justice. They are static, and Deans never was. Not handsome in the general sense, he had incredible charm, a disarming boyishness for one so worldly, a strange symphysis of audacity, youth, and humility. Slim and vital, he stood in attitudes and gestured extravagantly. His eyes would dart, a smile break open his face; his laugh would roll out unrestrained, uninhibited. He paced a lot, drummed his fingers on static surfaces, doodled whenever he had pencil and paper, and used his hands whenever he spoke (language coming from him rat-a-tat-tat; ideas, words shot out before being carefully aimed). His voice was deep-timbred, words were mumbled or jumbled, but the flow did not stop. Occasionally he would sing at the piano in an untrained voice, surprising his audience with an innate and creative sense of phrasing. He was natively intelligent, alarmingly sensitive, deeply emotional—the emotion playing hide-and-seek with the laughter revealed in his dark, rather myopic eyes. He had all the appearance of a downhill racer trying with all his lifetime experience to avoid a dangerous and sudden stop. As he reminded Judy so strongly of Frank Gumm, perhaps one can visualize through Deans a clearer picture of Judy’s father fantasy.
When Sybil Burton opened Arthur, her idea was to create a club where performers, the famous, and the infamous would have a sense of “grooving.” The decision was made to use young actors and musicians who wanted to be seen—as waiters.
Deans started as a captain and then became Night Manager. He liked the role, and found being on social terms with the star clientele exciting.
If Judy had blocked out the “pill meeting,” Deans had not. What had remained in his mind from that night at Judy’s hotel was Lorna. “Are you all right here alone with your mother?” he recalls asking her. “I’m fine,” she replied grimly. There had been something painful in her face, he says; something old, yet still vulnerable in her straight and honest returning glance. It had made him feel sick, and he was glad when he reached the fresh air. He knew without questioning further that there had been many other semidark, middle-of-the-night strangers with pills; that the youngster had protected and cared for a “stoned-out” mother many, many times, knew the symptoms, helped in finding the cure. And there was her “wise mother” protection of the little boy. He was aware that Lorna had been playing this role from the age of no more than eight or nine. For all those years since then, Lorna had been a firsthand “attender” to her mother’s deep needs.
After that evening when they had talked until four in the morning at Arthur, Judy had sent Deans tickets to see her at the Palace. He had attended; joked with Bobby Cole, who was a friend of his; but had not gone backstage to see Judy. She had come into the club a few times. Each time he had sat with her. Until her return from Boston they had not spent any time privately together. He was still involved in another relationship, but now she began to frequent the club, and Judy would say, as she did in her concerts, “I don’t ever want to go home, do you?” They’d have breakfast together, would go shopping at five in the morning, and Judy, tiny as she was, would sit in the basket and Deans would push her around the all-night market, neither of them caring what anyone else thought.
Judy began to feel very secure. She saw Deans mostly at Arthur while he was at work and in command, greeting customers, handling crises, attending to her needs. She felt he was strong, and she liked the feeling of power he exuded. He did nothing to control her pill intake, but he did get her to eat, to sleep, to push aside terror. She was depending upon him a lot; she found he was a good musician, knew about lighting, had good taste in clothes, was tough, ambitious and audacious, and possessed the natural instincts of an entrepreneur. She told someone there was a bit of Mike Todd about him. There was, as well, a bit of Sid Luft.
The phenomenon of Arthur was beginning to run its course. Everyone with an interest in the club began to blame the others, but the truth was that the parade had simply passed it by. The party was over, and yet all of Deans’s efforts went into an attempt to keep it going. At the same time, he was seeing more and more of Judy; becoming more and more enmeshed in her world, her life; trying to help her at least get back on her feet. He was with her when she appeared on the Merv GrifEn show (as was Margaret Hamilton, the witch in Oz and her old “friend”), the Johnny Carson show as well. He felt she could come back, could even make it financially big again. He was enough of a musician to also realize her voice and endurance were shaky, but astute enough to be aware that the ring of stardom to her name could allow her to cash in on side benefits. It was these side benefits—ventures in which her name would sell a product—that he believed would bring her back into the big chips. He had an idea for miniaturized cinemas to be called The Judy Garland Theaters: that was a first step.
She signed a new contract for recording and was offered a month’s engagement at the first-class theater restaurant The Talk of the Town in London. She had told him nothing about the Group V Ltd. assignment, and so he convinced her she should take it, but Luft had her musical arrangements and refused to release them without a sizable figure’s being paid for them. Deans told her to “tell Luft to fuck it! I’ll get you new arrangements.”
