Leaving Home

by Anne Edwards

  I was reading and rereading all the classic English novels I could manage with women as their main characters. I had met through the Adlers, Doris Cole Abrahams, an American woman and theater producer, married to a wealthy English businessman. She had a house in Worthing by the sea, and she lent it to me and the children to use during a school break. From the front windows was a view of the water—so different in color and nature than the ocean off Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles where my childhood friend Greta Markson and I used to bicycle to on Saturdays when we were in our teens. The water had huge crested waves that started far off at sea and rolled in with beautiful symmetry, all frosted and foaming onto the white sands of the beach. The sand at Worthing was composed of pebble rocks, and the sea, much less ebullient, was the color of twilight. It seemed this was the perfect place for me to go back to work on the novel. I wasn’t any more successful with the second go.

  Could be I was feeling homesick. More likely I was not yet comfortable in my current surroundings. I certainly was not longing for a particular place back in the States. There was nowhere that I could honestly call home. I had never given in to the kind of wanderlust that so many American writers of earlier periods had harbored. I was content for the time to be wherever fate had taken me and had made the best of it, found the things that would make it a special place for me. I was doing that in London, as well. Still, something deep in me was fighting its way out for air.

  • 4 •

  A Dream Is Born

  I am well trained at making order of my life once I have put a plan into action. At the moment I had no viable answer as to what I should do next; indecision made me nearly manic (or perhaps I already was!). Then Raymond called to say he would like me to remain in London another six months. Production on A Question of Adultery was delayed and he wished to engage me to work on a breakdown of The Angry Hills, a best-selling book by Leon Uris (author of Exodus), about the resistance forces in Greece during World War II. He was going to be in Hollywood for six to eight weeks to meet with studio heads and to hopefully sign some American stars to appear in both productions (the need of an American star on an Anglo-American film planned for release in the United States being of utmost importance). I could stay on at Albion Street at his company’s expense, and he would continue to pay me, in pounds, the diminished amount I was currently receiving. If I did not accept the offer, my funds would be cut off in a fortnight. Of course, I agreed. I had been handed another six-month reprieve and at least my rent would be paid.

  Things appeared to be looking up. Then, early one morning, the sky not yet having lost its darkness, I awoke feeling a terrible chill. I tried to rise from the bed but my legs refused to move. I recall struggling to lift them over the side and falling back onto the bed. I called out for help but the house was too solid for my shouts to reach the floors above or below. A telephone sat at my bedside table. I rang David with great apologies for the early hour, and he arrived in maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, aroused Mrs. Barnes with the sound of the doorbell, and moments later the two of them came bursting into the room. I still could not move my legs and I was taken by ambulance across Hyde Park to St. George’s Hospital.

  I received immediate attention and great care. None of the doctors were able to diagnose the cause of my sudden paralysis or if it was related to my early illness. One doctor thought it might have been brought on by an emotional upheaval. I insisted that I had been concerned about my situation (to stay in England or return to the States) but I did not think I was unduly disturbed (vastly untrue!). “The past might just now be catching up with you,” he told me and ordered an electric shock treatment which he said could affect my recent memory—but that it would return. At first I fought submitting to the treatment, but finally, after speaking with a psychiatrist, decided to go along with it. What I remember is the distinct smell of garlic—strong—like in highly seasoned cooking. For my safety, I was bound to a gurney. I understood why moments later for, once the electric currents began, I shook until I thought the gurney would overturn with me on it. The experience was so fraught with fear and repulsion that I refused further treatments and accepted the cost of the doctor who I had ordered to call my physician in Los Angeles for an overseas consultation, who thought it might be something newly named and seen to recently occur called post-polio syndrome.

  I was in the hospital for several weeks. Kit Adler stepped in to help with the children along with Fiona and Mrs. Barnes. By the time I came home, I was actually in better shape than I had been in many months. The most amazing part of the entire ordeal was that within six months I was able to walk without sticks. I felt like a suddenly freed prisoner. I had been able to do the work Raymond had engaged me to do and was looking forward to being a complete “me” again. To celebrate, one of the first things I did was to go shopping for a new dress. I taxied over to Sloane Street where there were some lovely shops. In the window on display was an emerald green, eye-catching evening gown, off the shoulder, wasp waist, full skirt. As my hair was dark auburn, the color had always been flattering to me, and the gown reminded me of that dress I had worn to my high school prom and had long ago discarded. I marched inside, tried it on, and purchased it without questioning the price (over fifty guineas! A huge outlay in England in the 1950s and a considerable dent to my budget)—or considering when or where I would ever have an occasion to wear it!

  The other amazing thing that happened during the time that Raymond was in Hollywood and I was in the hospital and then an outpatient, was that David and Claire (“my angel”) Stross saw a great deal of each other and apparently fell in love. On Raymond’s return, Claire had already packed up her bags and left their apartment with plans to divorce Raymond and marry David. It boggled my mind to visualize how Lili Deutsch might react to that. But I was pleased that David could also shout, “Free at last!” (at least from Lili).

  Raymond wasted no time in coming over to see me upon his return; confronting me would be a better description. The sight of him was terrifying. He was in a state of disarray. His clothes looked as if he had slept in them for days. His eyes were red and swollen. His hand kept furrowing through his hair so that strands of it appeared electrified.

  “It’s y-y-your f-f-fault!” he stuttered.

  “My fault?”

  He managed to explain that David had seduced (his word) “my angel” and would not have done so had I not rejected him. I found it too ridiculous a notion to contradict and, anyway, he was far too distraught to listen to reason. “Empty! Empty!” he shouted. “When I arrived home it was empty! Sh-sh-she was g-g-gone!” Claire had left him a note telling him that she was in love with David and that she wanted a divorce.

  “I can’t understand it. Why? Why? Why?” he cried.

  I thought I did. Both were obviously unhappy and lonely and turned to each other for companionship. Man being man, woman being woman—the obvious had occurred. And David was a lot younger and a lot richer than Raymond.

  I tried to calm him. I poured him a glass of brandy, which he didn’t drink. He paced up and down, talking compulsively, retelling the story of their love affair and all he had gone through with her family. Then he sank down onto an ottoman, covered his face, and sobbed, looking suddenly shrunken and pitifully defeated.

  “Raymond, look, these things happen,” I offered limply. A few minutes passed before he had controlled his emotions and bounced up onto his feet, head high.

  “I ap-ap-apologize,” he managed. “It was not your f-f-fault.” And then he departed. He never spoke of Claire to me again, not once during the period of the divorce and her marriage to David, who left his employ immediately and went into production on his own to become very successful. I did not envy Claire her new mother-in-law, but years later (after David’s death in 1988), I was happy to learn that their marriage had stood the test of time.

  Kit and Gerry Adler and their children (by now there were three) were going to the States for the summer and, as my arrangement on Albion Street had
finally concluded, they offered their grand apartment for our use (to maintain the flat and to walk Gerry’s beloved dog). The offer included two members of their staff (a nanny and daily maid, whose services they did not want to lose). Not only did we three have a glorious place to live for the next three months, Gerry had hired me to write a pilot script for a planned NBC television series, Captain Blood, based on the swashbuckling pirate story by Rafael Sabatini, which in 1935 had been adapted by Warner Bros. and starred the dashing Errol Flynn. I had neither seen the film nor read the book. The only pirate with whom I had any literary acquaintanceship was Captain Hook in Peter Pan. Still, Gerry had great faith that I could pull it off (or, at least, convinced me he did), and so I went to work doing a breakdown of characters, their background, and the history of the period in which the stories were set. I thought it would be daunting. It turned out to be great fun. I also learned much from the undertaking. One, that I had a talent for taking a book and breaking it down to find the visual elements and characters that would transfer well to screen. Two, that almost every good theme or morality tale could be told within the framework of a classic adventure story, be it pirate, historic, or western. Actually, this was something I previously had discovered without realizing it, for the first original screenplay I had sold, Quantez, was a western with a strong moral theme. It was (so I read in the English edition of Variety) currently being filmed at Universal Studios in Hollywood, starring Fred MacMurray and Dorothy Malone.

  By the time the Adlers returned I had connected with many of the HUAC expats living in London. A few who I knew had gone to France (those who spoke the language well) and Italy (who were high on American-style westerns at the time). But the majority of expat film writers chose England for the obvious reason—they could write in their own language. Also, the British film industry was just reviving itself after the difficult years of the war in which so many of their talented writers, directors, artists, and technicians had sacrificed their lives. At the same time British television, which had a late start, needed a knowledgeable, creative workforce. There were more than thirty expats, wives and children added, whom I knew fairly well. Although several American film and television companies (Columbia Studios, NBC, and Screen Gems Television leading the pack) now had active representatives working in London, most of the expats chose to remain close to each other, forming a small, exclusive social clique. I was accepted in this group, but I had also formed friendships and working alliances with newly arriving American movie folk—future gay activist Larry Kramer, in his twenties at the time and a prodigy honcho at Screen Gems who had not yet embarked on his successful writing career, and the Adlers, who were established in England before the influx of the expats.

  In Hyde Park there was a large patch of grassy field that on Sunday afternoons became a baseball diamond where many of the expat men could engage in their favorite American sport. There were enough players for two teams and several reliefs. Wives and children cheered them on from the sidelines. Except for a severe downpour, nothing canceled these games. After, there were group picnics, or—if it was too cold and damp—they broke up into smaller groups and spent the afternoon at one or another’s home. News was exchanged: what was happening “at home,” who had come before the Committee, had they taken the Fifth or been an informer, what was being produced in England, and where could any one of us find employment? People helped each other with leads, loans, encouragement, or just by sharing their anger for how their lives had been upturned. There were among this self-exiled circle some of Hollywood’s most talented moviemakers, recipients of numerous Academy Awards, and younger players who had just started to see their star rise when it was pulled out of the sky.