It led to her hopefully suggesting he accompany her to London and help her organize the show. They were in Arthur. It was four in the morning. The place reeked of stale liquor and burnt-out cigarettes. It was time to close up, go home; but neither really had a home to go to—for Judy was staying at a hotel, and Deans, up until that time, still shared an apartment, not having yet been able to break off his long-standing old relationship.
“I suppose it would make more sense if we were married,” Deans says he told her. It
was a curious proposal.
“You better not be kidding,” he reports Judy replied.
“I’m not kidding,” Deans assured her, and on December 28, 1968, they left New York together on a London-bound flight, not knowing exactly what they had to do to get married, since Deans was a Catholic and Judy was divorced from Luft and not sure of her marital status with Mark Herron. The only thing Judy was sure of was that she felt alive and loved and hopeful with Deans. He helped her to forget the bad things and remember the good. She clung desperately to his arm as they climbed aboard their flight. They traveled first-class, VIP. Deans had arranged it. He held her in his arms as the plane lifted off the ground. It was the first time in her life that she had not been afraid of flying.
Part Five
I’ve been around and seen the sights
And of this I’m sure
Yes, you’re the one
I’ve waited for.
You’ll be the one to last
I’ve had this feeling
Once on thin ice
But that’s over, the past
Then was then
And Now is now
For you’ll be the one to last
I’ve tried before
I’ll try no more
No need to try again
You were the one worth waiting for
I’ve found my where and when . ..
Unfinished lyrics
By Judy Garland
Written January 1969
38The plane nosed down through thick patches of fog, landing smoothly on a brightly lit runway at Heathrow Airport. A foggy London morning awaited them. More ominously, though, as Judy and Deans walked from the customs hall, they were greeted by Keith Cockerton, a private detective representing solicitors Lawford & Co. Mr. Cockerton handed Judy a writ claiming that Harper & Greenspan now owned exclusive use of her services and that an application for an injunction had been filed to restrain her from opening at The Talk of The Town two days later (Monday, December 30,1968).
Judy, defying Luft and disregarding any contractual agreement with Group V, had signed two contracts—one with Raymond Nesbitt of Theatre Restaurants, Ltd., for her appearances at The Talk of The Town; the other with Blue Records, Inc., for an album that was to be cut in the spring of 1969 (for this she received a $1,000 advance payable directly to her)—using John Meyer’s New York address as her mailing address. The vultures were now hovering for the feed.
The law firm of Lawford & Co., acting on behalf of Harper & Greenspan, had, in fact, delivered by hand to Nesbitt on the twenty-fourth of December a letter setting forth the legal situation between Group V and its client, closing the letter with the following paragraph:
We must ask you to undertake not to engage Miss Garland as arranged. Failing such an undertaking from you before 10 A.M., Friday, December 27th, we shall apply to the Vacation Judge for an injunction restraining you and Miss Garland in the show “Fine Feathers”, or indeed in any other show without our clients’ prior consent. To protect our clients’ position we have already taken an appointment with the Vacation Judge (Mr. Justice Magarry) for 2:15 p.m. on Friday, 27th December. For the same reason we are immediately issuing a writ which we will endeavour to serve on you later today.
Yours faithfully,
Lawford & Co.
Nesbitt and his associate Bernard Delfont, having consulted their solicitors, Paisner & Co., and believing Harper & Greenspan had no legal case to restrain Judy from working in England, elected to reject Lawford & Co/s warning and to back Judy against Harper & Greenspan in the court action—rescheduled for December 30 when it was made known that Judy would not arrive until December 28.
The writ was a shock to Judy. She should, of course, have sought out legal counsel in New York when she first found out about the Group V assignment. However, with the same kind of naivete that guided almost all her actions, she had assumed that a legal document drawn in the United States would not be binding in England. The limousine ride with Deans to the Ritz, where they were to stay was, therefore, not the joyous experience she had hoped it would be. She had been looking forward to their arrival in London, wanting to share with Deans her great love of London, wanting him to see it through her eyes and fond experiences.
As Judy was awed by authority and greatly intimidated by her own deep sense of guilt, the thought of a court appearance terrified her more than it was possible to imagine. She felt “on trial”; and the guilt she suffered from her addiction to the pills; the fact that Deans, not Joey and Lorna, sat next to her in the car; the fact that Ethel had died alone—one could travel far back into her past on her private guilts—all seemed to be evidence against her. She clung to Deans in the back seat of the luxurious car, begging him to reassure her that everything would be all right—which he attempted to do.
When they arrived at the cold, gray stone facade of the grand old Ritz Hotel, the manager stood in the lobby awaiting their arrival. When he saw her come through the revolving doors with Deans, he started down the lobby steps to greet them. For a brief moment his English reserve slipped, for he was unprepared for “the incredibly tiny, birdlike creature, huge floppy hat dwarfing her tiny face, short skirt exposing toothpick legs.” Yet as she entered, gripping her companion’s arm as though unable to navigate otherwise, he had known that it was, indeed, the legendary Garland. She had thrown her head back to glance up at him over the top of the massive staircase that rose from the entrance to the lobby. There had been a gesture, the wide eyes, a familiar laugh. He rushed to greet her and welcome her back to the Ritz. Then he led her up the staircase and across the impressive expanse of the lobby, past the spectacular circular staircase that rises above the cavernous center well, to the lifts, continuing up with them to the fourth floor, where they were to occupy one of the two best suites in the hotel.
Deans was outwardly impressed with the hotel, the suite, the personal service, but to Judy it was another suite in still another hotel, and after the manager had left, she complained that there was nothing more depressing than “old grandeur"—everything seeming shaded, tainted, much used, and almost dingy to her. To compound the nervousness caused by the impending court action, she confessed that she could not control her feeling of “shabbiness” when the manager had shown them into the suite, knowing they were unmarried and would be living there together.
However, the suite contained two bedrooms, a huge white-tiled bathroom, and a commodious sitting room. The large bedroom (Judy used the smaller one for a dressing room) overlooked Piccadilly, as did the sitting room, and all the sounds of midday London could be heard through the sealed windows. If Judy had seemed overpowered in the huge lobby of the hotel, she must have appeared to be a shrunken “Alice Through the Looking Glass” in that bedroom. The room was fourteen feet tall, painted entirely in white, with great, ceiling-high mirrors lining one entire wall; a cavernous fireplace, unused for years, along another wall, over which hung a gargantuan gilt-framed mirror. The furniture was all antique white, and on the polished wide-planked floors was an antique, but once elegant, red Persian rug.
Those beds—they were the first thing that had caught Judy’s eye as she entered the suite with the master-bedroom door standing open off the entranceway. They were the highest, largest beds she had ever seen, making it impossible for her to get into one without jumping up, as a child might do. The massive brass frames were cold to the touch, and the great faded rose satin quilt slippery.
Deans remembers Judy that day sitting rather stiffly on the sitting room’s most elegant unyielding antiquity: a rigid well-preserved Regency sofa that faced still another bank of mirrors, still another open, unused fireplace; looking around her.
“We’ll be married very soon?” he says she asked him.
“Monday, if British law permits,” he assured her.
That was December 30, the same day she was to go to court to answer the restraining writ. Deans got busy on the telephone. Plans were made first with Paisner & Co., who were repres
enting Nesbitt, to represent her interests as well. She was asked to make a legal deposition in the presence of the Court Recorder, which she did.
His Lordship, Mr. Justice Magarry, was a well-seasoned and peppery man of few words and fast actions. As evidence he had the writ, Judy’s deposition, The Group V Ltd. contract, the Group V Ltd. assignment and the promissory note Filliberti had given Harper & Greenspan. After listening to both sides and giving long consideration to the evidence he had in hand, His Lordship glanced down from the bench and in a voice edged with both amazement and disdain declared in no uncertain terms, “This transaction is one which I would not enjoin a dog,” caustically adding, “Certainly, I would not enjoin Miss Garland.”
Then he dismissed the case, but not before publicly reprimanding all those in the action who had attempted “to use the courts to implement their own base activities” and making Harper & Greenspan responsible for the sizable court costs of about £1,000 (approximately $2,600 at that time). The plaintiffs (Harper & Greenspan) had the right to appeal against the decision and, winning that, could seek an order for a speedy trial. But as Paisner & Co. explained to Judy, it was unlikely, owing to:
1. The time factor; all that would take more than the five weeks of her engagement with The Talk of The Town, allowing her to complete the appearance without interruption.
2. The question of costs; since the plaintiffs lived outside the jurisdiction of the English courts, the Court was entitled to ask for an order that they must lodge funds or provide security for the likely costs of the action. (Paisner & Co. immediately made application for such an order.)
3. The attitude of the British court; the fact that the judgment against the plaintiffs had been a very strong one based very much on matter of law, rather than on evidence, would make it a very difficult task for the plaintiffs to persuade a court of appeal to rule in their favor.