  The death in 1952 of John Garfield of cardiac arrest while having sex with a young woman—not his wife—was a personal and continuing sorrow to me. Jule (as he was known to his friends) was only thirty-nine at the time. Before Warner Bros. canceled his contract due to the blacklist, he had been one of the top stars in Hollywood. Jule, and his wife Robbie, were close friends of the Rossens and had been supportive of me during the time my ex-husband and I were living with Bob and Sue in their Bel Air home, the blacklist having just begun. Jule had read whatever story I was attempting to develop, discussing it with me and encouraging me to press on. He had a terrific story mind and a deep understanding of the world condition and people’s motivations. Robbie was a very special and intelligent lady of whom I was extremely fond. Jule’s death, and the circumstances, had been a great shock to her. The media attention it received became more than she could bear. She came to London (the media in this instance, being kinder to her than they had been in the States) to get away from it. I was grateful for her presence.

  One woman, Hannah Weinstein, was more responsible than any other person in London to help the Hollywood expat writers find work (Larry Kramer ran a close second). Hannah was a former American journalist and left-wing political activist who had come to England in 1952 a step ahead of being summoned to appear before HUAC. She became a mother hen to the flock of expats whose numbers kept increasing, offering her home, her counsel, and her heart to them. She rather quickly established her own movie production company, Sapphire Films, solely for the purpose of aiding them.

  Until 1954, Great Britain had only a government-sponsored television station (the BBC). The first commercial network was ITV. Hannah sold them on the idea of adapting as a series, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and secured Richard Greene to play the lead. Greene had been a dashing young star in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s. He returned to England when his career in the States started to ebb. His being known to both English and American audiences contributed to Hannah making a deal. Blacklisted writers were almost exclusively hired under pseudonyms (as was I). Without doubt, Hannah’s writing staff consisted of some of the most talented scenarists that Hollywood had once employed. I, therefore, felt quite honored to accept a “Robin Hood” assignment to follow Captain Blood. There were 137 episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood, written over several years. To my recollection, I scripted four or five of them.

  I now came to accept the fact that London would be home to we three for an extended period as news from the States indicated the dark days of the blacklist would not brighten any time soon. When the Adlers returned, for less than half the rent on Albion Street, we three moved into a charming row house on Markham Street, just off Kings Road in Chelsea, a popular shopping area, burgeoning with youthful clothing establishments. Accessible at one end of Kings Road was Peter Jones Department Store, where afternoon tea in the vast, top-floor restaurant, surrounded by windows that looked out to an exhilarating view that stretched across Sloane Square and down elegant Eaton Place, was a must on Saturdays for Cathy and me. Around the corner from our house was an intriguing, cluttered bookstore that became a frequent rainy-day shelter for me and from which I would lug home an intriguing sackful of books by contemporary and classic British authors. Our street was lined with attached row houses that all looked much the same—three stories stacked one atop the other, just wide enough for one large and one smaller room on each floor, bedrooms and baths above, kitchen, small dining space, and staff quarters (a closet-sized bedroom and a poke-hole toilet) under stairs. The joy was the kitchen as it had an electric stove with a grill and a refrigerator with a small freezer that held three minisized ice trays that produced circular cubes the size of an American nickel (iced drinks were an American, not an English custom). To add to our good tidings, Mrs. Barnes came to work for us on a daily basis. The house on Albion Street having been sold, she had moved in with her sister fairly close by.

  On Albion Street, with its grand houses, one could hear Big Ben ring out the hour and from the window in the children’s wing on the top floor see the rooftops of Buckingham Palace across Hyde Park. Chelsea was another world, middle class, younger in mood, attractive to artists and to tourists who came to shop there. English cozy had its charm, but I wanted to make our new home reflect more of my own
style. I had not brought anything much of a personal nature with us when we three had left the States. Now, I wandered about the many flea markets in the city searching out inexpensive items that caught my eye. Collectors’ fairs flourished and each usually featured different categories and periods. Nothing aged less than a century was considered an antique. Victorian items—unless very early Victorian—were plentiful and reasonable. Least expensive were articles made in the 1920s through the 1930s, the art deco era. I was drawn to the vivid colors and began collecting pottery, dishware, statues, small tables, and books with hand-tooled bindings. Many large homes and estates had been sold, broken up, or lost during the years of the Depression, the war, and their aftermath. There was a surfeit of exquisite used monogrammed table linen (kept pristine, no doubt, by the laundresses in the fine homes from whence they came)—the monogram believed to diminish the value. The same was true of silver serving pieces. I bought what I could afford, the initials making me no never mind. When I realized what I had stacked on shelves, I planned some small dinner parties.